# 10g equipment questions



## bubbles1 (Jun 25, 2011)

So I'm planning on gettting a ten gallon saltwater tank, I was wondering if a protein skimmer will help me do less water changes? Just to make my job easier. I heard it keeps your water cleaner, could I do a water change every two weeks with a protein skimmer?

If I don't have a RO filter how do I do water changes? Just use tap water and add correct amount of salt + dechlorinator and let it sit over night with a pump?

Is it possible to by like the dry coral rock (not sure what its called) like 10 pounds and lets say 2 pounds of live rocks to help cycle? (Because the live rock is expensive)

Thanks for all help!

Bubbles.


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## RSully (Nov 22, 2012)

Bubbles, I have a 10 gallon Quaretine tank I've set-up in the event I ever want to introduce new fish to my display tank. Here's what I did. I started with Live sand, about 10 pds or so of live rock and utilized the pre-mixed water. For me, it was just easier to use stuf already made and then mix my own water afterwords for water changes. I just don;t have the space in my house to keep 10 gallons of pre-mixed water. I set my 20 gallon up the same way using about 20-25 pds of LR bought over a period of a week or so. IN both tanks, my water was cycled and stable in about 5 days. So far, my only issue in either tank is a rather large and annoying aiptasia problem in my QT. In my DT, I've got 1 yellow tail blue damsel, a coral banded shrimp, 4 hermits, 3 nassrius snails, 1 marghartia snail, green star polyp, hammer coral, kenya tree, feather duster and a mushroom. So far(knock on wood), Everythings survived and doing well. I consider myself lucky so far.

Now, more to answer your question, you could do a mix of LR and dry rock to start your cycle. This will probably take a bit longer to cycle but it would work. (read up on the 29 gallon bio-cube set-up). One other thing with LR, you will get hitchhikers on it, some good some not so good. I do water changes straight from my tap, dechorinate and add instant ocean, let sit for a day. This has worked for me so far but I've read and heard of others having probalems doing it this way. Most will tell you to use RO/DI. My suggestion would be to get a water report from your city/county or whatever and see whats present in it. If it's well water< I don't know what to tell you. I've read horror stories on here about people who used well water.

I'm the least experienced on here at SW so take what I've siad with a grain of salt. Reefing madness has a lot of experience with SW and he'll be able to help you.


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## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

Will the Protein Skimmer help, definately will. As far as water changes go, only your test kit will tell you when thats going to be needed. If your Nitrates don't get high, don't change the water. Water Parameters are teh key to success here, and if they are bad, so will your tank. 
You don't need any Live Rock at all, you can use all Dry, Base Rock if you wished to, no problem there.
Gong without RO water is going to upset you in the long run, with all the sponge and things that will grow because of the nutrients in the tap water, but yes, you can use it. What you need to do is this, you can do tops offs on the tank at anytime using just tap water, no salt, but when you are to do a water change, you need to mix up a batch of salt water 24 hours prior to you needing to use it.

Now for the rest of what you didnt know you might need:

#1-Dry Rock, there are a few hitchhikers on Live Rock that people want to stay away from, so they opt for using Dry Rock, or Dead Rock. Macro Rock is a good place to start looking for that. Either way you go you will need a minimum of 1lb per gallon.

#2-Replacement filter media like filter floss and activated carbon (if you get a filter) Which is really not necessary.

#3-Multiple Power heads (2 or 3) 10x your water volume for just a Fish Only With Live Rock, and at least 20x your water volume for a Reef Tank. So lets say your going reef, and you have a 100g tank, you would need flow in that tank at minimum of 2000gph, or 2 1000gph power heads.

#4-Protein Skimmer, rated at 2 times your water volume. Unless your tank is under 30g, in which case you can do 10% water changes a week to rid the system of detrius. But, you'll have to watch the water parameters close, if things go haywire, you'll have to do more water changes.

#5-Saltwater Test Kits. Reef Test Kit. Test for Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH, Phosphates, Calcium, ALK and Magnesium.

#6-Saltwater fish food. Mysis Shrimp, Squid, Cyclopease, Algae Sheets, Romaine . Flake food is not really a good food to feed your marine fish.

#7-Aquarium vacuum. This one is iffy. Most don't use one, if you have enough flow in the tank you won’t need one

#8-Rubber kitchen gloves

#9-Fish net

#10-Two, clean, never used before, 5-gallon buckets

#11-Aquarium thermometer, digital being the best.

#12-Brush with plastic bristles (old tooth brush) - needed for cleaning the live rock if you don't get Fully Cured Live Rock.

#13-Power Strip, possibly GFCI outlets by the tank.

#14-Optional but definitely recommend getting a Reverse Osmosis or RO/Deionization filter for the make-up water, and a barrel for storing the water.

#15-Possibly a Quarantine Tank for your new fish. They sit in here for a few weeks to kill off parasites and bacteria, to keep it from getting in your main tank

#16-Heater rated for your size tank.

#17-Saltwater Mix. Marine Salt. Instant Ocean is the cheap Salt that beginners and Advanced use alike.

#18-Saltwater Hydrometer or even better a Refractometer, which is more accurate. There is also a Digital Meter that is way advanced if you have the cash.

#19-Aquarium filter (not absolutely necessary if running with adequate amounts of live rock, but nice to have if you need to use a mechanical filter or activated carbon, or GFO and such)

#20-Aquarium substrate such as live sand or crushed coral. Some go bare Bottom, others choose the 2-3" bottom, others, more advanced will try the Deep Sand Bed, which is over 6" deep.

Volusion Demo Store

Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle and cycling. Methods for ammonia, nitrite removal.

aquarium heater in Aquarium & Fish | eBay

power heads in Pumps | eBay

New 0 10 Salinity Refractometer Salt Water Aquarium | eBay

MarcoRocks Aquarium Products

Bulk Dry Live Rock & Live Sand - Bulk Reef Supply

Live Rock and Live Sand: Live Saltwater Aquarium Rock and Sand

Fish & Aquarium Supplies: Marine Substrates, Sand, Crushed Coral, Live Sand

Aquarium Lighting; Reef, Planted Light Information. PAR, Bulb, Watt, Kelvin, Nanometers, MH, LED.

http://live-plants.com/

What Your Coral Needs | Successful Reef Keeping

t-5 lighting in Home & Garden | eBay

cree led aquarium in Lighting | eBay

Aquarium Salt Mix: Salt for Saltwater and Freshwater Fish Aquariums


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## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

Will the Protein Skimmer help, definately will. As far as water changes go, only your test kit will tell you when thats going to be needed. If your Nitrates don't get high, don't change the water. Water Parameters are teh key to success here, and if they are bad, so will your tank. 
You don't need any Live Rock at all, you can use all Dry, Base Rock if you wished to, no problem there.
Gong without RO water is going to upset you in the long run, with all the sponge and things that will grow because of the nutrients in the tap water, but yes, you can use it. What you need to do is this, you can do tops offs on the tank at anytime using just tap water, no salt, but when you are to do a water change, you need to mix up a batch of salt water 24 hours prior to you needing to use it.

Now for the rest of what you didnt know you might need:

#1-Dry Rock, there are a few hitchhikers on Live Rock that people want to stay away from, so they opt for using Dry Rock, or Dead Rock. Macro Rock is a good place to start looking for that. Either way you go you will need a minimum of 1lb per gallon.

#2-Replacement filter media like filter floss and activated carbon (if you get a filter) Which is really not necessary.

#3-Multiple Power heads (2 or 3) 10x your water volume for just a Fish Only With Live Rock, and at least 20x your water volume for a Reef Tank. So lets say your going reef, and you have a 100g tank, you would need flow in that tank at minimum of 2000gph, or 2 1000gph power heads.

#4-Protein Skimmer, rated at 2 times your water volume. Unless your tank is under 30g, in which case you can do 10% water changes a week to rid the system of detrius. But, you'll have to watch the water parameters close, if things go haywire, you'll have to do more water changes.

#5-Saltwater Test Kits. Reef Test Kit. Test for Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH, Phosphates, Calcium, ALK and Magnesium.

#6-Saltwater fish food. Mysis Shrimp, Squid, Cyclopease, Algae Sheets, Romaine . Flake food is not really a good food to feed your marine fish.

#7-Aquarium vacuum. This one is iffy. Most don't use one, if you have enough flow in the tank you won’t need one

#8-Rubber kitchen gloves

#9-Fish net

#10-Two, clean, never used before, 5-gallon buckets

#11-Aquarium thermometer, digital being the best.

#12-Brush with plastic bristles (old tooth brush) - needed for cleaning the live rock if you don't get Fully Cured Live Rock.

#13-Power Strip, possibly GFCI outlets by the tank.

#14-Optional but definitely recommend getting a Reverse Osmosis or RO/Deionization filter for the make-up water, and a barrel for storing the water.

#15-Possibly a Quarantine Tank for your new fish. They sit in here for a few weeks to kill off parasites and bacteria, to keep it from getting in your main tank

#16-Heater rated for your size tank.

#17-Saltwater Mix. Marine Salt. Instant Ocean is the cheap Salt that beginners and Advanced use alike.

#18-Saltwater Hydrometer or even better a Refractometer, which is more accurate. There is also a Digital Meter that is way advanced if you have the cash.

#19-Aquarium filter (not absolutely necessary if running with adequate amounts of live rock, but nice to have if you need to use a mechanical filter or activated carbon, or GFO and such)

#20-Aquarium substrate such as live sand or crushed coral. Some go bare Bottom, others choose the 2-3" bottom, others, more advanced will try the Deep Sand Bed, which is over 6" deep.

Volusion Demo Store

Aquarium Nitrogen Cycle and cycling. Methods for ammonia, nitrite removal.

aquarium heater in Aquarium & Fish | eBay

power heads in Pumps | eBay

New 0 10 Salinity Refractometer Salt Water Aquarium | eBay

MarcoRocks Aquarium Products

Bulk Dry Live Rock & Live Sand - Bulk Reef Supply

Live Rock and Live Sand: Live Saltwater Aquarium Rock and Sand

Fish & Aquarium Supplies: Marine Substrates, Sand, Crushed Coral, Live Sand

Aquarium Lighting; Reef, Planted Light Information. PAR, Bulb, Watt, Kelvin, Nanometers, MH, LED.

http://live-plants.com/

What Your Coral Needs | Successful Reef Keeping

t-5 lighting in Home & Garden | eBay

cree led aquarium in Lighting | eBay

Aquarium Salt Mix: Salt for Saltwater and Freshwater Fish Aquariums


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