Maintence on a 10 gallon?

[DanW0007]

I've been thinking about starting up a 10 gallon nano-reef, but I wanted to ask some questions first.

I'm not totally new to salt water, I once had a 16 gallon tank with 2 clowns for a little while, but decided to give them away and go back to freshwater cause of budget concerns and back then, I just didn't have the time for salt water. I also take care of 12 sw tanks at my job (Petco), but then again, fish are constantly moving in and out of those tanks, so its not quite the same.

Now that I have more time and money, I was thinking about trying things out again. I know I should go larger than a 10 gallon, but I've always thought of nano reefs as paticuarlly beautiful. Plus I'm only looking to get an orchid dottyback or a black percula in there, no other fish.

Anyway, are weekly water changes good enough for a tank that small? I realize that testing the water is going to tell me how often I need to change it, but for the most part, does weekly sound about right?

Also, anyone know what lighting would probably run for on something like that? I'm 100% new to corals, so I don't want to try anything too fancy until I do a lot more reading up on them, but I've always loved green brain corals and pink tipped anemones....

Thanks for any and all help

 

[grimlock3000]

Weekly water changes will be needed for sure and should be enough to keep the tank going fine. As long as you stock it slow and monitor things, there will not be a need for water changes every other day or anything like that.

I would also reccomend a skimmer since the smaller tanks can go downhill fast. A skimmer is cheap insurance compared to losing a few corals because of one incident where something dies and poisons the water. With a skimmer in place, it can help remove the dead organics from the water.

 

[klam]

IMO, If you are going only to keep softies and some LPS around 80W of PC lights should work very well. Usually people will have a 10,000k bulb and .act bulb. MH lights are recommended for SPS, clams, and several anemones. Plan your lighting around what kind of corals you are planning to keep.