10 gallon questions

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

toddwess

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 15, 2003
Messages
266
Location
Virginia, USA
Okay, don't try and talk me out of it - I've made up my mind.

I am closing down my 40 gallon salt water and converting it into fresh water.

I am going to take my existing livestock and put it into my 10 gallon QT. Here is what I have:

5 turbo snails
3 margurita snails
10 blue hermits
3 scarlet hermits
1 flame scallop
1 brittle star
2 cleaner shrimp

I am going to put in a sandbed, and transfer down about 12 lbs of LR.

The 10 gallon tank has a mini penguin bio-wheel filter on it.

Will this be sufficient assuming I won't be adding ANY other living things to the tank?

I mean, I have seen at least 5 different 10 gallong tanks set up at the LFS that are full of rock and coral and inverts. I should be fine with these inverts and 12 lbs of LR in a 10 gallon tank, right?

Thanks,
Todd
 
I'm not switching forever. I moved too fast. I've lost about $800 in livestock in the past two months, and I just need to re-group.

I've decided to take the livestock I have and move it to the 10 gallon, clean out the 40 gallon, go fresh water for a while, and then give salt water a try again later.

I got too wrapped up in the tank. My partner would buy me a coral as a present, and then it would start to die (because I wasn't ready for coral, but didn't want to say anything to hurt his feelings) I would literally sit in front of the tank on a bar-stool and watch the tank every day and fret about what I was doing wrong.

I'm not in a place right now where I can responsibly have saltwater life in the house. One day, but now right now.

However, I will have the 10 gallon running as a reef-only running and will still be here on the forum.

Thanks for your help and advice,
Todd
 
Monitor the SG of the 10 gal as well as the temp. Smaller tank volume = faster changing water conditions

With that said you could probably put 1 small fish in there and be ok with bioload. Select your corals carefully so as to not get overly agressive ones that would sting eachother.
 
I think an invert tank would be really cool. When I go scuba diving I often never see fish in the shallower waters but I still have a great time watching just crabs and starfish etc...

That being said on www.nano-reef.com they have a listing of what type of fish do well in small tanks. There are probably some different damsels that would work well as a solo fish in a 10 gallon tank with live rock.
 
Thanks for the great advice everyone. I successfully moved about 15 lbs of LR and all my current livestock (see above) into the 10 gallon and everyone seems to be doing well! :)

I don't have a protien skimmer on this 10 gallon setup - what sort of problems is this going to present for me?

Thanks,
Todd
 
A skimmer in such a small setup isn't a good idea anyway. It will end up stripping away too many good things along with the bad. A good cleaning regieme is the way to go.
 
Does anyone use those penguin bio-wheel filters?

My amonia is up to like .5 in my 10 gallon. I did a 50% water change, and we are all good now.

But shouldn't the bio wheel be taking care of the amonia? I had it running in the main tank for over a week to get "primed"

Thanks,
Todd
 
The wheel is probably gonna take a little while to get fully colonized, just continue to monitor and do water changes as necessary. I have used them on smaller SW tanks and they have always done fine.
 
Okay, I hate my life.

I started the 10 gallon and moved like 15 lbs of LR and the rest of my 'stuff' in there (see above).

Amonia is at about 0.2, and the LR that was COVERED with green algae in the 40 gallon tank has pretty much gone away. In all honestly, the tank looks BEAUTIFUL! The water is crystal clear, the rocks look wonderful, there is no brown stuff all over.

So now, I'm worried that there is not enough food (algae) in the tank. Am I being paranoid???? What should I feed the inverts (snails, hermits) when I run out of green algae???

Thanks,
Todd
 
You can always buy nori (sp?). It is the seaweed they sell to wrap sushi in. But up small pieces and I am sure your little guys will love to eat it. You can also buy some spirulina tablets that I am sure they will enjoy picking at.
 
Back
Top Bottom