10 Gallon Budget Tank

[Esper]

I'm mostly a lurker, but the time has come to share my current tank in order to get advice and stay successful.

I started reefing in graduate school on a tiny budget, and for some reason, I've always enjoyed the "min/max" aspect of reef keeping for as little money as possible. I think it forces me to do more research, make smarter purchases, and makes me a better reef keeper. At least, that's what I tell myself :lolspin:

In this build, I've focused on the humble AGA 10 gallon. It is quite possibly the most pathetic, ubiquitous, humble tank there is. Let's see what's possible, shall we?

 

[Esper]

In the past month, the tank has changed from this...

to this:

 

[Esper]

Why make such a drastic change?

Boredom.

I got the tank and corals free on craigslist, and kept it running that way for two years.

I used this tank as an experiment.

What happens if you don't run a skimmer?
What happens if you don't use a heater?
What happens if you ignore alkalinity?

Somehow, all the corals survived, and I learned a lot. I don't necessarily recommend this approach, but it really busted a lot of myths I had about reef keeping. In the process, I learned what really is necessary to keep this tank healthy. I'll explain my approach in a bit. I don't have any fish, so that helps a lot.

To me, the tank is healthy when coralline algae grows, the snails reproduce on their own, and white bacteria grows on the glass each day. All of this happens on a regular basis.

 

[sixpackgarage]

nice and simple. My first saltwater tank was a 10 gallon back around 1986ish...not what you would consider a reef by any means, but simple. If I only knew half of what I know now (and that's not much)..

So what is the current philosophy with the tank, and what lighting are you running?

 

[Esper]

Filtration

Filtration

My main filtration is regular water changes. This tank is small, and water changes are not cumbersome. My philosophy is that if the water going into the tank is perfect, then the solution to every problem becomes "change the water."

Yes, stability is important, but in my experience, it always helps to return to normal sea water parameters (or close to it) as fast as possible. The analogy is being trapped in a car with a smoker, with all the windows shut. You need to open the windows, exchange the air, to be healthy again. The tank is the same way. As long as I am putting in VERY GOOD WATER, rapid changes are fine.

This is part of why I run all my tanks barebottom. I can scoop detritus out and replace massive amounts of water very easily. Increased flow, ease of cleaning, and stability are the other reasons.

In addition to water changes, I use live rock for denitrification and carbon/chemipure/phosban for chemical filtration.

I believe live rock is a better habitat for bacteria than sandbeds because the live rock doesn't move. I don't want my tank crashing because a pump falls into the anaerobic zone of my sand.

I run chemical filtration largely to help the chemical warfare between corals. I'm trying to cut down on my diversification and just focus on one species, so even that will become unnecessary. I've run the tank without chemical filtration, and the corals just grew more slowly, possibly because they had to devote metabolic energy to defending themselves from their neighbors. A side benefit of chemical filtration is that it may help remove impurities from the water or food. This may be a myth, as well, but I can't test for it yet. :uhoh3:

I should also mention my "sponge filter." This is a giant pink sponge that I consider to be the prize of my tank. It started as a hitchhiker on the live rock. It is now about 2 inches wide and 3 inches across, and is encrusting on the glass bottom. I think this adds to the filtration in my tank, and is probably only alive because I don't run a skimmer.

The pink sponge is in the middle, on the bottom. The white dots you see on the glass are copepods

 

[Esper]

Lighting

Lighting

Since you asked

My light is one of these, with the white and blue LEDs. You really can't beat the price!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnzsBMb3iPs

The problem with this light is that it is VERY narrow, with only 30 degree optics. The benefit is that the narrow optics punch very brightly to the bottom of my 10g. I would need two to light up the whole tank, although I like the "dramatic" look of shadows in the corners. I've only had it for about 2 weeks, so too early to tell regarding coral health. I will say that it was too intense for my candy canes. It is much more purple than the pictures and videos show.

I definitely miss the even, uniform light that T5s put out. I think Acropora especially appreciates the lack of shadows. I am unhappy with the bulb selection of T5s on nano tanks, however.

I started in the "industrial" era of metal halides and compact fluorescents. LEDs looked weird and inadequate to me for many years. My favorite combo for bigger tanks was an USHIO 20k bulb with T5 supplementation. This light comes close to that look.

I eventually did some research on LEDs, reading these articles, which helped change my mind about them :
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2014/4/lighting

I considered building one of those lights, as well as my own DIY LED, but in the end, the pre-made light was cheaper, brighter, and more attractive than what I could make myself. It doesn't have the most ideal spectrum, but it should work fine.

 

[Esper]

Tank Environment

Tank Environment

Part of owning an aquarium is maintaining the environment inside the tank. The habitat. This was a large part of my experimentation.

I spent a few years turning off various equipment one at a time to see what the effect was. What you see now is the culmination of these experiments. I'll explain why I use this equipment and how it helps maintain a stable reef environment.

Flow:
The one thing I never turned off was the Koralia Nano. Now that I have SPS, I want to either add another Koralia on the other side, or perhaps look into a Jebao. The flow from the Aquaclear hang-on-the back helps. I think these two flow sources are the absolute minimum needed for a tank this size.

Oxygen/CO2 Exchange:
Oxygen & CO2 exchange is very important for a reef tank. I achieve this by keeping an open top and using the Aquaclear HOB filter. This breaks up the surface tension and allows more air exchange. Protein Skimmers and sumps can also be good for this. I don't get much scum accumulating on the surface, probably because I don't keep any fish.

Turning the aqua clear off for a few weeks was not helpful to the tank: the corals did not grow very quickly, my Ph dropped, and the water surface got dirty.

I initially used the eheim canister filter that came with the tank. When I stopped using it, my nitrates (and green algae) went down significantly. Coral health & growth seemed unaffected either way.

I am currently running chemipure in my aquaclear. This is the smallest model, but it wouldn't hurt to get a bigger size, as many people do. This is about as dirty as I allow it to get.

Temperature:
The tank is in the living room with air conditioning, so I don't need a chiller. I use an Ebo Jager heater, although they don't seem as bulletproof as they used to be. This one doesn't allow me to change the temperature...but it stays at 79-80 degrees consistently anyway. I keep a very close eye on it.

Temperature swings seemed to affect the brain coral much more than the candy canes or the mushroom corals. I could let the tank get as low as 73 degrees with minimal effects other than the brain staying contracted.

 

[Esper]

Mushroom Eradication

Mushroom Eradication

I had a bunch of striped mushroom corals in the tank, and they were irritating everything else. They had to go. The biggest rocks were sold to other reefers, but I still had some left on the main liverock pieces I wanted to keep. I also had a bunch of aptasia.

So, I instead of targeting every mushroom & aptasia independently, I dipped the entire rock into saturated kalkwasser. After a thorough rinse in RO & saltwater, my rocks are now clean! So far, no ill effects on the other corals.

Irritated Acropora::facepalm:

Happy Acropora:

 

[sixpackgarage]

I'm really surprised about the mushrooms having any effect on the acropora. I really can't tell from the pics, but any CUC in the tank?

 

[Esper]

There are 3 adult nassarius snails, a blue-legged hermit, and lots of baby oval-shaped snails reproducing on their own. A peppermint shrimp keeps most of the aptaisia in check.

 

[PsymonStark]

The oval snails are probably stomatella snails. Interesting experiment...

 

[Esper]

Thanks for the ID on the snails!

The brain is back to normal today. It was contracted in the previous pictures.

I can't help but notice the detritus in front (about a week's worth), and the #$%@ aptasia behind it.

 

[Esper]

Also, sorry if I sound preachy in this thread...I'm a teacher, and it is hard to turn it off sometimes

 

[PsymonStark]

Kalkpaste works like a dream against aiptasia

 

[Esper]

Update 8/14/15

Starting to get this tank dialed in for SPS.

After removing the mushrooms, polyp extension occurs 24/7 on all three frags. The blue-tipped stag horn was more brown and blue, and now it is turning more orange and purple. One of the branches was damaged in transport and has had a slime coat while it heals. I was wondering why it was taking so long, but then...

It healed! I don't know if you can see in the picture, but tissue has completely grown over the damaged spot. It still has the slime coat.

I think the healing response was a direct result of a change I made recently...

I added a Maxi-Jet 900 that points down at the bottom glass.

The tank needed more flow. I'm still looking into Jebao, and that may be the way to go if you are setting up a new tank, but there are a lot of negative reviews on amazon about reliability. In the meantime, this MJ900 allows me to target the worst-flowing part of my tank, and adds a lot of random water movement all over. I'm not completely satisfied with the surface agitation, but at least every part of the tank is moving the way it should. The corals look SUPER HAPPY now. I also have a MJ1200 if I want more.

When people talk about high-flow for SPS, it's not just over the corals. I needed high flow throughout the tank to keep the entire water column consistent. This adds stability within the tank. I've never turned down the flow at night or anything like that.

If i want more flow, I can always add this...(Koralia 3)

I also think I need to lower the light to increase the intensity. The corals are turning a little brown/orange/tan, although the staghorn has blue fluorescence all over the orange/brown parts (a new development).

I will wait a week (if I can stay patient) before moving the light, to see what happens with increased flow. I'm expecting a little more evaporation, so I want to focus on stable water parameters first.

It is very, very hard to make only one change at a time, but it pays off. :spin2:

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I like this thread. I'm a fan on going against the grain. It seems in many hobbies people preach having to do it one way, but can be done other ways.

It seems that this hobby is one of the worst I have seen for this. Unless it's very expensive it won't work is the general rule of thumb. Although some of the technology and parts people spend insane amounts of money on are really cool though. Lol

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I have often wondered about the par 38's. I'm running fluval LED with one grow actinic bulb. Not sure if they are powerful enough to get insane growth, but have done the job.

 

[Esper]

Just wanted to update a year later, I'll post pictures if I get more motivated The tank is still up and running. I recently moved to a new house, and upgraded to an AGA 20 Long.

Overall, everything still works!

My only filtration is live rock and water changes. The PAR38 bulb is adequate, but I'm not getting as much growth as I'm used to with metal halides. There is a lot of shading and color loss in the shadows. More than one point source of light is essential for LEDs in my opinion.

I did lose one of the SPS frags due to using an old, bad salt mix. I kept doing water changes...but things kept getting worse. Finally I bought new salt, and everything came back and flourished. I suppose my reef keeping method has one flaw--susceptibility to bad salt mixes! 2 out of 3 stony corals survived.

The smallest SPS frag got knocked down by a hermit crab or some such in the night, and died before I could find it.

The 3rd SPS frag is still alive, but grows very slowly, and has yet to encrust along the base. I see that as a bad sign. It seems to like the extra flow in the new tank, and I'll upgrade lights soon. Hopefully that will help.

 

[bcb577]

I like your tank and I follow your exact philosophy.I've had my 10 gallon up and running for 2 years now. A water change can do miracles for my tank,most fixes with such a small tank usually recommend a water change,lol. It's very easy to maintain,and I was worried when I first got started after hearing people say that you don't want to start the hobby with such a small tank,changes happen very quickly and you probably won't have success with this being your first tank....well 2 years later I'm loving it!!