10 gallon nano help

atmachine5

atmachine5

Member
My friend Tanks ALot told me to come here so ya. My mom will only let me get a 10 gallon tank as long as it's ok with my dad but I'm going to try to get it up to maybe a 20 gallon tank. My friend has been helping me so far but just to check everything here.
Tank:10 gallons
Lighting:T8 (standard lighting for now, will looking into better lighting later)
Filter:aquaclear 300
heater: fully submergible 50w heater
LR:10-11 lbs.
Substarte: sand (what type?)
Powerheads: two 106 gph maxi jets (do I need two or just one)
Protein Skimmer: what type
Test kit: Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, pH, (what else?)
bucket, powerhead and salt too for preparing water
Anything else I'm missing and what about my questions.
Sorry I have no expierence with saltwater just freshwater so this is all new.
Austin
 
rbrockm1

rbrockm1

Active Member
with your tank i would go with a seaclone100 skimmer. they are somewhat cheap but get the job done. i would only use one powerhead but its your choice. with your substrate do not get crushed coral, get livesand. are going to be doing a reef setup or what? pending if you have a reef will depend on the test kit you get, need a refractometer too, don't waste your money on a hydrometer
 
chipmaker

chipmaker

Active Member
Personally I would look into the surface skimmer that attaches to the aqua clear line of skimmers and buy one of those, and bump up the filter to a AC110, and go with a Lee's skimmer for about 1/4th the price of a seaclone, at least the Lee skimmers are pretty darn cheap and they do work as long as the limestone air blocks are changed about every 3 months. Or buy a Coralife super skimer 65 and it will fit across a 10 gala in conjunction with the AC110 filter unit......Don't know about how cold your rooms are kept, so you may want to bump the heater up to a 75 watt possibly, and if yu go with a Eheim Jager its possible to get one that will lay horizontally in the resivoir of a AC110 filter unit and be one less thing in the tank to fool with..or go with a 25 and 50 watt or 2, 50 watt Eheim jagers both of which can be placed in a AC110 resivoir area Convcert the resivor area of any AC filter into a fuge, so no filter media is necessary or desired fopr saltwater use. Just use it for water flow and circulation, but you can still place a piece of filter material for coarse filtratin of large junk or even place a bag of carbon init if needed. The AC110 is perfect for a 10 gal tank, and for the difference in price is a btter deal overall than a 300 (now a 70 IIRC) as the 110 used to be the old 500 models.
 
atmachine5

atmachine5

Member
Ok so for skimmer I need one but what exactly do they do? I'll look into the three skimmers you guys recommended and get back to you on them. rbrockm1 I'm just going to be doing a fish and live rock and maybe some of the minimum light requirement plants or whatever you call them in SW. Later I might upgrade my lighting and get corals but to start out I'm not going to.
Chipmaker so you say I should get the next step up in aquaclears, ok I'll look into that and your saying I need a filter because I have been told I don't need one on such a small tank. My room stays around in the high 60's in the winter since it's upstairs and I have a 150w heater in my 29gallon FW tank in my room and it's fine though fw and sw might be different I don't know. You say convert it into a fuge, which I put live rock in right? Or it's my choice as to put in filter media or that or what. So with the aquaclear I only need one powerhead too? I'll be talking to my mom tonight about when i'll be able to get my stuff
Thanks so far
Austin
 
g13

g13

Member
You do not need a skimmer if you are sure you can make a 2-3 gallon water change a week.
 
volitan_fa

volitan_fa

Member
Go with 2 small heaters, if you live in a cold climate then go with two 50W, if you live in a fairly warm climate you might get away with two 25W heaters.
I agree with the AquaClear 110, they are pretty amazing filters. Just be sure to get it online because they're about half as much that way. Get the nano skimmer that attaches to them also. A protein skimmer takes in water and aerates it, when the bubbles float to the top they carry debris with them, which get filtered out into a collection cup. Helps a LOT with your nitrate levels
. Also just one powerhead will be enough because the AC110 will cause a lot of water movement itself.
Get live sand for sure, stay away from crushed coral. You can find several reef sands online. Also I'd consider more than 10-11 lbs if you're doing a reef. Probably more like 15-25 lbs. You'll also want to start with better lighting if you're doing a reef, see if you can get a cheap power compact hood at least. Reefs require lots and lots of light.
 
volitan_fa

volitan_fa

Member
Sorry just saw that sentence where you said you're doing FOWLR. In that case your T8 lights will work, as will the 10-11 lbs of LR.
The protein skimmer may also not be necessary in a FOWLR, especially with the water change every week. Make sure the tank stays topped off though;)
Good Luck!
 
I

icetrayz

Guest
I am currently running a 10 gallon.
all i got for lighting is 2x20W Compact 50/50 bulbs by Coralife... they are giving me all the light i need to grow anything i put in there..
as for heating i am just running a 50W heater.. i have always ran it and it has not a single problem in my tank.
I have about 12 lbs. of LR and 10lbs of LS. Have like 5 blue legged hermits, a red legged hermit, a pepermint shrimp, anemone crab, a bunch of polyps, a few different types of mushrooms and an anemone (on the move at the moment too). Ohh and i even got some sponge that is recovery from a nasty move across canada in the back of my car.
My Tank
 
chipmaker

chipmaker

Active Member
Originally Posted by atmachine5
snip
Chipmaker so you say I should get the next step up in aquaclears, ok I'll look into that and your saying I need a filter because I have been told I don't need one on such a small tank. My room stays around in the high 60's in the winter since it's upstairs and I have a 150w heater in my 29gallon FW tank in my room and it's fine though fw and sw might be different I don't know. You say convert it into a fuge, which I put live rock in right? Or it's my choice as to put in filter media or that or what. So with the aquaclear I only need one powerhead too? I'll be talking to my mom tonight about when i'll be able to get my stuff
Thanks so far
Austin
The idea behind the larger Aqua Clear is to provide a bit more water capacity and to provide a place to put live rock rubble and chaeto or other macro algae to help in export of nitrates, so basically the larger filter body is more of a fuge, not really a filter. It also provides a place to put a bag of charcoal if need be, or to place a heater. As to being used as a filter, the live rock is yur real filter, but there may come a time that you may want to use a coarse sponge or filter pad to remove junk or such so it serves fine for that as well, but not to actually filter the water like a filter is normally used for. I would still use a heater, so you can arun it up to stay more in tune to what temps you need to run the tank at so it does not fluctuate much, especially at night when lights are off and things tend to cool down., YOu can get a decent heater for under $20. Too much swinging in the temp can cause a lot of stress on fish etc so its best to keep tank temps uniform as possible.
You may be able to get my without an additional powerhead with the AC110 hob filter. It does not take much to provide ample current in a 10 gal tank, and that 110 or even the 70 will do a decent job of giving good current flow. LIke I said the big advantage of the 110 is more water capacity and a place to place a heater and keep it out of the tank as well as carbon, and still have decent room to have a fuge......
 
yomommasmom10

yomommasmom10

Member
hey sorry to get kinda off topic but i have an 55 gal reef and its cleaner than an wistle i have an emporor 400 and the pet store guy wich has like 7 500 gal tanks said it would be ok to add coral without an skimmer i dont have the money right now though
 
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