Hey All -- Getting Ready to Shell out for the basics, recommendations?

[Dennis_said]

HI all, about to start my 10g.

 

Any advice on how many watts of a heater I need, and which are the popular and proven good ones?

 

Also, which pump should I use to circulate the water?

 

Is there anything else I need besides the lighting and all that before I start adding the water?

 

Thanks!

[Billdemart]

Hey Dennis,

 

You and I are in the same boat. I am setting up my first Nano reef as well, 10 gallon.

 

After a ton of research on this board and others and reading a couple of books, I decided on the Ebo Jager 50 Watt heater and two Rio Powerheads a Rio 50 and a Rio 90. I got a great deal at Marine Depot (at least I think I did ).

 

I ordered my lights from hellolights.com, the 96W 50/50 hood with fans built in. It should be here late this week or early next week. Can't wait to get it going.

 

I plan on buying my Live Rock and Sand from www.tbsaltwater.com and I may get their package deal which includes a cleanup crew among other things. I have heard several good things about them as well.

 

Good luck with everything!

 

Bill

[Dennis_said]

Thank YOU Bill!

 

Thanks a lot for the recommendation, I will probably follow it to the nose... I am looking into the pacakge right now :-D

[Dennis_said]

Oh, btw, Looking at "THE PACKAGE" why is there so many hmm... BLUE LEG HERMIT CRABS required? 20 per 10 gallons??

[Acoustic]

Like I tell everyone when they are new to the hobby:

 

Do not go with hermit crabs. Ya almost everyone has them but here's an article I have read that makes since:

 

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_shimek.html

 

So for a cleanup crew for a ten gallon I suggest the following:

 

5 nessarius snails

5 cerith snails

1 emerald crab

1 Margarita snail

 

Many will tell you other suggestions. But from my experience nothing will rival this cleanup crew for ditritus to algae to cyano. This cleanup crew will also not destroy the ever important but forgotten microfauna.

[Dennis_said]

Are the RIO 50 and 90 found in regular petstores like Petsmart or Petco? Or that Ebo Jager 50W?

 

Can I just buy stuff that's similar to these in petstores? Like generic name w/ same capabilties? or is that not a good path to take?

[Billdemart]

Acoustic,

 

That is very interesting. I have heard that before as well. Perhaps I will just get the LR and LS online and then buy the cleanup crew piecemeal from the LFS. There is no rush to add them anyway.

 

 

Dennis as far as getting those items from the LFS I am pretty sure you can. But my closest LFS was out of the smaller power heads (50's and 90's) so I ordered them online.

 

I saw a guy post that he bought his 50W Ebo Jager from his LFS for 25 bucks. I got it for 14 bucks online. It just depends on convenience/need vs. budget

 

As far as generic name stuff I don't know. Maybe you can use them, I just wanted to get the equipment I know people have used so I don't have any unforseen accidents because I went with inferior equipment. Not saying it would, but I would hate to buy a cheap heater and have something go wrong with it when my tank is fully stocked.

[Crakeur]

emeralds are risky. they pick at everything.

[SLOreefer]

use the ebo jager...i dont really trust other names. as far as circulation, i like the small rios but i just used 2 rio 50s and a hob filter. this gave me a spot to put some lr rubble in and increased water capacity a little.

[Dennis_said]

Awesome... the MARINEDEPOT has the Rio 50,90 and 120 for 9.99.... EACH....

 

Is there a reason why 50 and 50 .. or 50 and 90 are recommended? And not like 120 120? Too much circulation I suppose?

[Xwhite]

You know, I heard that emeralds were risky too. Especially larger ones. So, what did I do? Went out and bought a larger emerald. Probably a little bigger than the size of a quarter.

 

He has been, by far, the best money I have spent on this tank. At one time, I had bubble algae. No more bubble algae. At one time, I had hair algae, no more of that. Now he's just working on getting at the harder greenish type algae that everyone gets in their tank. And he's doing a great job of it.

 

Oh, and he has one heck of a personality. I kept a real close eye on him after I put him the tank. And, it appeared he would pick at a coral. But, I think it was just him being a litttle uncoordinated and unintentionally brushing his claw through whatever was close while he munched on algae.

 

Because, I've seen no damage to my corals.

 

John