Can I make a 10 gallon tank saltwater?

[99SH]

I have a 90 gallon freshwater tank, and a 10 gallon medical tankl. I decided recently to use the 10 gallon for something else. It's totally empty, with a 50-watt ebo-jager heater, rena 100 air pump, and an aquaclear 200 filter. Could I make this tank saltwater?

I've tried doing some searching, but haven't found anything concrete. I guess I would either some small colorful fish, or just a reef. I think it's a reef, I'm a complete newbie to saltwater. I've been to a few saltwater shops, and I've seen tanks that look like they have live plants that move back and forth. Are those reef's?

So, could I keep any of my existing equipment? Or if this has been answered before, could anyone point me in the right direction?

[OrionGirl]

You can make a SW tank out of the 10. However--you're going to be spending a LOT of time on it--much more than you spend on your FW tank.

For both FW and SW, small tanks are more work. They are less stable, and suffer from imbalances more quickly and more extreme than a larger tank. For SW, this means daily topoffs with FW to prevent sky rocketing salinity, as well as a very small bio-load. 1-2 very small fish, or inverts, is the best way to go, but inverts are sensitive, and there aren't many small fish that will stay that way. To run a reef, you'll need to upgrade your lights, which is going to be costly.

There are a few posts on here about this, and I think reefcentral.com has a forum for nano tanks you may want to check out. It's certainly possible, but it won't be easy or cheap.

[fishfreek]

I agree that a 10 gal saltwater tank should not be your first saltwater tank unless your prepaired to have a daily tasksheet for this tank.

Also you said the 10 gal used to be a med tank. Did you ever use a copper based treadment in that tank? If so then you can almost instantly rule out the ability to keep inverts in the tank due to the risk of copper posioning.

[votek]

My first salt tank is/was a 10g. However, I bought a penguin 550 for it, and I am NOT on city water, thus my water is basicly right out of the ground.

Anyways, the conditions permitting, my tank has been stable for nearly a month now. I allowed it to cycle for about 48 hours before introducing 2 Blue Damsels.

I then brought in a coral banded shrimp.

And then a yellow Damsel, and 2 Zebra Damsels.

Give or take a week inbetween each introduction.

Everything has been running just fine and I have not had any problems. But I wouldn't recommend a filt without a Bio-Wheel or something of that nature.

I've never had chemical problems and every time I have tested my water, it has been near flawless. So I do credit a lot of that to the water conditions where I am.

The biggest problem/hassle however is evaporation for me. Naturally the water is a higher temperature, and evaporates quicker because of the salinity. When your water evaporates the salinity goes up, and the problem with a 10g is that the salinity change is much more drastic than that on a 20 or even 50g tank.

So with the 10g tank I end up usualy adding water ever day to every other day depending on the humidity.

Get a couple cheap fish like blue damsels, get some instant ocean, a hydrometer and ive it a try.

The worst that happens is that you loose both the fish and hopefully find out what goes wrong. Your LFS should have the basics for under 20$ - given your pump and heater will surfice.


Hope my early experiences have helped.

[fishfreek]

votek,

If you have the following
2 Blue Damsels.
I then brought in a coral banded shrimp.
And then a yellow Damsel, and 2 Zebra Damsels.

Then your tank is really overstocked. I personally would never put more than 1 maybe 2 small fish in a 10 gal salt tank.

[OrionGirl]

I agree--that's 5 fish, all of which are highly territorial, in a very small tank.

You're likley going to see some serious agression issues as the fish age, not to mention that's a huge bio-load for such a small volume of water. Did you cycle the tank? What are water parameters?

[VoodooChild]

I am a full supporter of the shrimp method. Just take a frozen cocktail shrimp (or fresh) and throw'er in there for a month. In a 10, one shrimp will probably get things rolling right away. I strongly recommend against using living things to cycle. The term "expendable pet" is something that needs to go.

[votek]

No aggression issues occur.

Why? Well Damsels have a behavior much like Tiger Barbs as I have found out.

When you have 2...then they are going to fight because there is enough space for them to nab territory.

From my experience thus far, they are doing fine, and there has been no issue of aggression.

My setup basicly just consists of a crushed coral base, with an emperor 550. Its just finnishing up a small cayan(i think thats the name of it) outbreak along the coral and is startig to clean up nicely.

:) No problems as of yet.