10 gallon salt water fish tank?

you might be better off with your live rock in the middle of the tank, towards the back, and your coral towards the front. you dont want the live rock touching the glass on the sides or front of the tank. leave enough room to get an algae scraper in there to keep the glass clean. Or if you get mushrooms or xenia, even zooanthids, those can be set on the live rock itself. they make power compact lighting for tanks that small which is probably a good idea to use. Lighting will be very important when having corals. as far as what rock to use, live rock is what you want, it comes in different types, raging from $5-$15. a lb, depending on the quality of the rock and where it comes from. you want 15 or so lbs of the rock. It is excelent filtration. YOu also need to use RO water for top offs and for your saltwater mix. Dont use tap water. If this tank ends up having an open top with a light over it, verses having a closed lid, then you are going to have ALOT of water evaporation so make sure to add ro water daily. or get an automatic top off unit (ATO) that will add the water when necessary. the water evaporates, but the salt does not. so if you dont monitor it you will have high salinity levels. As far as fish go, I wouldnt suggest putting more than 2 in a tank that small. Maybe a clown and a goby. Or a clown and a firefish. It will be extremely important not to overfeed in a tank so small. Make sure to give your tank plenty of time to cycle before adding fish or a cleanup crew(snails and such) the cycle in a sw tank is really important. Dont buy any additives that promise to rush the cycle either, the only thing that happens fast in a nano reef is disaster! lol trust me, I know. You may find yourself waiting at least a month before adding anything. its hard to resist, and seems like a long time, but it will go by before you know it. You need a thermometer, heater, live rock, sand, hydrometer, ro water, saltmix, a bucket and powerhead to mix the water for your water changes, reef test kits,(start with ammonia ph nitrate and nitrite, when you get corals get the other kit that includes calcium and phosphate) a filter, yes you could use the hob filter that comes with most 10 gallons, but get a small powerhead as well. you dont want any "dead spots" where there isnt much water flow in the tank. overall you want 10x the tank volume worth of flow. thats a minimum of 100GPH. you dont want to overdo it though. Some other important things you need is patience, and dedication. Dont miss one water change. develope a schedule and stick to it. monitor it every day. I missed my weekly water change once because I was too busy to tackle it.....its been a downhill battle for me since then. Its best to develope a routine and stick to it. oh, and do lots of research beforehand. you will find it is well worth it to know as much as possible before you jump in. Its a neverending learning experience, but its still good to know what you might expect before you jump in. an excellent site is nano-reef.com lots of useful information on there. good luck!

I disagree that smaller tanks are harder to take care of! If you are having a problem you can do a large percentage water easily. You change 8 Gallons and you have just done an 80 % water change. As long as salinity temp and ph are the same as the tank water this is not a problem. Topping off due to evaporation has NO effect on a tanks salinity level. Salt does not evaporate. Only water is evaporated out, NO minerals at all . What happens is salinity increases with evaporation, but it happens so slowly it does not affect fish at all. Also you can go to walmart and get a 5 gal bucket of Rodi water instead of having to buy an RODI filter for your house. If you do not do corals you do NOT need better lighting. Put the live rock in at the beginning. This will help cycle the tank faster! You will need a hang on the back filter, some live rock, A power head for water movement, salt and a hydrometer to measure the salt and a test kit. Follow my advice and you may be able to add a clown fish in as little as 4 weeks.

One piece of coral and live rock. Well start by setting up your 10 with salt water and get your filter running. Even a hang on the back filter will work for a 10.

The perfect 10 gallon, dolomite bottom with 10-13 pounds of live rock cycled well. Use LED lighting to keep the heat down (and actually more cost effective and inexpensive) , A few mushroom corals or perhaps leather corals. And maybe a false clown or two with a few blue's or a gobie or two.

Check out saltwaterfish.com great site to view various fish and corals

Small tanks are becoming more popular these days and really are great small reefs.

Small tank