Newbie aquarium question

I do all reef tanks no matter what size. I do have a fish only tank
that wa sjust started whenI decided to convert a FW puffer to9 salt
environment, so its just rubble and sand and no corals. I have all
kinds of corals. If they can be kept under lots of PC I have it. I do
not fool with any that requires MH lights. Other than temp regulation
they just are not a problem. All are equipped with ATO and
skimmers......and all PICO's I have use home brew air powered counter
current skimmers that work pretty darn good. I wul dnot be afraid to
bet our temps here are more stable than temps up north of here, so
that does help a lot. I also run some of the tanks if I have problems
with temp at a high temperature as compared to others. Most run
however in the 81 to 82 and even an 83 deg or a bit more. ...but with
a bit of fiddling and playing the tmep swing is usually less than 2
deg on any of these tanks, so they are pretty darn stabil, but it took
a bit of fooling with to get them there.


On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:23:18 -0500, that *other* annoying little troll
wrote:

Tristan wrote:


25 gal is not small for a marine tank.

Marine tank, or reef tank? I thought this was a reef group ;-)

I have a 20 and a 10 myself, and here is what *I* have noticed:

Calcium and carbonates can be an issue in smaller tanks - much less
water volume, so what is available gets used up quickly. I wind up
dumping in about a cup of b-ionic 2 part over a weeks time.

Also evaporation is a b*tch. If you have good aeration and circulation,
get get fast evaporation. When water volume is so low to begin with,
this means you have wild jumps in salinity unless you top off twice a
day or have an auto top off system. Oddly enough, even though my 20long
has about 3 times the surface area of my 10, evaporation in the 10 seems
to be worse than the 20(!?!) - I lose about 1 gal a day in the 10, and
maybe 1 half gal in the 20. Not sure why that is.

I have a bunch of pico tanks 2
gal or less that have been up and runing for two or more years and do
just fine. I even have a 1 quart PICO with a yasha hasha goby and
pistol shrimp ni it loaded with zoos and shrooms doing just fine. I
have yet another tiny pico tank made with a brandy snifter (less than
a quart) with a panda goby in it doing just fine for over a year now.


If temps can be managed properly, they are not any harder than any
other tank.


Temp is of course the hardest part of all when one has a small water
volume to work with. If room tempis not stable, keeoing the tank temp
stable will be a bear. Up here, in winter time, figure my living room is
gonna be 10-15 degrees colder at night then during day. ANd of course
during the day, I have my lights on over the tanks. So add another 5
degrees increase during the day. I had to put a 150 watt heater in my
20 gal to make up for the ambient drop at night, and it looks as if I
really need a chiller during the day due to my MH's. For now, I just
keep the heater set to 84 degrees (that is where the temp is during the
day with no heater - I want to keep it stable at nigh)

That all would be less of an issue if I had more water volume. Water
takes a lot of energy to change it's temp (which is why we use it in
radiators)

I see your pico's have all hardy stuff - try putting something like a
neon acro in one and get back to me about how it does.

Not saying one CAN'T do small marine or reef tanks, I'm just saying that
having more water volume DOES make things easier.



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!