can you make a 10 gallon salt water?

[preggoguppo]

i was wondering if there is a min. gallon tank you need to have salt water... do you just add salt to regular water every so often? is it really hard to maintain? once you make a tank salt, can you ever make it freshwater again? can you just use the same filter and heater as i did in freshwater?

 

[SALTY WATERS]

Sure can! check mine out, I just put up a post Titled "It's been a while! New Tank & new pics" Check it out. I would recommend doing alot of reaserch on SW tanks before you enter the hobby, as a general rule for tank size in the aquarium keeping hobby... bigger is better, but small tanks can be done with a litte more care and attention.

 

[aresgod]

yes some reading might be your best first investmen
mike paletta's "The New marine Aquarium" is a good one to start with.

 

[seastaar88]

if it's your first SW tank, i'd go MUCH bigger than a 10g because small SW tanks fluctuate much more and require a lot more attention as salty waters mentioned. SW keeping is much different than FW keeping, so research it before you decide to go ahead with it since there are a lot more variables in a SW system.

 

[lordroad]

These are called nano tanks, guppo, and we have our own sub forum next door. I began my saltwater experience with a ten gallon and I don't see it being any more difficult than a larger tank as long as you know what you're doing. Evaporation is much worse and fresh water needs to be topped off every day or every other day, and weekly water changes are a must. However, you'll soon want a bigger tank just cause you can put more stuff in a 20 gallon or larger. But tens are definitely doable and in my opinion not too difficult, long as you've done your homework on the topic.

Here are some pics of my ten gallon tank as well as some links at the bottom of the thread:
http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28125

 

[sweetfishy]

i have 3 tanks one is a ten gallon i have not had a single problem with it. it has 15 lbs of live rock. no sand bed. two fish two shrimp one starfish two snails two hermit crabs. a power head to circulate the water and a small power compact light. thats it. i do a 2 gallon water change every week and i never have to top off the tank. no heater, no protein skimmer, nothing but a single power head and the tank has been up a year with the same two fish i started with

 

[OCCFan023]

where u from sweet, your room tempt must be pretty hot to keep the water at a decent temp

 

[sweetfishy]

northern indiana and my yellow clown gobie and clown fish have no problem with the temp. i dont know what its at cause i dont have a thermometer in the tank either but my house is 68 degrees all year

 

[DustinKeating]

ahaha wow man you're ballsy, 68 is pretty low for a saltwater tank. I keep mine at around 78-80, and that seems to be the general concensus for most others. But you're doing a fish only tank, and fish are more tolerant of temp changes than corals.

 

[wayne]

The powerhead will be adding a couple of degrees to that. Still a bit low though, but if it works....

 

[discus4everGrl]

I just started my first sw and its a 10 gallon nano. I guess the biggest differences between sw and fw, without the obvious salt are:

You can not keep nearly the livestock in sw as you can in fw
Water conditions must be near perfect if not perfect
more expensive

However, it's so cool to just look at the live rock and what comes on it. I just got a clean up crew and thats cool. Now I am gonna wait a bit and add a couple fish and thats about the extent of livestock. Now as far as corals and anemones go, I haven't gotten that far yet, but they need alot of lighting and most can't be kept in a 10 gallon. But it has been a rewarding experience thus far.

 

[1979camaro]

Now as far as corals and anemones go, I haven't gotten that far yet, but they need alot of lighting and most can't be kept in a 10 gallon.

while i would agree that most anemones are not suitable for a 10, there are a lot of corals which are quite suitable for nano tanks

 

[discus4everGrl]

sweet---I want some, eventually