Hey just a few quick questions. I have a marineland 10g halfmoon freshwater planted. It's got great lighting. I use a tetra in-tank filter with waterfall and a sponge filter with power head. Right now there is eco complete substrate but I have bags of sand and a bag of crushed corral. I also have some live rock (now dead rock) in pieces small enough to fit the 10g. I think its foster and smith has a hang on back refrugium is that needed? and what's the best way to bring the rock back to life? copepods? Or really, what's the best way you have found to start a SW nano. I don't think you can start it by using the current filter bacteria can you?
redoing 10g to salt
- Thread starter Elewis
- Start date
geridoc
Well-Known Member
Good questions, but before I answer them, just a warning: you will find a 10 gallon nano a very difficult tank to maintain. Things that take days/weeks to ruin a larger tank will kill everything in such a small system in a matter of hours or a day, so you have to stay on top of the system continuously.. Now to your questions:
Good luck, and keep asking questions.
- 1. Do not use the crushed coral, it just traps debris. Get some sand (it doesn't have to be live, just good reef sand) and use that.
- 2. Purchase a small piece of live rock - that will serve as the seed to convert our dead rock into the live variety.
- 3. You don't need a refugium/sump, but it couldn't hurt - it will increase the water volume of your system, making it a little more stable. You might consider keeping macroalgae in the sump.
- 4. To start the tank get everything set up, fill with salt water. Then go to a local supermarket and buy 1 cocktail shrimp (my place just gives me one since the paper he wraps it in weighs more than the shrimp). Put the shrimp into fine netting (a woman's nylon stocking will work) and suspend it in the tank. Leave it there until you begin to see the levels of ammonia rise, then remove it and discard. Continue to measure ammonia, nitrites and nitrates until the ammonia and nitrite levels fall back to zero. At this point the tank is cycled. Some people then do a water change, but imho it isn't necessary.
- 5. The bacteria in your current tank are fresh water varieties, and won't help you new salt water system.
Good luck, and keep asking questions.
jay0705
Well-Known Member
Welcome to sw. Do NOT use the crushed coral it sucks. Use the sand. Now the smaller you go the harder sw is, far less room for error. Your rock is fine, the easiest way to make it live again is too seed it with live rock. In your case some live rock rubble would probably work. If you look at snakes 5gal post he has lots of nano info in it
jay0705
Well-Known Member
Great minds think alike. I didn't see your post before i posted lol
I've used the raw shrimp to cycle before and it's worked well. I also use a bacteria starter but i've only used it in freshwater at start up and big water changes. My 55 is currently full of plants and Angels. Maybe one day I'll switch it to salt but that would be a HUGE investment. I had shrimp, neocardina and blue bolts in the 2 10s, went away for the weekend and the cat apparently went swimming. The tops for the marineland half moon are flimsy crap. Now for my shrimp i used distilled water and reconstituted with saltyshrimp mineral gh/kh. For small tanks like these should i use pre-made or use the distilled with a salt mix? I like the tetra in tank filters for these tanks and they have a small sponge filter that I could attach a power head to but that would really make a lot of current for such a small tank. I thought I'd get the little hang on back refug for macroalgae and copepods or for the skimmer and heater. not sure all of that would fit in one. I thought I'd try something small like 2 or 3 clowns and an long tentacle anemone maybe a couple of shrimp or snails for clean up on the 1st. I'm waiting on the government to decide about the miniature sea horses before i set up the second tank. If they do I'll set up a couple of brine shrimp hatcheries since that's about all minis will eat. I have Great lighting LEDs for plants but I really know nothing about corrals except they are beautiful and you can't put them with mini seahoses. Can you put them with a long tentacled anemone and a couple of clowns in a nano? Is this a sound plan or do I need to go back to square one, THANKS I appreciate any help.
Jesterrace
Active Member
Definitely don't do 3 clowns as that would be overstocked for your tank and cause all kinds of aggression problems for you. Either single or pairs is the way to go with clowns. You could probably do a pair of Occ (ie Nemo variants) or Percula Clowns in there. Stay away from the other clowns as they are more aggressive and would be very poor choices for small tanks. Captive bred clowns are very active and will be all over the tank and they probably won't have an anemone host them as they haven't learned to do it in the wild. Honestly I don't get the obsession people have with them. Adding something that stings to a tank has never seemed like a good idea to me. You can also find corals that look similar to anemone (ie Hammer Coral). I would stick with a single cleaner shrimp in that tank as they are brightly colored and will also perform a useful function (ie helping to keep the tank and fish clean). As for seahorses they are a whole lot of pain for very little reward. They don't move much and require a lot of TLC.