I MADE A NANO REEF WITHOUT A FILTER! Easy Step by Step Tutorial

In this video I'm going to show you guys how I made this awesome little saltwater ball aquarium which is extremely low tech and it also rotates. Look at that, how cool is that? Hopefully with this video I can convince some people that having a saltwater aquarium doesn't have to be super complicated and doesn't have to be expensive either. So let's get started. Let's start with the basic setup. First off we need something that can hold water. I'm going to use a bowl but of course you can use a normal glass or an acrylic tank as well. I know some people don't like bowl aquariums and think that they are cruel but personally I think they are okay as long as you are mindful of the size of the bowl and the size of the creature that will be living in there. Besides the bowl I also need a stand and a light. And for the rest of the equipment I'm only going to use a wave maker and a heater. So this bowl is not going to have a filter at all. The water will get filtered in other ways but more on that later. Okay so the bowl just came in. The box feels really light so I hope it's not like super thin glass or anything. Of course it's a box in a box. It's a bit thin. The glass seems to have a lot of imperfections as well. I think this was not a good buy. So that bowl was not good at all. The glass had a very green tint and there were loads of these air bubbles in the glass as well. So I returned it and looked for a different one. And luckily this one from Amazon was much better. Okay a bowl acquired and as you can see it is much better compared to the previous one. It's a good size as well with a diameter of around 35 centimeters. And the opening on the top is around 21 centimeters. If my math is correct this bowl should hold around 28 liters or 7 US gallons. I'm kind of running out of space in my studio. But I still managed to find a spot in between the chair and the tank on the right. So I went to my favorite online store and I ordered a small stand and a floor lamp. For the lamp I actually have a very special bulb which I found in a store in Japan. It kind of looks like this bulb was specifically designed for tanks with soft coral and macroalgae. Which is exactly what I'm planning to keep in this bowl. I've seen a few bowl aquariums while I was in Japan and they look great but they were all really tiny. Now before we can start decorating the bowl I like to add a foam mat underneath just to protect the glass. And if you're a regular viewer to the channel you might have seen the rotating vase I made a while back. I really like the rotating feature so I'm going to do the same with this bowl. Oh and by the way everything that I'm using for this bowl all the products will be linked below. So definitely check that out if you want to start your own saltwater aquarium. Okay now we are ready to start setting up this bowl. And since this isn't my first saltwater aquarium I have some leftovers I can use. I've got two different types of sand and some biological filter media. I'm basically going to set up this bowl in the same way as I would set up a freshwater aquascape. So starting with a thick substrate layer which will be home to all kinds of beneficial bacteria. For the hardscape I'm doing something very different as well. Instead of using reef rocks I'm going to use black lava stone. The main reason for using black lava is simply because it's a lot cheaper. And I thought the black color would contrast really well with the macroalgae. Now from a design point of view this probably wasn't the best idea. Because in an established reef tank you get all these tiny white dots everywhere. Which are so-called spitterbed worms. Basically a tiny filter feeder and completely harmless. But they do stand out on a black surface. After playing around with the rocks I was quite happy with the layout. So I glued some of the rocks together with the superglue and cotton pad method. Once that was done it was time to add in the rest of the equipment. Which is just a simple wavemaker and a small heater. I can easily hide the heater behind some of the rocks. But finding a suitable spot for the wavemaker was a bit tricky. And I had to change the location a few times. Now that the hardscape is done we can move the bowl back to its original spot and fill it up with water. I like to make my own salt water and this is how I do it. I start by simply filling up a bucket with reverse osmosis water. Then I measure out the salt according to the instructions. Then I mix everything with a pump until the salt is fully dissolved. Now if you don't have a reverse osmosis water filter. You should be able to just buy ready made salt water from your local fish store. So the hardscape is done and the bowl is now filled with salt water. At this point I like to take a break and just let the tank go through its cycle. I definitely recommend to add some beneficial bacteria during this time as well. One month has passed and it's time to add some life to the bowl. I'm going to start with different types of macroalgae and a few easy corals as well. The macroalgae really is the star here. Because that's what's going to allow us to create an ecosystem without the need for a filter. This stuff can grow quite fast and it absorbs excess nutrients like nitrates and phosphates. Think of macroalgae like plants in a fresh water aquarium. If you have a lot of healthy plants the water quality will be really good. And the same thing goes for macroalgae in a salt water setup. A week after adding the corals and the macroalgae the first diatoms are starting to appear. Now diatoms are a type of algae but this is the algae that doesn't look good and we don't want in our aquarium. Now in this case it's completely normal and just part of the startup process. It's actually a good sign because it means that the bowl is getting more and more established. It also means that we can add more life to this bowl. Starting with snails. I got these really cool bumblebee snails and nasarius or zombie snails. The zombie snails can dig themselves in the sand and that way keep the sand bed nice and clean. While the bumblebee snails are just really good at eating leftover food. But there's more. I'm also going to add in a so-called cleaner strip. These are a great addition to any salt water aquarium. It gets so excited when it's feeding time and whenever I'm doing some maintenance it will always climb on my hands and start cleaning my skin. Lastly I want to introduce you guys to Danny. Danny is my Azure damsel and he's been with me for two years already. He was one of the first saltwater fish I ever bought. If you're looking for an easy beginner fish then damsels are definitely a good choice. They can be a bit aggressive so if you want to keep more than one you do need a bigger tank. Okay fast forward about two months later and this is the current state of the bowl. As you can see it's looking pretty good. It can definitely still look a lot better but we're going to make it look better towards the end of the video. Let's just do a bit of an update for now. So like I said two months have passed and it's doing really well. Macroalgae has grown a lot, corals have grown a lot and I think Danny and the cleaner shrimp are also really enjoying their new home. The only thing that didn't do so well is one type of macroalgae. I will overlay a clip of which one. Unfortunately that one melted away. Sometimes happens with macroalgae. They don't always transition very well. The bowl is actually doing really good without a lot of maintenance, without a lot of attention. Actually last month I was away almost the entire month. I first went on holiday for 10 days, came back for 2 days and then I was gone again for 10 days. And during that time the bowl didn't get any attention. Like no feeding, no water changes, nothing. And it's doing really well. So it's actually really turning into a bit of an ecosystem here. But in my opinion at the moment it just looks a little bit messy. I kind of just wanted to start, set the bowl up, add some corals, add some macroalgae and then just see how it goes. Because it's very much an experiment for myself as well. This is the first time that I'm setting up a saltwater aquarium without a filter. So I didn't want to spend a lot of money on corals and macroalgae. And then find out that it actually doesn't work. But 2 months have passed and I think it definitely shows that it does work. So right now I do want to make it look a little bit nicer. We need to trim some of the macroalgae. There's some corals here and there that don't really have a good place yet. So I need to fix that. I also want to add in some more corals. I have another reef tank downstairs which is starting to become a little bit overgrown. So I could definitely take some corals from there. And I've also placed an order for some new corals which are arriving today, maybe tomorrow. So we're going to add that as well. So we're going to make the bowl look a little bit nicer. So I started by trimming some of the macroalgae. This green one in particular grows very fast. And a lot of it also gets tangled up into the wave maker. So I quickly clean that as well. After that I rearrange some of the corals. And while doing that I stumbled on this bristle worm. These guys are part of the ecosystem as well. And they consume uneaten food that would otherwise decompose and produce ammonia. They do freak me out a little bit because they can sting you. So I'm going to remove this guy. Now for some new additions. In my other reef tank I have a lot of this really nice red macroalgae. So I'm going to take some of it out and move it to the bowl. And this coral right here is called a Kenya tree. And it's getting quite big. So I'm going to trim it and move some of the trimmings to the bowl as well. Then a few hours later my new coral order arrived. Which included this really nice Corgonian. A few other corals. And two of these really nice blue hermit crabs. These little guys are also really good at removing algae and leftover food. So now the cleanup crew is complete. Okay guys this is the final box. Then I'm going to stop ordering things. I was just a little bit bummed that the one type of macroalgae had melted. I thought the bowl could use a little bit more color. A little bit more red and green. So macroalgae is still a little bit difficult to find in the Netherlands. But I found a German online store that had some in stock. So let's see. Oh yeah. We got some goodies. A decent quantity as well. It's a bit hard to see but I'm really excited about this one in the middle. It kind of looks like feathers almost. That's the Caulerpa taxifolia. I think it's actually an invasive species. So I need to be careful with it. But I really like how that one looks. So first up we have Caulerpa prolifera. Which is the most common type of macroalgae. This one doesn't really fit in the bowl. So I'm going to add it to my other reef tank. And I also have two types of Halimeda. Which is a type of macroalgae that also needs calcium to grow. Then we have my favorite. The Caulerpa taxifolia. Which is going in the background of the bowl. Lastly I have one more type of Caulerpa. Which I'm not even going to try to pronounce. Well guys I don't know about you. But I'm so happy with how this bowl turned out. And I think it looks amazing. I love all the red and green of the macroalgae. All the different corals. And of course the fish, the shrimp and all the other inhabitants. There's just so much going on in this bowl. There's so much to see. So it's now been up and running for almost 5 months. When I first filled it up with water it was the end of January. And it is now the middle of June. So almost 5 months. I'm just super curious to see how it's going to develop in the next couple of months. Especially with the new additions, the new macroalgae. So I'll make sure to do an update in a couple of months from now. Hopefully with this video I just convinced some people to have a go at saltwater as well. And just hopefully show you guys that it doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be complicated. What do we have here? We have a bowl. We have a light. And a wave maker. And a heater. I think that's it. I'm not going to do a full cost breakdown this time. But the equipment was maybe 200 euros. And then all the decoration. The corals. The macroalgae. The sand and the rocks. Another 200 euros. I think you can do this for less than 500 euros. I think that's everything. Guys, thanks for watching. See you in the next one.