new saltwater tank

[patricka]

hi,

so I recently started reading about saltwater, for a long time I wanted to have a tank with just clowns (nemos).

today I own a 65G american cichlid tank and love it I started the hobby in january with my sisters 20G tank and just a hangover filter just to see if I will like the hobby or not, I think I spent maybe tops 100$ on that aquarium. today I own my 65G and have spent about 1000$ for it and I'm having fun.

so I went to this saltwater store because they are specialized in reefs, saltwater etc... I wanted to know if I can build myself a nanotank with just live rock and 2 nemos nothing more.

basically I was told that a 10G tank is too small, I need a 30G minimum + a 250$ skimmer and salt and sand and pumps... total of 750$.
I find this to be too much just for me to try and see if I will like saltwater.

the setup I was thinking about was a 10G or 20G with a hangover filter, OK lighting since I have no corals and 2 clowns with maybe 2..3 cleaning crew. this implies that I change water about 25% each week I already know all this I own freshwater. I can live with that total cost of maybe 150$ but again do I really need to dump 750$+ just to test?

thanks for the help.


what do you guys think? if I like it I will update with time but I don't want to throw 700+ dollars just for the sake of testing it's just not right.

 

[BL1]

I wouldn't do a 10g as a first time tank and trying to put 2 fish in it. I'd go with a 20 or 29g tank if you don't want to go bigger. Something to remember with saltwater is that it becomes exponentially harder to keep your water stable (salinity, temp, pH, and other levels) as your tank size gets smaller. If you don't want any corals, you'd be fine with a normal strip light that comes with the tanks. Also, with tanks under 30g it's not necessary to use a skimmer but, if you wanted one you could easily find a good one for your tank for about $120. You'd be ok doing just a 10-15% weekly water change (that's usually the norm). And as far as clean up crew you'd probably need more than just three, it's important to have a large and varied enough crew to keep your tank as clean as possible.

 

[NanoReefer]

+1 bl1 a 20-29 would be great. i started with a ten gallon using 2 hob filters and it worked great for me but i was meticulous with 20 % weekly waterchanges and alot of live rock and a refugium

 

[Smitty]

+2 Brian...

 

[Amba]

Yeah there is a huge difference between a 10g and a 29g as far as stability.

 

[little_fish]

+1 Everyone

But this is an expensive hobby, and if you try and take all the cheap short cuts you are probably going to end up with more issues than you can manage

 

[Northstar24]

+1 Everyone

But this is an expensive hobby, and if you try and take all the cheap short cuts you are probably going to end up with more issues than you can manage

and not only will you have issues, you will have spent more than if you had just done it right the first time....