New and wanting to start things small

[bmoons]

hey everyone
i'm new here and was thinking about starting a small reef tank. ive been skulking around and been reading posts and DIY things but still have a few questions. ive been keeping freshwater fish for abour 2 years and i want to have a small tank of something different. i have a 10 gallon all glass aquarium tank collecting dust and was looking into a nano reef. what would i need to get started? i currently have a whisper powerfilter for a 20 gallon. would i need a protein skimmer? also, what lighting would it require? i was hoping to have a reef style with live rock and maybe a few corals with a fish or two. what possible inhabitants could i get?
thanks in advance and sorry for all the questions.

 

[Fishfreak218]

10lbs. or more of Liverock
1-1.5" sandbed
the whisper filter is fine
you dont need a skimmer
lighting all depends on what you want to keep.. i suggest you go with MEtal Halides from the beggining....even if you only want Soft corals.... what coral are you interested in.. LPS? SPS? Softies?
are you interested in clams and anemones (in the future.. you want some experience before you keep Clams, anemones, or SPS)

 

[bmoons]

i'd like to try mushrooms and polyps and maybe sponges? would i be able to get those "feather dusters" (correct name?)
also, would i be able to have any fish or inverts with this set up?
thanks for the quick reply

 

[Sk8r]

You should be able to do mushrooms---skip the sponges unless they ride in as hitchhikers: they're cranky. Hermits, easy. Maybe a couple of nanofish after you're well set up.
Your big headache is going to be evaporation. A tiny tank evaporates a significant amount of water: evaporation removes only H20 and leaves behind the salt, minerals, etc, and your levels of salinity, etc change accordingly. So you have to topoff faithfully. Evaporation allows cooling: this is good, because your light builds up heat, etc. Tiny tank=watch tiny amounts of change very closely. It's a good but exacting way to learn. Big tanks have more room for error, but it's all proportional: it's just that a one teaspoon mistake to a 125 gallon with a 40 gallon sump is a tiny, tiny screwup the tank can just shrug off. A teaspoon mistake in your tank...will be pretty major: you can do the math. We have run 30 gallon softie tanks that were very stable, and the store I visit has a half liter tank running quite well with its mushrooms and fish, so it can be done.

 

[bmoons]

i've been trying to look up metal halide lgihts, but they all seem to be for much larger tanks.. what wattage would i need for a 10 gallon? would i need to get a powerhead to move water around? thanks for your help

 

[balz2dwall]

There are 70W HQI metal halide fixtures geared towards nano reefs. However, a metal halide on such a shallow tank (12") may be over kill for a beginners reef, i.e. mushrooms, zoos, etc. Don't fall for the "watts per gallon" rule, its rubbish! It's more about lighting intensity than overall watts per gallon. There are lighting fixtures (and retro kits) out there that are perfect for a beginners nano reef. I would only really think about using Power Compact Flourescent lighting and forget about the metal halide lighting for now. Current-USA makes a 20" power compact lighting fixture that fits over a 10 gallon tank (40W & 80W models, both with moon lighting).

I started in the reef keeping business just like you have; I wanted something a little more challenging than African cichlids. The best thing you can do is read some of the "industry standard" books on reef keeping. I spent months reading books and reading posts here on RC and there are things in some of the books that I bought that I would have never known if I hadn't read them (there are also things I found here that weren't in the books, too). I would recommend: Aquarium Corals (Borneman) & The Conscientious Marine Aquarist (Fenner). Aquarium Corals will give you an idea of the husbandry needed for specific corals, plus it'll give you a good idea of what you will and won't need (i.e. lighting, water flow, feeding, etc).

You can also go to nano-reef.com, which is another great bank of information more geared towards your personal ambitions.

As for water movement, one power head may do, but two smaller powerheads will give you more options as it is simply not a total flow issue (it's the motion of your ocean that's the most important).

 

[bmoons]

thanks for your quick reply! i've been researching for a week or two now and am just trying to take it all in.. good advice is exactly what i need. thanks