A couple questions, 10g

[phnx314]

So it came to me last night that when I finish my current breeding project I could possibly turn my 10g into my first saltwater tank. But I have a couple questions.

1. Is 10g doable? I know it is pretty small, but it has a lid so evaporation wouldn’t be much of an issue. It’s the TopFin kit
2. What could I put in this tank? I am thinking it would probably be FOWLR, with maaayyyyyybe a few corals.
3. Do I really need RO water? Because if I do, saltwater just isn’t possible for me. I can’t drive to LFS and there’s nowhere to put an RO system in my house

 

[Jesterrace]

1) 10 gallon is doable but not very forgiving for water parameters. A lid will help but evaporation is a huge factor with saltwater since water evaporates but salt doesn't and in a small tank like that the salinity can rise very quickly. A good solution is to put an auto top off system which adds fresh RODI water from a water jug to the tank as water evaporates. This keeps salinity levels balanced.

2) There are a few small fish you could do in that tank for FOWLR. Small Gobies (ie Clown Goby, Rainsford, Neon, Orange Spotted), Barnacle Blenny, Firefish. That said only 2 max for that tank as that will be a fairly heavy bioload for that tank.

3) Treated Tapwater is very prone to giving you unwanted algae issues at best (ie green hair algae, cyanbacteria aka Red Slime Algae). That and corals are very sensitive to many of the random solids and minerals that are in tap, so there is a good chance they will struggle. Treated Tap is also very prone to giving saltwater tanks a cloudy/murky look by comparison to tanks that use RODI. One of the things folks don't realize coming over from freshwater is that the salt crystals you use for the saltwater mix are very highly mineralized as is and have everything you need for a healthy tank and nothing you don't want. When you add all this to whatever random minerals and solids in tap, you often get all the aforementioned issues. The good news is that you don't need to have a ton of space for an RODI System. Aquatic Life makes the RO Buddie which is designed to be portable (can even hook it up to a garden hose if you want). So you don't need to permanently mount a good sized system anywhere. Even better is that it only runs less than $70 (roughly the cost of a 70-75 gallon HOB Filter).

Aquatic Life RO Buddie Four Stage Osmosis System, 50-gal - Chewy.com

 

[mimo91088]

I've done a 10 gallon nano reef very low tech and used treated tap water. It's totally possible. But bigger would be much easier.
As for fish I had ocellaris clowns. Coral were zoas, mushrooms, a big Duncan, a favia colony, an acan colony, and a couple montis.

 

[saltwater60]

Tap water sources vary wildly and one person saying it worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you.
what’s your water source? If you have any intent on keeping a reef tank an RODI is a MUST!!

 

[phnx314]

Tap water sources vary wildly and one person saying it worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you.
what’s your water source? If you have any intent on keeping a reef tank an RODI is a MUST!!

I am on city water unfortunately. Sourced from the catawba river. Something is probably weird with it too as it comes out of the tap with a pH of 5.8. If I do end up jumping into saltwater, I will be going with a 4-stage RODI system.

 

[FinalFins]

I am on city water unfortunately. Sourced from the catawba river. Something is probably weird with it too as it comes out of the tap with a pH of 5.8. If I do end up jumping into saltwater, I will be going with a 4-stage RODI system.

pH of 5.8??

Dang that would be perfect for the kind of fish I want to keep!

 

[phnx314]

pH of 5.8??

Dang that would be perfect for the kind of fish I want to keep!

It’s ridiculous. Terrible for keeping snails. Trade?

This is what shows up on test strips lol. When I can test with low pH, it will show up 5.8-6.0.

 

[FinalFins]

It’s ridiculous. Terrible for keeping snails. Trade?
View attachment 718701
This is what shows up on test strips lol. When I can test with low pH, it will show up 5.8-6.0.

Trade gladly. I'm grateful for my 7 pH out of tap but 5.8 is pretty neat. Easy south american biotope tank!

 

[Jesterrace]

Tap water sources vary wildly and one person saying it worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for you.
what’s your water source? If you have any intent on keeping a reef tank an RODI is a MUST!!

Agreed. My biggest gripe with folks who promote tapwater as being okay, is that they treat it as some one size fits all type metric. Bottom line there are some municipal tapwater systems that are basically around RO quality and others that are so bad they need a prefilter even for an RODI system (ie NYC). It can even vary from one part of the same town to another part of the same town. So unless the person recommending it happens to live in the same part of town as you do, then the "I've used tapwater with no issues" statement is useless.