10g nano?

[dzeadow]

Well, Ive been at this hobby again for about 2months now and everything's progressing nicely in my 45g cube. But I see this 10g tank that I bought sitting doing nothing... and I'm getting an itch! I'll be upgrading my lighting on my 45 so I"ll have a nova extreme t5 ho 4 bulb setup which I think will be enough for SPS right? I'm really just thinking ahead and milling things over.. not really setting anything up yet. Is there anything I should be aware of first other than rapid changing water params due to small size? I figure since I'll be doing maintanence on my main tank I might as well do 2 since water changes on a 10g are only 1g right? SEEMS easy enough.

Anyways, I just want to be well informed.. what equipment do you all use for smaller setups? anyone do closed loop systems and what pumps? etc..

Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

[gsusfreak]

i dont even think that you'll need for bulbs....i think 2 should be sufficient...a 10 gal tank's width and height wouldnt need 4 bulbs.....but thats just my opinion

[seapug]

I had an extra ten gallon I set up with sand, live rock, an HOB powerfilter made for a 75 gallon tank, and a 28W 5050 PC light.

I took all the media cartriges out of the filter and put sand, live rock, and and bag of carbon in it. I set it up and let it run unstocked for 3 months-- I really neglected it for a while and it looked like hell, then suddenly cleared up and look great.

It's now a cool little simple tank with macro algae &rocks that I keep a dragonface pipefish and yellow jaw in. I recently added a PJ cardinal I rescued from near death at a local Petco for $5. Doing great now The pipefish eats like a lil piggy and the yellow jaw is on the rebound (literally had no fins when I bought the poor little bugger). I also drop low light coral frags in it periodically (shrooms love it). As a last resort I even took a purple ribbon gorgonian that wouldn't open polyps in any of my other tanks and stuck it in there. It's now doing fantastic. 28W of PC light and a powerfilter, polyps are open all the time, and eats cyclopeeze. So much for the stories about them needing blazing lights and blasting current....

Anyway, sorry to babble, but I'd highly recommend setting one up. If you have another tank to distract yourself with, it's good to set one of these up, ignore it, and let it "age" for a while. You can create fun little systems out of them.

[Toygrr]

lol. Im going more for the hqi/pc combo for my 29. thinking of a refuge
still not sure that the 30x15 inch hqi lights will fit....

but yeah you dont need 4 for a 10g, i had a 10g with a 65w coralife pc and it did fine. also had a magnum filter on it...but im going to try a biological/ H.O.T magnum pro setup.

[dzeadow]

I have an aquaclear 20 that I was thinking of using.. just the carbon and putting possibly a small chunk of LR in it. As for the lights.. it's what I have... I guess if it's too much light I can put one blue and one white on the same switch and just turn one on for 2x24w t5's. I read the whole Rio Nano skimmer thread.. I wonder if one of those wouldn't be beneficial? For $30 I don't think it'd hurt. I was also mulling around the thought of putting in an overflow in the back and plumbing a power head for a closed loop like I've seen done. It sounds like fun.. just another way to have a couple more small fish w/o putting a whole system in danger of being overstocked.