The best e-liquid for sub-ohm tanks: thick, low and full of flavour

A sub-ohm tank uses coils below 1.0 ohm, most often 0.15 to 0.4 ohm, running at far higher power than a pod. That combination vaporises a lot of liquid per puff, and you inhale it straight into your lungs: direct-to-lung (DTL) vaping.

Two things follow. The coil has large wicking holes, so thin liquid floods through and leaks out of the airflow; thick, high VG liquid soaks in at just the right pace. And because each puff carries so much vapour, nicotine adds up quickly, so strengths are much lower than in pods. The whole tanks range is built around this style.

70/30 is the sub-ohm default and suits nearly every tank. 80/20 gives denser vapour and works brilliantly in very low resistance coils at high power. Max VG is for the cloud chasers, though it can wick slowly in some stock coils, especially in a cold room.

Avoid 50/50 in sub-ohm tanks. It is thin enough to seep through the large juice ports of a 0.2 ohm coil, which shows up as gurgling, spitting and a damp airflow ring. You will find dedicated thick liquids in the 70VG and 80VG sections, and nearly every shortfill is 70/30 or above.

Every sub-ohm coil has a watt range printed on it, and the liquid behaves best somewhere in the middle of that range. The lower the resistance, the more power the coil wants and the more liquid it gets through. A 0.15 ohm mesh coil at 70W can drain a 2ml tank remarkably quickly.

The figures below are typical ranges printed on popular coils such as the Vaporesso GTX series; always follow what is printed on yours. Want to see how resistance and voltage translate into watts? Try the calculator further down.

Because a single lungful from a sub-ohm tank holds so much vapour, 3mg is the standard choice and feels far stronger than the number suggests. 6mg is noticeably punchy at 60W, and many people find it too much. 0mg is popular with vapers who mostly want flavour and cloud.

Nicotine is addictive, and big tanks deliver a lot of it per puff, so start at 3mg and only go up if you genuinely need to. Our shortfill nicotine maths guide shows how to land on exactly 3mg with one or two shots, whichever bottle size you buy.

If your mod lets you set voltage or shows resistance, this calculator turns those into watts using Ohm's law. It is handy for checking you are inside your coil's range, or for understanding why a lower resistance coil at the same voltage suddenly feels much hotter.

As a rule, more watts means warmer vapour, more liquid used and more flavour up to a point. Past the top of the coil's range you get burnt hits, not extra flavour. Thick liquid at the very top of the range can struggle to wick, so ease off a few watts if you notice the flavour turning harsh during a long session.

You have just set up a new sub-ohm tank with a 0.2 ohm mesh coil at 60W. You fill it with a 10ml 50/50 freebase at 12mg left over from an old pen kit, and within the hour the tank is gurgling, spitting hot drops at your lip and leaving liquid around the airflow ring. The hit also feels far harsher than you expected.

What is the best fix? Think about both the ratio and the strength before you answer. One of the options fixes the leaking, one fixes the harshness, and only one fixes both at the same time.