I am brand new at this... HELP!

Dtking · #1 05/01/2006, 11:22 PM

Hello,
My name is Dustin, and my girlfriend and I have just started a 10 gal tank to see if we like what we are doing. So far i have the sand in the tank and the saltwater is good (we bought the saltwater in a box from petco in edmond). and I have a water pump that i have not yet turned on (waiting for sand to settle). Can someone help me start the basics of doing this?! My friend at work (jimmy) is helping me out, he is a member of comas and I was just needing any input at all that would help.

Thanks,
Dustin and Melissa

P.S. THANKS JIMMY!!!

ReeferRyan · #2 05/01/2006, 11:44 PM

Mainly, take it slow. Don't rush anything because you will pay for it in the end. Welcome to the hobby. If you have any specific questions, you can PM me and I will try to help.

Youngsilver · #3 05/02/2006, 06:25 AM

Hmm best advice I know to give is:

Don't get into a rush to fill your tank, this will only lead to frustration, escpecially in that small of a setup. I wil warn you that you are going to have your work cut out for you with a 10g tank.

Here is a page with a BUNCH of newbie info, hope it helps.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=166836

eazy-e · #4 05/02/2006, 07:50 AM

I have a 10 gallon tank that is doing extremely well. I have a BTA in it, some Frogspawn and lots of Macroalgae. Like everyone says just take your time and if you have questions, just post and everyone will be happy to answer them.

nIx_tank · #5 05/02/2006, 07:58 AM

Congrats, and good luck!

Patience is a wonderful friend, as you will find.

You have also found a wonderful resource, this board.

Welcome!

Dtking · #6 05/02/2006, 11:45 AM

Thanks for you help, i will ask if i need help, i am in the beginning stages. Where is the best place to buy accessories? and where is the best place to buy the rock and all that other organisims that go inside the tank around the edmond area?!

thanks,
Dustin and Melissa

MyMonkey · #7 05/02/2006, 01:11 PM

You have found the motherload of information and resources. This forum as well as COMAS in general has provided me with answer after answer. Feel free to ask anything here. Someone is always willing to offer assistance it seems.

Regarding your tank. Some may say that the 10 gallon is not the best of picks for a beginner. However, I had a 10 gallon running for about 8 months and it proved fairly easy to maintain. Although, I had no fish in it. You may want to look into what you want to keep. For now though, reading will benefit you the most.

Youngsilver · #8 05/02/2006, 05:26 PM

Quote:

around the edmond area?!

just south of 15th street, on kelly is Aquariums, leigh Ann is very good about selling you only what you need, not a lot of other crap. Nor will she let you leave with something you cant care for.
http://okcfishlady.com/

Russ Braaten · #9 05/02/2006, 10:28 PM

One thing you need to do soon if you have not done so yet, get at least a cup of sand from someones established tank to help start the bio cycle in your tank. Do not mix it all through the sand but instead, place the bio active sand all in one place. This should also help you get worms and bugs (pods) started as well.

Dtking · #10 05/03/2006, 12:16 AM

I think i am getting way to excited about all of this... hehehe, but i need to know what equipment to get to start off with for my 10 gal, i am mainly focusing on keeping rock and other little organisims alive, but i will eventually want to add an anemonie and a clown fish with some crabs to clean, but what is the main equipment i need, please give websites or any names of filters or pumps or anything. I did go by leighanns, but she was not yet open, i will try again on thrusday. Please dont give me items that are really expensive, i am just trying to go low budget on this thing at first!

thanks for all of the info so far
Dustin and Melissa

Russ Braaten · #11 05/03/2006, 11:52 AM

With a 10 gallon, rather than getting an expensive protien skimmer I would just do more water changes, like 2 gallons every 2 weeks. You need to move water. I would get a MaxiJet 1200 pump. They are about $20 and work well. You could get a test kit for the nitrates and ammonia but most LFS will do it free if you are their customers.

Lighting is the next thing that is important. www.aquatraders.com has very cheap lights that will suffice. Get compact fluorescent or T5. Get the most watts that will fit your tank.

captbunzo · #12 05/03/2006, 09:47 PM

A good first tip, honestly, is to go for a bigger tank. Stability of the ecosystem will be a little tough in a 10G tank - not a lot of water volume to work with. I'd recommend aiming for a 29G (minimum). 55G or 75G is a better start.

Live rock is a must, as well as a protein skimmer. For live rock, I'd ignore the recommendations of many books, sites, etc, and buy about 1 lb per gallon of the tank. A lot of sites will say 1.5-2 lbs, but I think that is not really required, especially when starting out.

For the bottom of the tank, I would go for anywhere between 1-3 inches of the finest grain aragonite sand you can find. I recommend a sand packaged by Seachem, in the line "Tidal Marine Substrates", named "Meridian Oolitic". More about it can be found herer.

For a protein skimmer, which you should consider a required element of filtration, I would recommend either a Coralife Super Skimmer or a AquaC Remora. The Remora is a better skimmer, but costs more. The Coralife is not a bad entry level model.

You need to create a big pile of water flow, which can be done in many ways. The best options are either diffused flow powerheads (SEIO or Tunze Stream) or a Closed Loop (CL) & Closed Loop Manifold (CLM). Do some searches on the latter for more information.

Anyhow, as far as quantity is concerned, I would suggest 20 times GPH flow in the tank. For instance, for a 30G tank, that would be 600GPH of flow. Up to 30-40x is very reasonable as well. For a small tank, like a 29G tank, a SEIO powerhead or 2 would be great.

T5 HO or PC (Power Compact, Compact Flourescent) are spot on recommendations. Also, note that to start you'll probably want to aim for keeping Mushrooms, Softies & LPS corals, etc. These are (generally speaking) the most resilient classes of corals and will be easiest to keep, from a newbies perspective.

Lastly, for now, a couple general recommendations.

1. Research everything before a purchase is made. Don't go into stores and allow a salesperson, yourself, your girlfriend, etc, to talk you into buying something. This will save you money and frustration. And this goes for equipment, drygoods, and livestock. You can run things by us all in the club forum as a good measuring stick on the reasonability of an idea.

2. Buy some books. While the web & store owners can be valuable resources, some good books will be your absolutely best bet. Ask here and someone will recommend a good book. If you join the club, which is a good idea, you can check out excellent books from the club library.

3. Take your time. As I state below in my signature, only bad things happen fast in this hobby.

4. Be responsible. We are caretakers of the critters that we put in our tanks. We have a responsibility to each animal, large or small. This is both a moral obligation as well as a smart way to avoid regulations from encroaching into our hobby to much in the US, as has happened elsewhere.

5. Know first and foremost that like many hobbies, etc, there are a million opinions, facts, etc, and they often disagree with each other. Try not to resolve them all at first. You won't be able to. Rather, do your homework. Pick a method of setting up & running your tank, and then go from there. You can always make changes, etc, if you change your mind on something. And as I keep learning, there will always be the next tank, either sooner or later.

That's all I can think of for the moment. Have fun!!!

Dtking · #13 05/03/2006, 10:31 PM

captbuno,
Thank you very much you have been great help, and that goes to all of you, i am starting to get on the right track, my tank is finally at the right levels to add rock, i am not yet comfortable to add fish, but i will get there soon. I am going to join the club, but i dont want to be that guy that has that crappy 10 gal tank hehehe j/k. I will keep posting on here asking questions, no doubt about that! hehe You all are really great, thats why I LOVE OKLAHOMA!!!

thanks again,
Dustin & Melissa

ReeferRyan · #14 05/03/2006, 10:54 PM

Paul, I have a question, if you are supposed to have 20x total water volume of flow, how do you achieve that without disturbing everything? I have 2 MJ 1200 and 2 MJ 900 in my 75 (by my calculations, thats 1050 GPH) and I have to constantly put sand back in place that has been blown around, corals fall off the rocks, so on and so on. I am going to plumb in a closed loop soon, but with a Mag 9.5, several 90's and a SCWD, that will only add about 500 GPH.

How do I keep everything from getting torn up?

kpk · #15 05/03/2006, 11:37 PM

Ryan if I may add my opinion about your water flow. I would go with a pressure rated pump like http://cgi.ebay.com/Gen-X-PCX40-Aqua...QQcmdZViewItem for the closed loop, with either the penductor or eductor on the ends http://www.kthsales.com/website/Misc...nthusiasts.htm they will make the water flow like a tunze/seio with the wide water flow. I am running barebottom which makes it alot easier, I have a sequence reeflo barracuda at 4200 or so gph in my 75g, keeps things nice and clean.

captbunzo · #16 05/04/2006, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ReeferRyan
How do I keep everything from getting torn up?

The important point here is the difference between laminar and diffuse flow. Laminar flow is like a firehose, powerful in a small area. Diffuse flow is more like a gentle, rolling current. It is really impressive to feel the difference.

The 2 diffuse flow powerhead lines I know of are SEIO & Tunze Stream. Maxijets, while great & reliable, are laminar.

I started with maxijets for my 29G tank. Then I moved to SEIO 620s for my 55G tank. The difference is amazing. If you put your hand in front of the SEIOs, it feels like less flow then a maxijet. However, in reality, it is more then twice as powerful - AND at less watts. Tunzes are even better on both counts, though more expensive.

Concerning Closed Loops. The important concept here is that you don't replace one laminar flow source with another. There are many ways to avoid this with a closed loop. For one, check out how Paul W. is plumbing his closed loop in his 660G tank. My favorite, at current, is a Closed Loop Manifold (CLM).

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...2003/short.htm

In short, you take the output of your closed loop pump and plumb it to a manifold of outputs around the top of the tank. This way you distribute the flow around the tank and create more diffused flow. I implemented this with a Sequence Reeflo Dart on my sister's 90G tank. The manifold had 10 3/4" nozzles around the top. It is working wonderfully.

captbunzo · #17 05/04/2006, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dtking
Thank you very much you have been great help, and that goes to all of you, i am starting to get on the right track, my tank is finally at the right levels to add rock, i am not yet comfortable to add fish, but i will get there soon. I am going to join the club, but i dont want to be that guy that has that crappy 10 gal tank hehehe j/k. I will keep posting on here asking questions, no doubt about that! hehe You all are really great, thats why I LOVE OKLAHOMA!!!

Don't worry about only having a 10G tank. Nano tanks can be great. I have a 20G long in my office that is wonderful. And great to hear that you are going to join the club. It will be well worth your money.

Concerning flow. One more note.

There are several/many reasons that we create flow in our tank. Some of this relates to properly importing food to corals and exporting waste away from them.

However, one reason is to keep solids suspended in the water. In short, surface tension will help to collect a layer of crud on the top of your water. If you keep solids in the water circulating properly, it will increase the amount of crud that will collect on the surface. And it will avoid the amount of crud that settles on the bottom of the tank. The surface crud can then be collected via an overflow (either as part of a skimmer or to a sump) and then skimmed out.

Another note. Many people have mixed experiences with Deep Sand Beds, or sand beds in general. A couple of things to help you out here.

1. Fine grain is easier to work with as it is more resistent to solids collecting in the sand.

2. Good, DIFFUSE flow will help to avoid solids from collecting on the sand. And by this, we are talking 20x minimum, perferably more. For a 29G tank, this would be accomplished well be a pair of SEIO 620 powerheads.

Just more of my rambling. Hope it helps!

Russ Braaten · #18 05/04/2006, 08:56 AM

ReeferRyan,

I aim my powerheads so they don't blast the sand. I often aim them up so they boil and turn the water. As Paul said, you don't want to blast stuff like a fire hose but to have movement all over. All people may not agree but with a closed loop you can design it with a lot of heads and diffusers so it moves the water rather than creating high pressure streams in the water.

ReeferRyan · #19 05/04/2006, 09:35 AM

Thanks for the advice. I will definitely be doing some more research before I do my CL.

The reason I was asking is that I have my powerheads all aimed so that they should not disturb the sand, nor should the flow conflict with each other, but I somehow have a major crossflow problem and it ends up blowing all of the sand out of the center my tank in front of the rocks. I definitely appreciate the help.

Travis L. Stevens · #20 05/04/2006, 09:43 AM

Well, I'm afraid that I haven't grabbed much time recently, but the advice that everyone has given is definitely spot on. Also YGPM. That's "You Got Private Message" if you don't know your acronyms yet. Also, in case you haven't read and are curious about all the jargon that is flying around, take a look here. http://reefcentral.com/modules.php?s...&eid=2&ltr=all

Oh, and

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