New Tank

[Kdog4223]

I have aquired an established 6 gallon tank with live sand and a piece of base rock. Any ideas on whta else I should add and what kind of time frame. Thanx

[seabass]

Well, there is not much information here to work with, but generically, for a 6-gallon tank, you should have about 10 lbs of LR for natural filtration. I feel that a good depth for a sand bed is between an inch to an inch and a half deep. You also need about 150gph of water flow (provided either entirely by a HOB power filter without its filter cartridges or a combo of HOB filter and powerhead). To help keep your temperature consistent, you’ll need a 50W heater. Lastly, you need some lighting; this will vary greatly depending on what you wish to keep (FOWLR, soft corals, SPS…). Typically a tank this size has PC lights of some sort on it (usually something like the 32W CustomSeaLife Super Nova SmartLite Retrofit mounted in the stock hood); lights like this are suitable for most soft corals.

 

You do need LR and not dead base rock (dead base rock will become LR in an established aquarium with other LR). Therefore add a good piece of LR so that you have about 10 lbs of total rock in your new tank. Get some test kits (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate) and wait for your tank to cycle; this might take several weeks (depending on how cured the LR actually is). After your cycle has finished, you can start adding livestock.

 

Read the articles on nano reefs posted on this site. Do some research on tank cycles, livestock… Check out some other tanks which are similar to yours to see what they are doing.

 

After you’ve done some research, ask specific questions about a particular subject. You should get better results if you’ve done some legwork and ask a specific question. Once you’ve figured out what you want to buy (equipment and livestock), run it past us again; doing it right will save both money and livestock.

[min]

hello, dont mean to hi jack or anything but

i had fowlr tank til now and just just set up a mini 18g to-be-reef tank and was wondering what types of corals i can put in.

the tank specs r 18g (tall? i think) with approx 27lb of LR from my established FO tank and i dont know how much lb of sand but its about 2.5-3 inches deep. and the lighting is 72 watts of power compact lights. 36w of white and 36w of actinic

 

thank you

[seabass]

Min, your lighting is on the low side (especially with a tall tank), so if you do not upgrade your lighting you will have definite zones. You could put a variety of soft corals that require medium light in the upper half of the tank and low light corals in the bottom half; that can make for an interesting tank when done correctly. Most will tell you to upgrade your lighting; this would give you more flexibility with your aquascaping.