Clam & SPS nano

[hkriegal]

My 46g tank has been thriving for 8 months and I'm ready for something new. I have lps soft corals and one maxima clam. I would like to start off with some sps and more clams (crocea). Was thinking about starting a ten gallon nano. I already have a 175 w halide pedant, so I think it should be enough light. Would I go skimmerless? I'm kinda stripped for cash, but I don't want to kill anything. How much ls and lr? I figured this would be my setup:

10g tank
175 w (10000k) halide
50w heater (ebo jabber)
maxijet 600 ?
prizm (if needs skimmer)
fans to cool off
15 lbs lr
3-4 in ls

Thanks

[Jefe12234]

I'm kinda in the same boat as you. I have a 55 gallon tank that is far from adequate. It has NO lights and very little circulation. I'm starting a 20 gallon tank with the right equipment this time. I'll have a 250 W Iwasaki MH, Precision Marine HOT-1 skimmer, 4 Maxi-Jet 1200's on a wavemaker, a top-off device with a float valve, and a small DIY refugium. This will all house SPS's and maybe a clam or two.

175 W MH should be plenty for your 10 gallon. Just make sure you have those fans to cool things down. Do you have a hood for it? You could go skimmerless, but you may have problems until you find something that works. I chose to go with a skimmer because I think it will reduce my chance of having problems (esp with SPS) and be better for the overall health of the corals. But there are people who keep SPS's without one.

Live rock won't be too much for a 10 gallon tank, but the shipping will still be expensive unless you get it from a LFS. As for live sand, are you going to use it for the entire sand bed? Most people use dry sand for the bulk of the bed and then seed it with a detrivore kit or several pounds of live sand to make it all live.

Yeah, it's expensive and I can barely afford it, but I am tired of having a system that's just barely chugging along.

Good luck with whatever you decide!


-Chris

[hkriegal]

Your setup sounds great. One word of advice, I think that may be way to much current for a 20. On my 46, I have to mj-900, and another underpower powerhead on a wavemaker (red sea, its grreat) and that is more than enough current for a 46. Maybe 4 mj-400's would be better.
On my tank, I just put in about 3-4" of southdown, and 2 cups of live sand. I also got a hood, as with mh on a 10g, the evaporation would be too much without one.

Good Luck

[Jefe12234]

With the wavemaker I have 1-3 PH's on at a time with an average of 2. Add the HOB skimmer and that's about 500-1100 GPH with an average of 800 GPH. Or, a turnover rate of 25-55x with a 40x average. I know it's a lot for a 20 gallon tank, but I've heard time and time again that you can never have too much current for SPS's as long as they're not directly in the output. One guy on here has a 60x turnover rate and many people suggest 30-40 or more for an SPS tank. I did a little searching on this subject.

So, while it is a lot, I think with proper positioning it will make quite a nice home for my corals. I might swap 2 of the 1200's for 900's which would give me 25-48x turnover, but I still like the idea of lots of current. I don't think it could hurt anyway (as long as my sand stays on the bottom :)