Quote:
Originally posted by reefBoyDc
It's a 3 gallon nano with an undergravel filter powered by a bubbler. I'd like to add some salt and a piece of live rock. What do you think? I too doubt the bacteria would survive... but I'm not sure.
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Freshwater tanks usually abound in phosphates and nitrates, especially with an undergravel filter. With an established FW tank, changing to SW with these substances in the substrate is saying you WANT cyanobacteria to overtank the tank (not a good thing). Just the fact that the undergravel filter is there is a contradiction to the requirement for oligotropic maintenance for SW systems, especially if you want to keep corals or related organisms. Even for a Fish-Only tank, the volume is so small that you would only be able to keep but a single small fish (as the capacity to support fishes in SW is much lower than FW systems, more on the order of one fish-inch per 10 gal of tank volume). This could become a very nice temperate specie tank for a
Catalina goby (max temp is 75 F) or other single specimen (barnacle goby comes to mind), or a small mushroom tank, but the volume is so small that evaporative losses will become an issue if you don't maintain a constant vigil on the water parameters.
To use this tank, it would be better to empty the water and substrate out of the tank, remove the UG filters, and start out with a good aragonite substrate of sugar size or so to avoid the detritus trap afforded by crushed coral, and add a 5 lb piece of LR. get rid of the bubbler, it will only create salt creep in a SW system, replace it with a submersible powerhead with a plastic strainer to keep your critters out of the impeller chamber. Allow this to circulate and cure for 3 to 4 weeks with the powerhead and temp control at 78 to 80F, and work on maintaining your salinity at a constant level with some top off methodology before adding any organisms. Spend a little time reading about the husbandry skills required, and think about starting some water quality tests before even considering some specimens for the system. Look in the archives for "nano tanks", and pick up a good book like
Robert Fenner's or John Tullock's books (
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist orNatural Reef Aquariums). Reading and understanding these books will keep you from making many expensive mistakes and prevent the senseless loss of specimens.
Do the research first (as yu've already started by posting! BRAVO! ), then make a plan, then consider what you want to keep before you add the first bit of SW to your system. It will make your first foray into the SW hobby much more enjoyable!
hth
