New 10gal nano

[FishfulThinking]

Hey everybody! I'm new to the SW game and just set up a 10gal nano. I know everyone is going to say I shouldn't start with a 10gal because they're harder to take care of and all the jazz, but that's why I set one up. I would rather spend a couple hundred $'s on a small set up than a couple thousand $'s and mess it up. My main reason for starting small is that if I can keep a 10G nano going, once I convert my 55G, it should be no problem at all.

So in this little nano tank, I have a CUC of:
2 x Scarlet legged hermits
2 x Cerith Snails
1 x Nassarius Snail
2 x Nerite Snails
2 x Striped Trochus Snails
and have held off getting a couple peppermint shrimp until my lfs has them in stock.
I have 3 lbs of liverock and will be getting more in the near future, and a small frag of nuclear green zoa.

Now here's the weird part about this nano. It has guppies in it. The tank was actually slowly converted to SW with the guppies in it. Changed the substrate from the blue rocks to sand, started adding salt to the replacement water from water changes until my SG was 1.025 which it still is.

I was given a 60gal saltwater system by one of my uncles friends. Her husband passed away and she didn't want to keep up with the hobby and now I have a crap ton of equipment. Powerheads of all sizes, a HOB refugium, hob skimmer, buckets of salt, coral food, test kits, and all kinds of other stuff. So I have enough stuff to get a little nano going.

I had a 30gal hob filter that was exclusively cleaning the tank but was advised to put in the skimmer that I was given. Last night I tried this out and found myself cleaning a huge mess off the floor, and have to replace a 50/50 light that ended up getting soaked by said flood.

Figured I would try this skimmer again today, and to my surprise and delight, there was no flood, but now there are millions of little bubbles in my tank and I can't really see. It is an 1100Lph powerhead that came with skimmer. I am assuming this because the PH had some of the plumbing from the skimmer on it already.

I do have a question tho. Will these millions and millions of little bubbles go away, or should I go back to the HOB filter and put one of the small powerheads in, or should I leave the HOB skimmer on and still put a small powerhead in?

Thanks in advance!

Adam

 

[Fibinotchi]

I don't understand why you would leave guppies in there. But, often times you can adjust a skimmer to not have all the micro bubbles, or put a small micro bubble trap on there. Hang on the back filters are OK also. And a ten gallon is fine to start with, doesn't take the large quantities of money to set up and will give you most the knowledge you need to be successful in the hobby.

 

[FishfulThinking]

Basically the guppies are an experiment. I had heard that guppies can not only live in, but thrive in a marine environment. So I thought it would be fun to keep a few.

These microbubbles you speak of, how would one go about getting rid of these? There really are no adjustments other than how much air goes into the skimmer.

 

[Fibinotchi]

You have to block them at the outlet of the skimmer and direct them upwards. cpr had a piece for there hob skimmers that worked pretty good. Would have to see your setup.

 

[Josh40996]

I acclimated a few guppies a couple months ago now and sadly all perished. I found that they prefer to stay more towards the top of the aquarium and seem to struggle to stay in the bottom half. Are you seeing such issues? I also found that other saltwater fish will nip at their fins to begin with but seem to calm down after a week or two. In the end, they all just disappeared one by one.

 

[FishfulThinking]

As far as I can tell, the guppies tend to stay near the top of the tank for the most part. They also do this in my 55 too tho. They don't really act any different that I notice. They don't seem to have much trouble getting to the bottom of the tank either. They constantly search the bottom and the liverock for left over food. I thought they would have had a tougher time with the current but I haven't noticed any problems. I actually saw the male mating with the females earlier today! We'll see if they end up giving birth or not. I would imagine with the amount of current running in the tank, the fry will either get sucked into the filter or they'll have to find small dead spot to hang out in.

I don't have any other fish in the tank yet so I don't have any problems with fish nipping at fins. I'm waiting for the tank to mature before I put my SW fish in. Which btw is going to be a green clown goby or two. But I think I'll put the rest of the liverock I want in there first. At least having guppies in there gives the tank more life while it matures.

How long did your guppies survive?