# Dipping my fingers into salt...



## Jiinx (Apr 5, 2012)

Hey 

I really love clown fishes..and so for that, I wanted to keep them in a small nano tank. Nothing fancy..I don't think I'll want to go bigger bc my 79 G freshwater takes up ALL of my time. And saltwater is so daunting to me! It seems very complicated.

I just want to do water changes every week. I have a heater. I have a koralia. I have an HOB filter. 

Questions:
- I have a 7.5 G but I hear that's too small. So what size can comfortably fit them? I don't want anything bigger than a 15 G. 

- I want to purchase an RO system for partial RO/tap water changes for my freshwater and the salt water tank. Can you recommend any?

- what should I put inside the tank? Sand and live rock? Where do I get them from? Any good places?

- what kind of tank should I get? 

I think that's it for now...I'm reading as much as I can in the meantime 

sarah


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Jiinx said:


> Hey
> 
> I really love clown fishes..and so for that, I wanted to keep them in a small nano tank. Nothing fancy..I don't think I'll want to go bigger bc my 79 G freshwater takes up ALL of my time. And saltwater is so daunting to me! It seems very complicated.


Actually, smaller tanks require more work.


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## PureHash (Nov 29, 2012)

I had a 2.5g pico reef, I did waterchanges every 3 days, and had some small mushrooms, and zoas, with a kenya tree frag. The tanks did well, but you have to stay ontop of waterchanges, I didn't want fish in a tank that small because the possibility of overfeeding was increased significantly.. I now have a 15g nano reef, but it has 20lbs of liverock, and a skimmer rated for 80g. I may put fish in it now but am still a little uneasy.

In the future my 75g will become a reef, garanteed, and I will have fish, also garanteed. The water chemitry won't change as drastically with possibility of killing my livestock.

I am reletively new to SW aswell, and its not as hard as you may think. It can actually be easier in a sence because you don't have to do as much maintainence on a larger reef, you can use deep sand beds to cope with nitrate, and phosphates, with the rock to cope with ammonia, and nitrites.

This being said, you can go without drastic waterchanges, as long as you dose the trace minerals back to the water that are used up over time. EX, magnesium, calcium, trace elements.. Etc.. 

And if you mix a deep sand bed with sand sifting fish (you kind of have to) then you don't really need to vac, because the sand sifters move the waste into the sandbed where arobic, and anarobic bacteria can completely break down the waste to almost nothing! Then the skimmer pulls that crap out.

You may want to do a bit more research, and you may want to go with a bigger, say 40-50g display, it may cost a bit more on start-up, but will save you when you want to upgrade in the future anyway..

Lastly, I don't think many people here will recomend HOB for saltwater. Maybe for some carbon, or phosban, but a reactor is better for those purposes. You would be better of with just a HOB protien skimmer then a HOB mechanical filter. Skimmers actually remove the waste from the water where as mechanical sponge filters just move the crap to a different spot to decompose, and produce toxins. A skimmer removes this crap to a colection cup where it becomes toxic, but not in with your aquarium water.

On my nano my only filtration is my skimmer, besidesa the bacteria on the rocks and in the sand, I have no other filtration, the skimmer does it all.


Goodluck, welcome to SW. Now instead of just dipping your fingers, jump in!


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

at the moment you will have a SW, all you thoughts will be how to transfer 75G FW to SW. 
Read this for now or if you are planning to be in the Steeles & Bathurst, contact me for the visit and some explanations

http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7482

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## TankCla (Dec 31, 2010)

sig said:


> at the moment you will have a SW, all you thoughts will be how to transfer 75G FW to SW.


So true.
After one year since I started 10g SW, I wanna transform my 75g into sw

ADDICTIVE


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## Jiinx (Apr 5, 2012)

Thanks everyone.

So I won't transfer my 7.5g as it seems to be too small. 

Thanks, sig. I appreciate the offer. I'll contact you sometime when I figure out what tank I want to use! I've been going through that thread slowly..


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

I remember when I first started out, everything seemed so daunting, as I got the same advice, because it is good advice. But sometimes you have to just jump in and have a learning experience of it. While you will be soon looking for a bigger SW tank, that doesn't mean that a nano tank can't be rewarding. Just read a lot into the mechanics of it and be prepared to spend more time and money on maintenance and future upgrades.

We all joke about it and say, 'just get the biggest tank that you can afford, and put a sump under it', but that's because in truth, you will save time, money, and stress by doing it this way. Most of us started out small and then upgraded, but learned a lot along the way.

Don't be afraid to learn the hard way... we all did too


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## TypeZERO (Jul 20, 2007)

I agree with Fiddy7
Dont be afraid to learn the hard way, best way to learn but learning from other mistakes is even better. But even the best of us makes noobie mistakes now and then 
Welcome to the salty dark evil side  youll enjoy it!


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## explor3r (Mar 14, 2010)

I say just start the 75g transformation and you wont regret it, Im sure any question or concerns Gtta will take care of that. 
If you like you can come and see my system too and I will be glad to answer any questions


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## PureHash (Nov 29, 2012)

TankCla said:


> So true.
> After one year since I started 10g SW, I wanna transform my 75g into sw
> 
> ADDICTIVE


After 3 weeks of building my 15g nano, I want to convert my 75. Lol
Ill use the 15 as a "end table"  lol


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## Jiinx (Apr 5, 2012)

I love my 79 g right now. My fishes are beautiful and my plants are finally growing well!

I'll start with a 15 g or 20 g starphire, I think. March has a great nano tank! He's growing everything in there! Then ill get the light and fill it up with sand and live rock..

Sarah


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