First Nano Marine Tank

[jayjay]

Well i've been looking into this for about a week now so not long but I thought i'd get your opinions on my plan.

I will have a 10g tank to use, plan on 2 powerheads rated 75-100GPH (this would give me 15-20 x an hour turnover and would leave few dead spots, if any) in both of the back corners pointing towards the middle of the front glass, heater, 6 KG's of LR and lighting which i'm unsure of yet. This is where it got tricky, 10g of water isn't the most stable amount so I thought about using a 3.5g refigum, then I though why not go one further and I got thinking about using an 8g sump aswel. Now I will need an external filter to pump the water back into the tank but if I did use an external filter, I can't use teh normal fitler media, so it would either be run with a DSB and a few bits of crushed LR or all crushed LR. Now to me it seems alot better and more stable. Would I need to run a protein skimmer as the amount of water is now at 21.5g? Also more LR would be needed? So I could put some in the refigum and some in the sump about 3-4 KGs more probably, also I could try growing macro algae in the sump.

What I was aiming stocking wise in the tank was, 1 firefish and 1 neon blue goby, 8 snails, 1 or 2 hermits and a cleaner shrimp. Sound suitable?

Well that's my plans so far, it will be a slow progress buying a few things when I can. So any comments or thought on improving it?

 

[steelhealr]

Thoughts:
-nix the DSB....the are considered ineffective in nano systems....you're asking for a headache otherwise

-choice of fish is fine

-you could bump up the snails a bit

-no need for a protein skimmer if you do weekly 10% water changes

-not a big fan of crushed coral...would stick with aragonite sand. SH

 

[andywg]

I would be surprised if a seperate DSB would not work. The biggest problem with DSBs is not setting them up properly. You need to have a depth of at least 6" to get good results. substrate guidance generally rests at either less than 1", or more than 6".

WetWebMedia has a good section on DSBs. I would certainly not recommend them in the main tank as they take up most the viewing room, but if you run a sump (or build a DSB in an old cannister filter) then I see no reason why it wouldn't work, no matter the size of the tank.

However...

The problem with such small sumps is getting useful area out of them. A DSB would be very hard in a sump that small. if you run a DSB you really need 3 chambers for a DSB sump, one for the water to fall into, one for the DSB (with macro on top) and a last one for the return pump. Unless your 8 gallon is very tall you will struggle to have the height necessary for an effective depth.

I agree that a Protein skimmer is not necessary, though it is not going to do any harm either.

I would be more tempted by a fuge, or doing the sump, but making it two section, have the water fall into a larger chamber with a shallow substrate of aragonite sand with LR rubble over the top with a macro-algae growing on top.

If you really want to try a DSB (and i have had fantastic results with my two) I would say the best bet on a tank that small is to get a FLuval 204 and rip out all the plastic inserts so you have a bucket and a head. Fill it to about 2-3" from the top with sand and then put some LR rubble on top to deflect any incoming current. This has worked great on my frog tank, and you can use the pump powerhead as part of your circulation.

 

[jayjay]

Ok thanks, i'm undecided yet and not totally sure about going marine as ATM I don't have the funds I may try around xmas time as I can get alot of stuff then with money etc.