10gal question?

[darwin]

will a walmart 10 gal starter tank work for salt? if not what should be upgraded? larger HOB filter? skimer? lights? or would it be just fine with high maintenance......thanks

 

[dmanatee]

the tank will work. but ditch the lights and the filter that is included. those aregreat for a freshwater tank but not so hot for fresh water. You might save a little by just getting the glass tank w/o the stuff. and just currious what are you planning on stocking ,that will dictate what new "stuff" your going to need. cant go wrong with a protine skimmer and some t-5's or led lights. also invest in some water jets. that just my $0.02 though.

 

[darwin]

I was going to do a tank for my daughter? Maybe seahorses or reef lobster or clowns something that could live out it's life in a 10 gal maybe even a wartskin not sure yet but would like it to be colorful

 

[aquaknight]

Instead of tank with fish, you could do something like this;

It's a 10gal walmart tank, with a 96watt PC fixture from Home Depot on it, and a cheap walmart HOB filter pad.
My sort of thought with your daughter, is that she can get her hands into the tank, pruning some macro algae out, maybe fragging a coral or two and watching them grow. Add some hermit crabs and a few snails for activity. The macro-algae helps balance the levels out in the tank, and with no fish, you don't have to worry about possibly transferring diseases in between tanks, if you ever wanted to add the corals to your main tank. In addition to a few different types of macroalgae, get some hardy, fast-growing, easy-to-frag-corals like zoas and xenia.
As she grows and ages, she can become more involved with the tank, doing water changes herself, etc. Have a gallon of premade-SW ready for her to go, and do it sort of as a responsibility thing.

 

[katsafados]

You can do tons with a 10g(bought it from walmart for freshwater then changed to SW). Check out my thread, my tank is a 10g with 2x40watt pc lighting. The only thing is, you have to maintain it perfectly or it'll crash pretty fast.
2x40watt pc
40gph canister filter
HOB refuge
stealth heater
2 nano pumps
8lbs of figi rock
inch deep crushed coral sand bed
stock list before crash(crash was due to a missed water change and a build up of some sort of bacteria that was eating the corals):
2 nemos
1 linned blenny
bunch of hermits and snails
cleanner shrimp
zoas
xenia
frogspawn (wouldnt reccomend this in a small tank, mine grew huge and started stinging corals)
mushrooms
rics
green star polyp
New stock list(maintenece is crazzy on this due to overstocking):
2 nemos
1 pj cardinal
1 high fin goby + tiger pistol shrimp
2 yellow clown gobies
cleanner shrimp
hermits/snails
kenya or colt not sure which it is
xenia (regrowing from crash)
shrooms
zoas(from crash + new)
favia
nuclear blasto
green star polyp (from crash)
(dont have many pics on the new set up since I just recently started to stock it up again)
But like I said overstocking it is risky! Especially with no regue for macro algae and nitrite exchange.