Confirm my setup?

[Chardie3342]

Hi I am brand new to nano reefs,but I would love to start one. I have been researching for a couple months and I am positive that I want to get into this. However, I would love to have someone confirm that the setup I am getting is viable! I am using

 

10g tank

koralia 240 powerhead

current USA orbit marine aquarium LED light

via-aqua 50W heater

10lbs live rock

5 lbs live sand

 

I want to only use biological filtration and was thinking about doing a 10% water change once a week. Would that be functional if i were to have some soft corals and a pair of clownfish? Also, I would love some suggestions on a cleanup crew. Please let me know if I am missing something or if you have any ideas to make it better! Thanks

[nismo_sky32]

That light should be fine for softies. A few people have them on the forum and they give off a decent color. If you are going to attempt biological only filtration I would increase the water changes to about 50% weekly and maybe move up to the koralia 425. After sand and rocks you're probably looking at 8 gallons, so changing out 4 gallons a week won't be too bad

[cswan19]

Nismo sky is right, I would increase to a 425 pump so there is adequate water movement. As for the light, you will be fine with that for just softies and can even have some LPS too. I have that light and currently have both softies and some LPS without any issues. The light has worked great for me so far. You can check out my build thread if you wanna see how the light is working out.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/345434-cswans-fluval-spec-v-5g-current-usa-orbit/

[Chardie3342]

Thanks this is great! Can I still have two ocellaris?

[nismo_sky32]

It'll be a heavy bioload but if you keep up on water changes, I don't see why not. I (temporarily) have 5 fish in a 21 gallon and haven't had any issues with water quality by keeping up on 50% every week

[Psychosis]

I know it can seem daunting since this is your first system, but I would highly recommend drilling the system for a sump. Aside from the obvious benefits of hiding your equipment and increasing the total water volume, it also makes maintenance much easier, and affords you the opportunity to upgrade/add equipment as time goes on. Trust me, you'll thank me later for it.

 

Another thing, all though the Orbit LED will handle softies just fine, I would recommend a Par38 from Coral Compulsion/Rapid/who ever else is making a decent Par38 these days. You don't want to limit yourself on Live stock out of the gate, and something you'll find everyone upgrades constantly around here is the Lighting. It's much more cost effective to simply buy or build what you need to start with, even if you aren't currently planning on keeping the more light demanding species. You will want them eventually.

 

Now, that being said, if you're 100% certain that you're just going to want the Clowns and a few softies, I don't see an issue with your current list of equipment. Even with Skimmers/Reactors/Dosers/Controllers and any other high dollar piece of equipment you can think of, water changes are king in this hobby. If you can set aside time to do a water change every weekend, that's the biggest step to keeping a successful, long lasting reef. I would use 80% dry rock to 20% live as a rule of thumb, but since it's only a 10 gallon that's completely up to you.

[Chardie3342]

Thanks for the advice! I am a college student and limited in my dorm to 10 gallons so all I wanted to keep was a few softies and a pair of clowns with a cleanup crew but I was also considering a frogspawn possibly for my clowns but i would need to make sure I could handle it.

[nismo_sky32]

http://www.truaqua.com/eurostyle-bowfront-aquarium-es-18.html

 

If you don't have the tank already and want to get something similar with better quality, you could look into something like this