The size dilemma...

Yesterday I made my first trip to what will be my Local Fish Store (LFS), Old Orchard Aquarium in Skokie, with my parents.  First, let me say this is the biggest and best saltwater fish store I've ever been to.  They have a full range of equipment, supplies, and livestock ranging from ornamental fish and invertebrates to hundreds of soft and hard corals.  They even have an open-top indoor "pond" stocked with a spiny lobster and two barracuda!

Unfortunately, in browsing their selection, I didn't notice any mention of captive-bred fish or aquacultured corals.  Therefore, this shop will probably be my go to for consumable supplies (salt, chemicals, test kits, etc.), perhaps some equipment (although Marine Depot and Amazon will probably be my primary sources for those), and eventually maybe some coral frags, which I think are aquacultured by definition, unless they're being fragged from wild corals in the ocean.  I guess I'll have to investigate that a little more.

But, it's time to set aside the fish store for the true purpose of this post.  I am having an existential crisis!!!

Old Orchard Aquarium (OOA) stocks the largest and most varied array of aquariums that I've ever seen, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a look at my future tank.  Unfortunately, OOA does not carry Innovative Marine tanks, but they do stock JBJs and there are a couple similar models across the two lines.  We looked at the JBJ Rimless 30 gallon, which is way too big, but gives a good idea for the rimless design and the false-back filter compartment of the Innovative Marine tanks.  We saw several Nano Cube 28 gallons, which also seemed too large and confirmed that I do not want an integrated hood with fluorescent tubes, or a rimmed tank if I were to remove the hood, which eliminates the Nano Cube 12 gallon, as well.  Plus, the Nano Cubes are very expensive if you're just going to throw the hood away.

But to my dismay, maybe the most important tank we saw was a Marine Space MC40.  This is a rimless, cube shaped tank with a false-back filter compartment that I assumed from the name was 40 liters in volume.  Straight away we all realized, this tank was way too small.  The display area seemed to be about 12" wide (side to side), by 12" tall (top to bottom), by 8" deep (front to back), with a 4" deep filter compartment.  It just seemed miniscule!  If this is what I would be getting in the Nuvo Fusion 10, I was going to be disappointed.

So, immediately after returning home I started researching alternate tank options.  Based on what I'd seen, I was thinking a cube-shaped tank in the 14-16 gallon range might be perfect, but I still wanted a rimless design with an integrated filter compartment.  The closest to this I could find is the Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion Peninsula 14 gallon.  But the orientation of this tank is wrong.  In the place I'm going to display it, a peninsula tank won't work, as there's no way to get around the sides of the tank.  I'd end up having to place it sideways, and you'd be looking through the tank right at the wall behind it, with the filter compartment and a mess of cords hanging off one end.  No deal.

Finally, after scouring Marine Depot looking for alternatives, I settled on the Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion 20 gallons, the 10 gallon's big brother.  Basically, this tank is just two Nuvo Fusion 10s sitting side by side.  I'm compromising on the cube-shape, but from a size perspective this seems about right (if not a little big), and certainly it has a lot more viewing area, at 24" wide by 13" tall.

But last night, as I was updating my equipment list with new hardware for this tank, I realized I might be getting in over my head.

First, the tank is twice the price of the 10 gallon, so that adds $100.  Then, at twice the volume I'll need twice the live rock and live sand, which adds another ~$100.  Then there's the lights.  I've been doing a lot of research on lights and it seems that the LED strip light fixtures I'd been considering are not really suitable for a true reef tank.  As such, I'd been moving towards a Kessil A80 for the 10 gallon tank, at an all-in cost of ~$250 with the controller.  Stepping up to the 20 gallon tank means I either need two of these fixtures or a bigger fixture like the Kessil 160WE or the Aqua Illumination Hydra 26HD.  Either of these two options will run more like ~$400 all in.  In the larger tank I think I'll also need a second wavemaker pump (or a larger one), and now that I have the space in the filter compartment I'll certainly end up with a media reactor and refugium at some point.  All together, I'm estimating the one-time setup cost of this larger tank will run about $500 more than the original plan.  Or in total dollars I was looking at ~$1,000 setup cost for the 10 gallon and now ~$1,500 for the 20 gallon.  In terms of dollars per gallon, that's actually a good deal--$100/gal versus $75/gal.  And certainly, having twice the volume in the tank will allow me to have approximately twice as many fish and corals, and should help my water parameters remain more stable.  The other downsides, aside from cost, are larger weekly water changes, more evaporation and thus top-off water (a concern if we go on vacation for a week), and double the amount of consumable supplies (salt, RO water, dosing, etc.).

At this point, I haven't made a decision, but as I write this I'm leaning towards the 20 gallon.

One final item of note.  This morning I did some research on that Marine Space MC40.  Turns out it's a 30L or ~8 gallon tank.  It's dimensions are ~12"x13"x12"H as compared to the Nuvo Fusion 10's dimensions of ~12"x15"x13"H.  Also, the filter compartment of the MC40 was at least an inch deeper than the Nuvo Fusion.  Meaning the display volume of the MC40 is approximately 5.5 gallons, where the Nuvo Fusion's display volume is approximately 8 gallons.  That means the Nuvo Fusion 10 gallon tank has a 45% larger display volume than the tank we saw at the fish store.  I will have to ponder these things...