differences between 10g and 50g?

[angyles]

I'm very excited to say, I'm about 2 weeks away from upgrading my 10g to 50g!!

so aside from needing more filteration and more heat, is there anything else I'll be needing that I wouldn't already have for my 10g? Are there any major differences that I should be aware of?

Also, does the length of a heater matter, or simply the wattage?

 

[Darkangel]

Congrats angyles on the new tank. The obvious thing will be more fish. There are no major differences in maintaining tanks of different sizes, other then the fact that the larger tank will be more foregiving of your mistakes. As far as heat goes, get a second heater and run your first one with it. That way if one goes batty the tank will not fry or freeze as quickly as it would with one large heater.

 

[Jeremy S]

I would also recommend getting two smaller heaters instead of one large one.

 

[wetmanNY]

Keep that 10g running and use it as a quarantine tank for all new arrivals. Are you already running in the 10g the filter you'll be using on the new tank?

 

[Decz]

I believe the heater rule is 50 watts for every 10 gallons...

 

[angyles]

Yeah, I'm running an AC200 on it right now. I was gonna switch that over to the 50g, and add either an AC300 or 500 to go with it. Then I was thinking of putting my topfin 10g filter back on the 10g and turning it into a brackish bumblebee goby tank.

So if I have 2-3 different heaters in the 50g, what kind of wattage should each one be?

 

[NJ Devils Fan]

Get 2 150 watt heaters and place them at opposite ends of the tank. As for the filters, if you want to use your aqua clear 200 filter, get a AC 500. That should be a perfect amount of filtration.

 

[carpguy]

The general heater rule of thumb is 5 watts per gallon, so for a 50 you'd want 250 watts total. Mix it up as you see fit, but assuming you're leaving the old one on the 10g, I'd try to keep them near equal. A 100 and a 150 or two 150s. The whole idea of redundancy goes out the window if the pair isn't roughly even. If you were to go slightly over (say 6 wpg, a pair of 150s) the heaters just work less hard.

 

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by angyles
I was gonna switch that over to the 50g, and add either an AC300 or 500 to go with it.

A canister filter would work well with that sized aquarium.
Congrats!