10 Gallon Salt Water Questions

[brock029]

Alright so I'm pretty new to the forums and have finally gotten my 75g African Cichlid tank to where I like it, put up a video and some pics here if any one cares to take a look....

But now my other half wants to set up a small salt water tank. So now I need to figure out where to start, I have looked at some similar post but still am not for sure but I do already have 2 10g tanks lying around and one is going to be for my cichlid nursery and the other for this project.

So just from looking around this is a list of things I need to get so far:

Tank (alread have it)
sand
live rock
HOB filter
heater
Light (for live rock does it have to be a coral life or similar tube?)
Power Head (Which I guess is just to create a current in the water?)
Instant Ocean Salt

If I am missing anything from the list let me know. And from reading around I'm guessing you cannot use tap water so what would be an alternative to that?

Then finally fish, from looking at the other post allot of people suggest gobies but from looking at them I'm not for sure if I like them to much...so would I be able to put a clark clown fish in it maybe with 1 or 2 blue leg hermit crabs and a few other invertibres? I would love to put a fiddler or red claw crab with my cichlids but they would tear them up.

 

[Gboy66]

Alright so I'm pretty new to the forums and have finally gotten my 75g African Cichlid tank to where I like it, put up a video and some pics here if any one cares to take a look....

But now my other half wants to set up a small salt water tank. So now I need to figure out where to start, I have looked at some similar post but still am not for sure but I do already have 2 10g tanks lying around and one is going to be for my cichlid nursery and the other for this project.

So just from looking around this is a list of things I need to get so far:

Tank (alread have it)
sand
live rock
HOB filter
heater
Light (for live rock does it have to be a coral life or similar tube?)
Power Head (Which I guess is just to create a current in the water?)
Instant Ocean Salt

If I am missing anything from the list let me know. And from reading around I'm guessing you cannot use tap water so what would be an alternative to that?

Then finally fish, from looking at the other post allot of people suggest gobies but from looking at them I'm not for sure if I like them to much...so would I be able to put a clark clown fish in it maybe with 1 or 2 blue leg hermit crabs and a few other invertibres? I would love to put a fiddler or red claw crab with my cichlids but they would tear them up.

Ok the list seems good, but youll need 2 powerheads. One for the tank and another for micing water with the salt for 24 hrs. As for the stocks, look up the yellow watchman goby. If you font like them then im shocked. No to any clowns accept occerillis, and maybe not even one of those. Its debatable. Id also add, yes, some inverts. All awesome sw tanks have at least come in my opinion!! You could add a hermit and snail clean up crew also

 

[Yash]

Do you have a testing kit?
As far as water, I recommend buying RO water from your lfs. It's not too expensive.
Regarding fish, have you looked into damsels?

 

[joy13]

You will need a refractometer don't get a hydrometer one little bubble can throw those things way off.

A clarki gets to big for a 10 gallon here are some fish that will work in a 10 gallon Nano Fish

You really don't want to use tap water most LFS have ro water and if there isn't one around you that sells it the next thing is walmart I made several trips there when I first starting out now I have a ro unit in the house.

They type of light will vary with what you are doing with your tank if you want corals or just fish with live rock.

The bigger the tank the easier it will be able to keep stable so you might want to consider something larger. An ATO on that small of a tank is an easy way to keep it topped off.