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Most all in ones have sponges, ceramic rings, and filter floss of some sort that really doesn't lend itself well to reef tanks. All of those items IMO work well, too well in fact. They turn all excess nutrient matter into nitrates rapidly. Also food particulate gets caught in the sponge (as...

LOL tell me about it. He was one of the reasons I started the tanks. He LOVES to watch them and of course help me with them.

All salts pretty much get us similar results, but I am lazy and don't want to dose up my fresh saltwater to get the CA and MAG to where I want. I hope that the other trace elements are in order too. I don't mean to discourage any other salts as Instant Ocean was working GREAT. I just want...

LOL I need you two to come and teach me to take photos like you do. Does the sand bed show detrius more often?

If you do add sand go slowly and try adding in live sand. A spike in the nitrogen cycle will occur but if you add slowly it will be a small spike. If you use a tube (like pvc) to funnle the sand to the bottom of the tank you can add the sand without a huge amount of clouding. Cyanobacteria is...

Most online vendors carry Chemi-pure in half units, which are ideal for our smaller tanks.

I think so. With our small tanks it isn't always about how much light. But how appropriate is the light. Power compact is nice for some mushrooms and rice and the occasional LPS IMO. There are some non photosynthetic corals out there that have nice colors too. Not many, but some.

The biocubes are ok too. My friend has the 29 gallon one with the skimmer. The skimmer isn't excellent but for $30 bucks it does a pretty decent job. Super gluing the air line seems to help the skimmer.

SaltWaterNewb has a nice tank that is not an all in one found in the nano section. It may show you what a 10 gallon tank can do and look like. I have a 12 gallon Nanocube that I got from a friend and honestly I think if I had not received it free I would rather just do a 10 gallon DIY. 2...

Very cool. Skimming in that size tank would be fruitless IMO. A consistent water change schedule will keep the dissolved organic compounds down to a very manageable level. Something I did to help with my water quality was to hook up a canister filter (just the micron screen) to cycle the water...

I have rethought the inhabitants and have decided on ricordias with a couple LPS here and there. How does it look? 1 frogspawn frag 1 rock of christmas tree worms 4 various ricordias (three of which are currently splitting) 1 blue spot jawfish 1 green spotted mandarin (she is in here...

Also check out bryopsis. Apparently it's a tough algae that is kind of like hair algae but really tough. One treatment method is to dose magnesium up to about 1500-1600 bryopsis.

With two clown fish I would stay above 20 gallons personally. But then again I tend to try to have as hands off of a tank as possible.

Most soft coral should be ok. I don't house a lot of soft corals personally, I do ricordias and LPS in my nanos. My anemone (bubble tip) is in my 90 gallon tank and it moves whenever it wants to. I think that most standard lighting in the all in ones aren't good enough for anemones. I have...

Very cool! If you will have coral you may want to remove any "bio wheel" or other biological filtration (other than live rock and live sand). Nitrates may build up quickly because of that. Just top off with clean RO/DI water daily and do water changes weekly. A great thing about having a...

Thoroughly clean the pump and make sure the intake is clear. When I first upgraded my nanocube pump I had the intake sticking to the wall and had low water pressure. Other than that I think you would have to either upgrade the pump or impeller.

These tube things? If so vermetid snails.

:oops: LOL I only share what I've learned! I've made quite a few mistakes. :lol:

Hoah! Good luck.

man that is one big clown fish in the last photo. :lol: :shock: