Help me with a 10 gal nano reef

[volitan_fa]

So I bought a 10 gallon setup about a month ago with the intention of keeping a few small saltwater fish to get me practiced up for a bigger one later on this year. However, now that I'm reading more and more, I think I may actually want to move into doing a mini-reef with it. I have a hang-on power filter, 75W heater, coral substrate, and 4 lbs of live rock (cured 3 years) so far. I currently have a blue yellow-tail damsel, one turbo snail, and one hermit crab. What else would I NEED to get a basic reef started?
Also, on a slightly unrelated note, my hermit crab just came up dead (I think?), however there is another crab in his shell and it's fairly inactive....comes out rarely then goes right back into his cave. Do hermit crabs molt and this is possibly his old exo? Or do you think it's more likely he got plucked from his shell by a hitch-hiker? Jusst curious

 

[jhebi]

Welcome,
Well you can have a reef on a 10gl, but it would be a little more work since you will have to top off almost everyday depending on what lights your have. Also water changes will be certainly more times than you would have to change on a bigger tank.
What king of lighting you have? Lights are very important to have a reef tank and also water quality. And also you will need flow in your tank a small PH would also help.
Crabs molt, but IMO mostly likely it die when trying to change shells....When you have crabs in your tank you also will need some extra shells so they don't fight and kill each other for their shells.

 

[volitan_fa]

I'm willing to do some extra work, especially in order to keep it SLIGHTLY more cost effective. Right now, as far as lighting, I have a little hood with two CFLs. It wasn't really intended for reef to begin with so I don't know if these will support any kind of coral and realize I'll probably have to upgrade. What is a good lighting solution in your opinion? I don't think I can afford MH (especially those $150+ setups).
As far as the crab, if there was another crab in there I didn't know. If I had known I would have provided another shell for him. Would have been especially nice to know since I'm considering getting another anyway.

 

[fisherson]

i got a reef with coralife's 96 watt pc setup..runs around 100 dollars

 

[volitan_fa]

I'm thinking I'll probably want a small protein skimmer as well. Any suggestions on these?

 

[volitan_fa]

I have a quesiton on my lighting also. Since I have this cheaper hood, I was wondering if I could use the Coralife mini-compact 20W 50/50 lights (2 of them) for adequate lighting. I'm not looking at doing hard coral anyway, and it's only a 10 gal tank. Would this work?

 

[chipmaker]

Get a aqua clear hob power filter model 110 and it will add approx 1.5 gal of water capacity and provide all the flow you need. A skimmer on a small tank is doable but for a mere $6.00 you can get a surface skimmer attachment that works with the aqua clear hob filters that does a super job or removing surface film and lots of other junk......A protein skimmer is much better, but with tank that size water level is important or the skimmer fails to work properly, as the smaller fission skimmer by current USA is made to work in a sump better than in a tank which has fluctuating water levels, but it fits in a AC110 filter pretty darn nice and works great.
Coral life makes a good 96 watt quad light assembly and with it you can keep quite a large number of various softies very easy....most all zoos, leathers, shrooms, rics, and such. YOu can also put spome macro algae in the hob resivor to help with nitrate export. Look around online the ac110 can be had for $33.00 plus shipping of about $7.50 and the skimmer by Current is about $26. The surface skimmer is about $6.00 and the light can be had for around $85 to 90. I prefer my small 2 gal or less PICO tanks and my NANO tanks better than my larger tanks. No real need to get MH for a small tank unless you want to keep hard corals.
I top mine off daily and they all do fine, all year long. I do water changes 2x a month.

 

[njfish77]

Why set up a small tank to practice when there harder than large tanks?

 

[volitan_fa]

Because it's cheaper to play with and if I get good with a small tank, think how much of a breeze a large tank will be by comparison

 

[keith burn]

what I have
2.5gal
odyssea 13" 24w50/50
mini hob 5.5gal ph

 

[volitan_fa]

That looks like a neat little setup. What kind of coral do you have in it? What fish?
So I've done a lot of looking around today and this is what I (tentatively) think I am going to use as my 10 gal setup after taking all comments into consideration:
AquaClear 70 HOB power filter
50W Heater
two Coralife 20w (40W total?) mini-compact 50/50 lights
FluVal Surface Skimmer
Coralife Power Center
and the livestock to include:
15 lbs crushed coral
10-12 lbs live rock
3 snails
2 hermit crabs
blue yellow-tail damsel
cleaner shrimp
Clown (either p. or o.)
various corals (still not sure which, but I'd like mostly assorted mushrooms)
I figure with this setup I will have invested roughly $350-$400. Not too bad IMO . Let me know what ya think!