Starting A 10g Sw Tank.....kind Of

[CathyGo]

I would eventually love to get a saltwater tank but since I'm leaving for the military in 4 months I see no point in putting together a good set-up and cycling it just in time to put it in storage. So I was wondering if just putting some live rock in my 10 gallon would help to at least learn how to cycle and keep the salinity good so when I get my SW tank later on I already have been through that once. Or would it be a waste of my time and money? I've heard that you can get some pretty interesting critters out of live rock. Would I have to feed them since there won't be any fish in the system? I'm also thinking of adding something like a clown fish and then just selling the system to recoup some of my costs.

My ten gallon is just a basic freshwater set-up. I know my light(measly 15w) will have to be upgraded but what about my filter? It's a normal HOB filter for a 10g. I also have a second filter rated for 10g and a sponge filter rated for 5g that I can add if needed. Anything else I would have to upgrade? I'm not adding anything like a protein skimmer because I'm doing this on a tight budget.

How fast could I expect my tank to cycle with 10 lbs. of live rock in it? I know from freshwater there are no hard and fast rules but a general timeline would be helpful.

This was just kind of an idea of what to do since I can't have a complete SW system yet and don't have any experience with them. I miss having a tank to take care of. The only thing I have right now are some malysian trumpet snails in a gallon jar in my bathroom from when I had a betta iso'd in there. Any ideas of upkeep costs would be helpful too.

 

[@ombomb]

Personally I'd say you're wasting your time and money getting attached to a tank you won't be able to maintain.

Might be better if you had someone who you could pass the tank / livestock onto that had an interest in keeping a marine tank.

In terms of cycling live rock, all you really need to do is add salt water, the salinity of which is pretty simple to maintain.

 

[dilbert]

When you buy your live rock directly from an LFS nearby and this live rock has been at the LFS in an established tank for some time then you don't need to do any cycling at all. You may get a little ammonia spike of 0.25 ppm or so for a few days.

I bought my live rock from two different LFS each half an hour drive distance. The second time I got a styrofoam box and left that in the passenger compartment instead in the boot and I had no die-off at all.

Later I thought I could have even brought a bucket with prepaired saltwater of roughly 80°F and that might have been even better.

But next point is then as already mentioned where to leave the tank and the live rock when those four month are over.

Upkeep costs are at first measurement instruments and test kits and that depends if you can get some cheap or borrow them and how experienced you feel yourself to omit water tests as you see what's going on. I feel always quite uncertain and do testing all the time (not only that ammonia/nitrite/nitrate stuff but alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, even oxygen, and copper and chlorine to double-check tap and RO water).

Next costs are electricity for heater or chiller depending on the room the tank is in and costs for light depending on the critters in tank. Only corals need much light and some of them very much.

And then naturally salt and RO and DI water again depending how is your tap or well water and what's in the tank. If I wouldn't have a small rock with soft corals that would be a pain to clean from algae I would probably go with tap water as it's only a little phosphate in it that stops me from using it.

 

[CathyGo]

Personally I'd say you're wasting your time and money getting attached to a tank you won't be able to maintain.

Might be better if you had someone who you could pass the tank / livestock onto that had an interest in keeping a marine tank.

In terms of cycling live rock, all you really need to do is add salt water, the salinity of which is pretty simple to maintain.

Actually I know someone who wants a "Nemo fish" in a small reef set-up but as he hasn't even done freshwater before I don't think a nano tank would be a good place to start. He's willing to learn just never had a tank before. He wants to go with a 20 gallon but he would definitely take a 10 gallon. I offered him my 55 gallon for free because it would have cost me a lot to store it but his wife said it was too big so I gave it to another friend to house his frontosa pair. The live rock would have to endure a bike ride home so I'm sure I would get some die-off. If I could trust someone to keep the tank going while I'm doing my initial training tanks up to 20 gallons are allowed in most barracks so I could take it back.

Small established tanks are VERY easy to sell on Craigslist around here. I could also post it on a group called Freecycle to get rid of it real fast. I normally have a response within 20 minutes on fish stuff off of Freecycle. Craigslist takes a little longer(1-2 days) but I get less impulse buyers who know very little about fish and of course with Freecycle I can't ask people to pay for anything.