Best Beginner Tank Size?

[K.J.]

And, please specify why.
21-30, my reason:
Good way to balance water quality, avoiding a nuke, also gives you more stocking options, but is not as pricey as the above options.

 

[GuppyDude]

I would say a medium sized tank, 20-30g. leaves room for a little error with that volume of water, and stocking options are much broader than say a 5-10 gallon tank.

 

[caboose_122]

my choice is 31-40
the reason is becuase its a bit harder to screw up as far as water chemistry. alot of stocking choices and you can find them for resonable prices. downsides are some people dont have the space for lets say a 33 gallon thats 3 feet long or even a 40 long which is 4 feet long.

 

[Josiah]

I say 21-30 it gives room for error, you can get more/different types of fish, and it doesn't take up as much room as say a 55g.

 

[Matty P]

The biggest one you can afford / have room for, more room for error.

 

[PRW1988]

I say a 41-55gallon tank is a good size to begin with, the smaller the tank the harder it is too clean, also the easier it is to have poor water quality, atleast with a larger tank, people shouldn't make a terrible overstocking mistake, IMO anyways.

 

[Jabba]

56+ small tanks have no margin for error and are not in my opinion for beginners - EVERYTHING needs to be spot on including the stocking - conditions get bad really quickly in less than 55 Gallons depending on how many fish.

If you are on a budget for finance or for space then start small but then the number of fish you keep must start small but less than 20 gallons is really not practical for tropical, unfortunately many rush in and get far too many fish, often incompatible with one another, in too small a tank without thought for the proper filtration etc, before truly understanding the mechanics of tank maintenance, fish species and their compatibility, water conditions and such like. Small tanks are high maintenance and need far more frequent attention than large ones.

Plus as has been said a large number progress to a larger tank if they really get into it.

Why do I give this advice?

Because I started with a 3ft left by the previous owners of the house, moved up to a 4ft 215 litre and I found the limitations and problems of both. Since I travel a lot I got to know first hand how fast things go wrong or the pressure on you when things are wrong but you must still go away for days at a time - getting up at 3am to do water changes before leaving etc etc.

 

[ICEEGRL]

I think 20g is really big enough. It is big enough that you have lots of choices, but small enough not to cost you a fortune if you mess up. Also it makes you have to learn to do things right without killing everything if you do a few things wrong.

 

[cheesy feet]

my choice is 31-40
the reason is becuase its a bit harder to screw up as far as water chemistry. alot of stocking choices and you can find them for resonable prices. downsides are some people dont have the space for lets say a 33 gallon thats 3 feet long or even a 40 long which is 4 feet long.

Ditto!

 

[backtotropical]

The biggest one you can afford / have room for, more room for error.

I'm with you Matty P. What ever size tank i have, i always want a bigger one. If i'd just bought my current tank when i started i'd have saved a fortune.

 

[afishdude]

21-30, my reason:
Good way to balance water quality, avoiding a nuke, also gives you more stocking options, but is not as pricey as the above options.

agree!

 

[grimmy]

I would say a 15 gallon because it can fit a lot of small pretty fish but the other people are right its all opions

 

[Jen_S]

20-30 gal for a starter tank. I don't think too many people can go wrong with a tank in this size range as long as they pay attention to max size of fish. I guess I 've gone backwards from most of you all. The first tank of my 4 that I set up was the 46 gal, then the 20 gal, then the 10 gal, and the 14 gal today I keep going smaller LOL I do plan to eventually get one that's at least 75 gal or bigger but that's a while away!

 

[Teelie]

20+ though ideally if you can convince them, a 40 gallon or larger allows for more room. Especially true when you do saltwater.

 

[CFC]

Always buy the largest tank you can afford and fit into your house, larger volumes of water are more forgiving of errors and allow more scope to experiment with what you want to acheive with the tank in terms of looks and stocking. There is nothing worse than buying a tank and then finding out it is too small for all the fish you like when you go to stock it or buying that perfect bit of wood/rock and finding that it fills 2/3rds of the tank.