I've decided to put together a 10gallon nano and have a few questions.
I know I can keep maybe 2 fish in this tank, what else can go with a yellow watchman gobie?
Is a powerhead necessary?
What invertebrate should I keep?
What coral would be the easiest to maintain?
What lighting would I need for the coral?
Yellow watchman goby with pistol shrimp is an excellent combination. You could also keep a clownfish too but you'd need to monitor your water parameters to ensure it didn't exceed the bio-load. If you had a sump and
plenty of live rock, then you could possibly get away with a pair of clowns. The goby won't stray far from the sand burrow that the shrimp makes and the clowns rarely go to the bottom of the tank, so its not as if they are going to inhibit each others space. However 3 fish in a 10G tank would impact heavily on the bio-load, so unless you had a sump, with refugium growing macro algae, then its going to be 1-2 fish tops. I would recommend you add a sump now rather than later. They increase the total volume of water and therefore make the water parameters more stable. It also allows you to hide heaters and skimmers out of sight as well as increasing the overall circulation.
When adding livestock and corals, do it gradually. Don't be tempted to add your final stocking at once as this may result in an ammonia spike if you have insufficient LR. As live rock is expensive, if might be worthwhile getting some ocean rock / base rock and putting this in the tank first. Then add your live rock. Eventually the ocean rock will become live, as the bacteria and critters move in. I have just added ocean rock to my tank, mixing it in with the LR. Within a few months the rock should be sufficiently seeded with the bacteria.
A powerhead is necessary to circulate the water around the live rock. No circulation = dead rock. The live rock is the biological filtration system. It houses the bacteria that feeds on ammonia and nitrite, breaking it down into nitrate.
Xenia, zoa, mushrooms and leather corals are good beginner corals and easy to keep. Just ensure that your nitrate levels are kept to a minimal. A refugium would be of benefit to help do this, as well as running a protein skimmer. Although skimmers aren't essential on nano tanks, as frequent water changes help reduce the build up of pollutants, a skimmer certainly won't hurt and definitely keeps the water clearer.
As far as lighting goes, you want a minimum of T5 bulbs, preferably metal halides or the powerful 3-5 watt LED light units. At the moment I have two marine wave solaris giving a total of 36w of T5 compact light over my nano. Since the LED units are DAAAAAMN expensive, and multiple compact T5's add up very quickly in price, you might as well get a MH floodlight for about £35 and either wall mount it above your tank or enclose it in a well ventillated hood. All you'll need then is to replace the MH bulb with 14'000k rated bulbs.. etc voila, done!
If you like, have a look through
my nano build thread as it may give you a clearer picture of the above.
