Possible 10g

[Artificial]

I miss having a SW tank. My 20g has been down for over a year now. Pretty much the only money out of my pocket will be for the stocking and LR, good thing for a poor person like myself. I might have enough in gift certificates to make this free minus LR and lighting. Just gonna run my current thoughts by.

Tank(10g):
- CPR BakPak(possibly with one side as a fuge)
- 15lbs LR
- Sand/crushed coral substrate
- 4x17w T8(2x10000k 2xactinic)
- Koralia 1 (if the BakPak with a MJ1200 isn't enough)
- AC filter as a fuge, if not the CPR

Stock:
- Yellow clown goby or twin spot goby or pair of neon gobbies or watchman goby or firefish
- 3 or 4 pepperment shrimp or a coral banded shrimp
- 2 scarlet hermits
- 5 electric blue hermits
- 1 turbo snail
- 3 astraea snails
- 3 cerith snails
- 3 nassarius snails
- zoas or polys and mushrooms, maybe LPS or SPS

[Cliff]

I guess it really depends on you. I would never recommend someone with limited experiance and knowledge about SW tanks to set-up anything smaller than around a 40 gallon tank. A 10 gallon can be a real challenge, even for someone with a lot of experiance. I would be concerned this would even more of a challenge with the CPR BakPak skimmer as these have not received good consumer reviews.

I would recommend that you wait and save up your money for a larger system. That's what I did for my first tank and I'm really glad I did.

BTW, what happend to your 20 gallon set-up ? Why did you take it down?

[labnjab]

With that lighting you'll be limited to softies. Sps and lps will need at least t-5's. T-8's don't do much for a reef. Also, a coral banded is going to be too large for a 10 gallon so I would stick to a couple of peppermints. Ours is 6 or 7 inches.

[Artificial]

My CPR worked great on the 20g. I'm gonna be trying to do everything right this time. I didn't start off with RO/DI water last time, and I believe that's why I had lots of algae for almost 8 months out of the 10 months it was up. I didn't have money to keep maintaining it, so instead of letting it slowy get run down I decided to just tear it down.

EDIT: Thanks labnjab. Did electric blue hermits go up in price, because on F&S they're $8, and I'm sure I paid like $2 each for mine(from a LFS) when I set up my last tank? If they did indeed rise, I'll be going with dwarf zebras.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

With that lighting you'll be limited to softies. Sps and lps will need at least t-5's.

There are a number of LPS that would do just fine in the same lighting and even less than softies. It is a common misconception that LPS need more light than softies, the truth is that there are many soft corals that need more light than LPS, and many LPS corals that do well in lower light levels. I agree that SPS are definitely out, and the the T-8s are not a great choice either. I personally would go with a minimum of PC lights for the tank.

[Artificial]

I'm trying to stay on a budget. $58 for the 4x17w or $29 for 2x17w. I'll probably get just a single 2x17w, and either add another or upgrade to a MH or T5HO fixture when it comes time for coral.

Do my numbers on the CUC seem to high? To me it almost seems that way.

[sunfishman]

My lfs sells blue legs for like 1.50. and if you pay 8 bucks for them, you got ripped off. Good luck on the 10g.

[Artificial]

My lfs sells blue legs for like 1.50. and if you pay 8 bucks for them, you got ripped off. Good luck on the 10g.

That's what I thought. Drs. F&S had them listed at $8. I saw that and sat there scratching my head. Thanks for confirming that I still remember some prices.

[Artificial]

Off to the LFS, I wonder what I'll come home with...

[Artificial]

Sorry for triple post, time to edit expired.

I've come home with 6lbs of LR and 3lbs of dry rock. The guy at the LFS said I could boil the dry rock for 10-15 minutes as opposed to a week to get the minerals out. Will that work?