Suggestions on getting back into the hobby.....

Its been about 20 years since I last had a saltwater tank and I am thinking about getting back into the hobby again. I have been looking at some of the all-in-one set ups like RedSea Max and JBJ Nano Cube. If anyone has any feed back on these or any other set up kits I would love to hear what you have to say.

Steve

 

Welcome to 3 reef , Steve

I have never had either of the kits mention or in fact any other start up kit
I prefer to decide for myself on what size, components etc I want for my set up

I do know based on feedback from people who have experience of these systems, that in general they are liked, but on occasions require some tweaking, fine tuning ( upgrades on lighting or skimmers etc)

Steve

 

welcome to 3reef. some people like those all in one kits, I don't. I believe a tank you put together and research yourself is vastly superior to those.

really all you need for a good tank is protein skimmer, powerheads, lighting, and a glass tank.

edit: notice the features I listed, you will find some all-in-ones either lack some of them or use sub par technology/components.

 

Welcome to 3reef

I have a biocube 8 but have not set it up as a saltwater tank so I can't help you there. Nano Tuners would be a good site/forum to visit to see about the kits if you don't get enough responses here. I do know that I would most likely mod a kit to my taste.

 

welcome to 3 reef and welcome back to the hobby of reef keeping.

 

Thank you every for your input. When I was active I was running large tanks....90 gal, 110 gal and a 125 gal tank. I definitely don't have the time for big tanks like that but I probably could put together a 45 or 55 gal tank. I guess I am just nervous about buying the right equipment. 20 years ago I used an eheim canister, a wet/dry with bio balls and a UV light if you wanted to get fancy. Things have changed a lot so I figured the starter kits would be better because you just plug it in and go.

Steve

 

I have a RSM250, and although I agree that you can get better components by doing it yourself and doing a bunch of research, the RSM definitely isn't bad, especially for someone just getting in to the hobby.

 

the 250 seems to be the nicest of the collection, although I still have reservation about how well the skimmer preforms

 

Mine seems to perform at getting crud out of the water, but fail 80% of the time at getting the gunk in to the cup. The neck to the cup is always layered in like 1/8th an inch of deep brown crud, while the water inside is usually a lightly-muddy water color.

 

a good skimmer should be a to give you pure liquid nastiness in a cup. it should be thick and smell worse the diarrhea.