# Help: 10g SaltWater Fishtank setup.



## fishboi (Jan 22, 2011)

what do i need, and how would i set it up?

thanks for any advice!


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Hmmm... well, okay, here we go:

a tank
a thing called a hydrometer
a bag of artificial seawater salt mix
a heater
a bright light for illumination
2 filters
a bunch of books on the subject
a couple of clean, new, 5-gallon buckets

So far, nothing complicated. 

Now it starts to get tricky. 
The fist thing to do is decide what kind of tank you want to have. For a tank that small, you'll likely want to go with a "nano-reef." This is because there are almost no readily available fish that will fit into a 10 gallon tank.
Saltwater doesn't hold much oxygen in it, you see, and the fish all come from reef areas where the ocean's oxygen content is the most saturated. This translates into the fish needing as much oxygen as they can get, and into your not being able to keep very much in 10 gallons. Only the smallest of saltwater fishes can be kept in a 10 gallon tank. 

A nano-reef, on the other hand, can be very interesting even without any fish at all. It would be a lot more expensive and complicated to set up, though.

Anyway, set up the tank like you normally would set up any other tank, but with the difference of having salty water. Use the hydrometer to tell you how salty the water IS, and mix it until you are in the range of 1.023. I say "range" because it will change after the pump has been running for a day or two and everything is fully mixed. Until then you'll only be able to make a rough guess. Once fully mixed, measure it again and either add a bit more salt or add fresh water until you can hit 1.024 when at a temperature of 77F. ( yes, the temperature matters ) That will be just about perfect.

Now, depending on whether you want just a few tiny fish or a pile of rocks teeming with life, you can either just put some interesting decor items in the tank ( which also give the fish a place to hide ) OR you can buy an expensive light fixture made for keeping reef tanks, and then add something called "live rock" to the tank instead of ordinary rocks. Live rocks come from the sea, are porous, full of beneficial bacteria, and crawling with nifty critters and plants. A couple of bright blue Neon gobies crawling on this looks pretty nice.

Anyway, first thing being first, find a bunch of books on this subject and read them for both information AND inspiration.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

With the expensive lighting (And trust me, it's expensive...),you'll be able to keep tons of corals. In a tank that small, the lighting may actually be somewhat affordable! For filtration, you'll need something called a protein skimmer. Well, on a tank that small, I don't really know. Still, that's the best way to go. If you can I'd get the largest tank you can afford, just because they're easier and cheaper to maintain in the long run, they look better, and you can actually get some of the fish that you probably had in mind when you decided to try this.Right now though, you DEFINITELY need books. They'll get you started on a good path, and we'll be your GPS!

Welcome to the forums, and welcome to SW!


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