Considering Upgrade from 5g "budget build" to IM10

Robert Binz

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Friends:

My 5g pico "buget build" is a year old. After fighting a LOT of algae and bacteria blooms in the first year, the microbiome seems to be stabilzing. However, the water chemistry is still hard to keep stable because of the tiny water volume.

I am considering moving to the IM10 for many reasons. The reason relevant here is to add a little more stability to the water chemistry. Will "doubling" the water volume to 10 gallons offer me enough stability to make the upgrade worth the effort?

Before people start chiming in about going much larger: that is not an option. First, I just prefer pico/nano tanks; it's a prefernce. Second, I live in an apartment in downtown Houston and need to be mobile because I move around a lot. I know people will want to argue this point but I only want to know if ten gallons will increase water stabulity enough to make this specific upgrade worth the time.

Any thoughts on the IM10 or equivalent AIO systems is also appreciated.
 

Dkmoo

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what makes a tank "unstable" is has as much to do with "what you put in" as "how much water". such as how much you feed, how much/often you change water, and how much bioload and waste load you have in the tank.

Everything else equal, 2x the water volume will make your tank 2x more stable just from the dilution effect alone, but if by upgrading you will also buy more fish, feed more, change more water, etc... then you will not see much change in terms of your stability issues.

something else to consider - in a 5g, once you factor in rock/sand, the water volume may only be like 3g. keeping the same rock in a 10G will actually more than double ur water volume: ie, 10 - 2 = 8G of water compared to your initial 3G.
 

Auto-pilot

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If you ask me it will help. I think it would also helpful would to add a ATO and experiment with dosing into the ato water to keep your tank stable. IDK! I think you should go for it. Bigger is better!
 
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Robert Binz

Robert Binz

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If you ask me it will help. I think it would also helpful would to add a ATO and experiment with dosing into the ato water to keep your tank stable. IDK! I think you should go for it. Bigger is better!

I have an ato and dose kalk with it

also dose nitrate and phosphate by hand to keep them detectable
 
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