10g Tank Questions

[MeggyPuff25]

Ok so I have a 10g tank that was home to Mr. Puff my red eye puffer who passed away recently from my babe tosing in a penny For some weirds reason I'm having a hard time getting it cycled. I had a piece of raw shrimp in it for 5 days and took it out due to it being very stinky and gross, and when I did a water test it showed no ammonia spikes or any other spikes in nitrites/nitrates. The filter media is from my 55g established cichlid tank (its been up and running for over a year now) Sand for the substrate, I took out the gravel and rinsed the other decorations to remove the copper. I was considering maybe making this 10g a SW tank for emergencies incase one of my salt water fish need to be quarentined and what not. But I'm not sure I want to go that way, I would just have the sand and a bit of LR in the tank for the cycle. How hard is it to get a 10g to full SWwith a sg at about 1.023 - 1.024? And if I did this and just add LR to it would that keep it cycled or should I add something like hermits to keep it cycled?

[xrayjeeper83]

Since you used filter media from a tank thats been up an running for a year, you pretty much bypassed any cycling.

Dont know anything about SW though

[soggydrysuit]

Hi MeggyPuff25,

I really, really don't like copper

I've not that many posts to advise you and others will be around to help, but I've been there personally in marine systems with copper.

You may in the end have to replace your substrate but maybe not so much non porous decor, if any. Carbon might help and I'm sure you know that you can get a test kit for copper?

If it were me, which it is not, I'd ditch the substrate and anything else that could contain copper and start afresh with new coral sand/gravel etc. Wash all the gear down and rinse the tank out with fw. I'd just make up a fresh tankfull of seawater and substrate, let it heat and areate for 24hrs with all pumps/skimmers running then add the LR, drip acclimatising it for an hour or so in a bucket.

After a week or two you could add your hermits. Useful QT, unless you have to dose it with copper. Low salinity seems to be the way to go these days if you have a small fish in there with ich

BTW you can contaminate LR with copper meds if you choose to use them. Might be better to have that for the fish (less stress and maybe somethingto edible pick on) in QT rather than external canister filters. Depends which meds you need to use...

[MeggyPuff25]

When the penny was put in I removed the gravel and didn't reuse it, just put in rinsed fresh sand. I also rinsed and scrubbed the tank and decorations with hot water to remove any copper. If I did by-pass the cycle part wouldn't I get some nitrates showing at least? I'll be testing later today though. I was also thinking if I make this 10g SW I can put LR in it to cure it and also have the tank ready in case of emergencies with the fish in my 45g. The blue legged hermits I buy go for $1.99 and the lfs guy always throws in 1 - 2 free ones I think it would look neat as a SW tank with some nice LR and hermits, not sure what else I could put in there. Would I really need a skimmer for the tank though? And if I do change it to SW how would I do that? Do I just mix and add the salt to the tank or would that kill off all the bacteria and start a new cycle again? If so I don't mind starting a new cycle to get it to SW.

[MeggyPuff25]

Any tips for making my 10g a SW tank just with LR and maybe some inverts? I know I will want to put in a few blue legged hermits (I just love em ) And maybe some cool lookin shrimp. I'm up for any ideas for turning this tank into sw.

[MeggyPuff25]

Ok so I think I've finally figured out what I'm going to do with my 10g. I will be making it SW and I will putt in LR. I want to turn my HOB filter into a fuge (diy of cours, I found some really easy plans for it and I have all the supplies to do it.) Once I get some of this set up I will be going to my lfs to get some lights for the tank lid. My 10g tank doesn't have alot of evaporation that happens and I don't mind doing top offs. The tank is on my kitchen counter near the sink, it looks awsome there and I can see it from my computer. I will be keeping my heater inside the tank and I was thinking of possibly getting a small powerhead for more flow, not sure yet though. As for inhabitants I was thinking of getting a few blue legged hermits, maybe a candy cane shrimp and I'm not sure what else to get. I like alot of marine inverts they have cool colors and are fun to watch. Any suggestions or tips would help me greatly

[soggydrysuit]

Sounds like you have thought this through and are aware of the problems of evaporation and general instability in terms of heat and waste building up in a 10g marine tank.

Against all of the nay sayers there are people who do make this work but usually not as a first tank.

I've tried it with marine a marine QT but it only worked for me once. I only tried once. With a 2" longnose butterfly who had ich - it survived it's time in that tank but I wouldn't do it again. 20g minimum for a 2" fish in Qt for me. That was a time when cash was tight but I had to have the larger tank or loose the butterfly.

No fish, I note. Excellent. Or maybe a tiny goby? There are quite a few now who are quite hardy and very very small. Maybe you could drip RO in from a clean container to cope with evaporation. I'm sure hermits would do well but you may need to be careful of things like starfish that are notoriously intolerent of shifting parameters. Salinity especially. I've an odd feeling that some of those tiny brittle stars that appear sometimes may be ok.

Maybe some of the marine experts could help suggest inverts and macroalgae that might fit? Me, I'd have to think. Shrimps may be ok though

Can you feed filter feeders? Sea fans? Dendronepthyea - the toughest to keep of the lot, they need drip fed plankton but you can keep them in the dark (imagine the uneaten food build up in a 10g). They probably need a much larger tank - 100g ish for water chemistry stability.

You don't mention lighting, possibly for reasons of heating the tank to too high a temp in the summer. Get it right and you'd have a isopod farm for a mandarin in your next tank!

I come over in this forum as a mainly FW person, but I've four years experience in keeping trop marines including a Heteractis 'nem if I can spell it correctly. Others have ten times more experience than I

Go slow and have fun

[Pufferpunk]

Moved to Marine Tanks.

[soggydrysuit]

Sorry, that all sounded a lot condescending. It wasn't meant that way

Daft question, but do you feed the 10g or add any ammonia to feed the bacteria? Just wondering why you can't get a nitrate reading. Zero is possible in a very very well established tank if you top up with RO.

Just wondering if you can spot a transient ammonia spike after feeding. I've never been able to do that. A few minutes, a few hours that sort of thing.

It must happen in all of our 'mature' tanks at some level, unless things are in such an equilibrium that a standard API test kit cannot detect it?

Micro 'spike

[soggydrysuit]

Thanks, PP. My fault for waffling about marines

Open season on the Soggy

Please feel free to correct me

[MeggyPuff25]

I know that having a 10g SW tank can be hard, but I am up for the challenge, I have a 45g SW FOWLR as well. It will be just sand, LR hermits shrimp and maybe one fish. I have been doing alot of reading up this and I even have a few SW books I have most of the supplies to make it salt water so I'm just gonna give it a shot and see how it goes. This will be my 2nd marine tank One question though about corals, if I did go down that road and got a few what are some good begginer ones that are nice looking and will do ok in my tank and what care would they need? I am just asking for now, going to get the tank ready and cycled and then go from there. Thanks again for the great info

[soggydrysuit]

That's a vey kind comment, so thankyou

You probably know more than I do!

I tend to mix my saltwater in 40l polyethylene barrels and heat and leave a powerhead in for 24hrs, it supposedly lets the pH drop and stabilise a bit. I've measured newly mixed sw a few minutes old to be over pH 9.0 (off scale high). Next morning it was 8.4. This happens for any brand I have tried so far.

Maybe an immediate mix is ok for brackish water but maybe not for corals

Can you afford any of the new LED lights? If not I think J-P has a lead on some cheaper ones to do with automotive tech but I'm not too sure how waterproof they are. Reason for LED's is they use nearly no power (compared to my 300W MH which is currently sitting in a corner unused) and are cool running. Ish.

Do you intend to use a hood? Thinking about fans for the summer?

The green 'Star polyps' are pretty good and very very hardy under T5's and fairly rhubarb conditions as are the mushroom polyps and leather softies. Get some UV in the light and most corals fluoresce or 'glow'. Leather soft corals can grow large but unless you have anthing particularly nasty in your other tank you could maybe transfer it out.

In the next lot of LED technology you will be able to light SPS frags in a nano. Trust me, I was talking to one of the blokes who invented organic LED's this pm.

[soggydrysuit]

Just a footnote.

most 'reef' corals like incredibly stable conditions. Why not have a look around on the 'interweb' as Jeremy Clarkson puts it over here and see what lives in trop reef tidal pools or lagoons. You might be suprised.

I've seen with my own eyes the 'Devonshire cup coral' an LPS in Cornwall, UK so there genuinely is hope

I've a spare 10g but I've not yet found anyone with a spare mantis shrimp. (That's what I'd do with mine)

[MeggyPuff25]

My 10g does have a hood, which is nice because my evaporation rate is low I want to change out the lighting though, or I might just get the 2 bulbs from my lfs that would good for my little tank. I so think that the mantis shrimps are really cool looking I have been considering that as one of the possibilities for the tank But I'm swaying more to having inverts, hermits, shrimp maybe an emerald crab. There are so many choices out there. In summer and when it gets really hot we have an air-conditioner here and some rotating fans as well. I am considering painting the one side black because it gets sunlight from the window in my kitchen.