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Why do people say that smaller is harder in Salt water. I kept a blue damsel in a ten gallon tank and it was easy. the salt is expensive and i had to get a new filter but it was easy.

Most of the time...Yes.

Smaller tanks mean that it's harder to maintain correct water params. Bigger tanks are more stable.

That's how I convinced my parents I needed a 4' tank.

Damsels are very hardy fish, almost like the zebra danio of the ocean IMO. That's prolly why you had so much success.

Bigger is better as far as I'm concerned. Plus, you won't be killing yourself afterwards for not going larger...the worst feeling is looking at a coral/fish/invert and saying "If I only got the _____ I could keep this." ]

But in response to the actual question...yes, bigger is typically easier, not only in SW but in FW as well. Takes longer to cycle, but it's easier to keep up with. In a bigger tank, it takes a bigger mistake to cause a problem. Smaller tanks mean the water is affected really easily.

I guess you could argue that by saying that the plumbing and stuff is more complicated in bigger tanks...but keeping nice quality water will be easier in the long run in a bigger tank.

HTH

EDIT: Just am having trouble getting out what I want to say in one shot today.

Last edited by Ferretfish at 08-Feb-2005 18:00

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

Thank you

Your welcome

*is feeling oddly helpful today*



-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

It comes down to how fast your tank can change due to things like evaporation. For the sake of conversation, let's say your tank will loose 1 gal of water per day. You have a 10gal tank, that's 10% change. That will bring your gravity from 1.024 to 1.113 in a single day. Now you have a 100gal tank, and loose 1gal of water. That's a 1% change in gravity, that will bring you up to 1.034 gravity in a single day. I know this is high, but it's for conversation and ease of explination. By harder simply meens you need to watch it much closer.



Dan

mmm...the calculation looks correct in this way, but smaller tanks don't lose water as quickly though or other way to say is bigger tank loses faster....smaller tanks smaller surface area..hence less evaporation, that's what I think.

But yea, smaller tanks are usually harder due to easier alteration of water para. I think one of the most obvious factor is temperature, withour chillers, in summer my 10 gal can shoot up to 31 degrees C while a 57 gal only reaches ~28 degrees C in one afternoon

That's why I said "For the sake of conversation". It's an example. Temp is another factor to consider. My 125s hardly change temp. Also, adding a new fish in a small tank will be a big impact on the system, where as a large tank can distribute the effect over a much larger area.



Dan