10gl. salt

[JoBodude]

hey everyone! i have a spare 10gl....FINALLY lol and i wanted to have a percula clown tank! with 2 clowns...(i was wondering could i have some sort of damsel in there?) ok so i just need to know the basics

like the water chemicals and stuff (ph nitrate nitrite ect.)

and would it be ok to add crabs and snails and shirmp? lol thanks

 

[J-Money]

i don't know that the 2 clowns will fit, they may, but i'm pretty sure the damsel won't. You would want a few crabs and snail to be your cleanup crew. You're going to want to use R/O water. I don't put any chemicals in my tank, and like freshwater tanks you don't want nitrites or nitrates or ammonia in the tank. with a nano tank like that it will be very hard to keep that regulated, especially if this is your first marine tank. The pH of my tank is around 8.2 and I like to keep the SG around 1.024-1.025. Nanotanks aren't really great starter tanks for people. The bigger the tank the more stable it will be. Good luck, I'm sure Navarre will be around to add and correct wutever i got wrong

 

[Salt Freak]

You probaly dont want to put a damsel in there with clowns. Two clowns is definitly enough for 10 gallons it is advised that beginners start with a minimus of 29 gallons prefered 55 gallons for begginers anything under this is consider nano and for experts the reeason why is the water parameters are much more delicate then freshwater. you want your ammonia to be 0 ppm nitrIte 0 ppm and nitrAte as low as possible in the ocean the nitrates are much lower then 1 ppm. your going to want your salinty to be about 1.021 you can by a good hydrometer to achieve this. You will need live rock this will be the most expensive you want about 1-1.5 pounds to every gallon i prefer the Fiji. You will also need sand prefered is aragonite or calcium carbonate this will help in buffering your Ph. You will also need to use sea salt not table salt you can get this at your LFS. I prefer Instant Ocean. After you get everything in the tank you will want to let the tank cycle you will see an ammonia spike this will go down then you will a nitrIte spike then you will start to see the nitrAtes come in this usually takes frome two to a month it just differs from tank to tank. Then after your tank cycles you will need to get on the most important piece of equipment you can get in marines the protien skimmer this will take out unwanted organic matter before it gets into the biological fitler this is not something to go cheap on i think a bak pak would do good. thus less nitrates with a tank this size i would recommend 10%-15% water changes every week. You need to remember that all your inverts are sensitve to high nitrAtes. for a clown fish I would go with the false percula or the ocelerios clown looks much like the percula only its tank bred and has thinner black stripes between the orange and white. And of course your going to want to have mechanical filter of some sort a box filter with a bio-wheel such as the penguin 125 would do nicely. Thats just the very basics some other people on the forum will come and give advice it gets much more in depth if you start with reef. believe me you will B)

 

[Navarre]

clowns do better in pairs than on their own and im afraid to say that 10 gallons (im assuming USA gallons which means its closer to 7 Imperials gallons) is too small IMO.

You might get away with a single firefish or perhaps 1 royal gramma but any more than this is pushing the tanks boundaries.