Would this work?
 

Alright, I have a spare 10 gallon at home and I was thinking of setting up a nano at work. Now I have absolutely no money so here is what I propose.

An open top 10 gallon with an office 18W power compact light fixture to place over top of it. I could possibly hook two together to get twice the wattage. 50 Watt heater, and a small fountain pump for circulation.

The best part is it is all free.

Would this be enough. What could I grow. I would also have a DSB and some live rock suplied out of my 90g.

Re: Would this work?
 

HA-HA! Nice try, man - of course it's going to cost you! :wink: A hang-on filter is a good idea, a skimmer is a better idea, and a couple of PH or mini-jets as well. Buildup of detritus in a 10gal is murder. :( Without a refugium or skimmer, your principle means of nutrient export will be water changes, large and regular. I hope you have the freedom at work to be doing those... :wink:

The lights might be OK, but do they have a decent spectrum for what you'll keep? Will you be happy with how they look?

Free for now... :lol:

You could keep the standard nano list, probably - shrooms, zoos, softies, dusters... Just get enough sand and rock in there and you should be OK. I think a nano is a good place to go overboard with lighting and filtration - it's a delicate little balance there, and they seem to become more work that we hoped for. :wink:

just get a skilter it should probably do the job fine . at least i hope seeing as it is my only protien skimmer on my tank (hope to god thats enough)

Actually,

I was not going to use a skimmer on my nano. I hear so many pros and cons to them. I was going to test it without. As for the aquaclear, I probably should, but maybe later. I guess we will see.

I've been running my nano skimmerless for nearly two years now.
I do a 25% water change every month or two and have had no problems at all. Everything grows like mad.

More details.....
http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2910

Exactly right Evan. I too run mine skimmerless, but then I run everything skimmerless, so that is no news. I am a bit concerned about the spectum of the lighting. If it runs toward the red you may be in for algae problems. And you do need circulation. You can get quite a bit if you hang on a small Aquaclear in addition to what you have. 8)

But guys,

With those two things alone I am already over 100.00. That is definately further away from free than I wanted to go right now.

You are definitely right, so then all you can really do is try it. I would not put anything in that would not likely survive though. Maybe some Mutant Ninja Blue Mushrooms, and Xenia. Cabbage leather, and GSP's are pretty tough, and a fish or two perhaps. I have kept the above under one watt per gallon. You can do something.

I agree with the skimmerless camp.

Skilter? ... NOISY NOISY NOISY.... get an aquaclear mini.

Light is intensity is exponential so having two lights would double the wattage but not the intensity.

Try it out, with the DSB you should have sufficient light, I would suggest some cauliflower coral, and or some sponge but sponges don't usually do well in an aquarium, usually due to exposure to air during shipping.

Keep a glass top on it too, to help with evaporation if you are in an office you probably have air conditioning, that same unit heats your building so you probably have dry air, you will see substantial evaporation.

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

I use AC Minis on our 6 month old 7 gal and our 4 day old 2.5 gal. The key to using Minis is to thoroughly clean the foams in outgoing changewater (or tapwater in a pinch) then clean the whole Mini each week with your 10-15% water change. I use a toothbrush to get down into the media chamber and Qtips to clean the impeller chamber. Quite a lot of crud can build up in that little chamber so it's important to use 2 or 3 Qtips to get it really clean. The whole system runs better when it's clean.

In the 2.5 gal, there's no room for both the AC Mini and a heater in the tank, so I pulled out the little bucket that holds the foam, added a quarter of a Mini foam to the full sized foam and stuck the heater in the media chamber. Dear husband used a Dremel to make a hole in the cover to reduce evaporation, and I've faced the heater light so it faces where I can see it. Cool little idea I got from folks who have their heaters in their sumps.

Wow Beverly, I've only cleaned my mini a couple times a year. I clean the foam with my water change though if I am going to use foam.

In the 6 month old 7 gal, we have two fish, a grey brittle star, a tiny orange starfish, a cleaner shrimp, an astrea snail and a pale green featherduster. As for hitchhikers that I know about, we have a one inch orange lobster, a quarter inch white crab and a huge bristleworm, all hiding in various porous rock cavities. So I feed the tank quite heavily, and because of the large feedings, it only seems prudent to clean up their crap as often as possible. I use a foam in the Mini as a crap trap, so when I clean it frequently, the foam doesn't have the chance to become a nitatre factory. Also, before cleaning the Minis, I gently turkey baste the sandbed and rock in order for the foams to pick up and export that much more gunk.

It's definitely a PITA to clean the Minis on both the 7 and 2.5 gals so often. But then, I bathe daily, floss my teeth daily and brush them morning and night, so why not care for my beloved reefs with the same diligence? BTW, I haven't had a cavity for years and years with this system, and I'm nearing the big 5-O in a few short years. And I smell pretty good some of the time too :-)

Heck, when we had the 180 gal reef, I did a weekly 30 gal water changes, cleaned the skimmer weekly, and cleaned the prefilters in the Hagen 802s weekly too. I balked at tearing apart the 802s weekly, but did do it at least every 3-4 weeks.

IMHO, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially where living beings are concerned. I don't want my animals living in a toilet, though that's not what I'm saying you or others are doing because I don't know your setups. I'm saying I do lots of maintenance on our tanks because of a high population that I feed fairly liberally. Plus, I'm just a little bit anal ;-)

Just today we brought home a 42 gal hex. I'll do weekly 5 gal water changes on this baby for sure. This tank won't have a skimmer either, so I'll be cleaning the prefilter on the 802 weekly just like all the rest. Sheesh!!

Take care :-)

lol, wanna get married?? I'm lower maintenance than your power filters.... well okay so I'm not really that low maintenance....

Geez, BCOrchidGuy, my first Internet proposal of marriage :-) You wanna move your tanks here, or should I move mine there? I'd prefer the former since we just moved the 7gal, our ball python and his habitat, and the 5.5' x 3' x 6.5' high finch aviary at the end of Feb.

But seriously, I thought my current husband was low maintenance when we got married, but it turns out he's as high maintenance as I am. God help us all ;-)

Python?... I'm scared of snakes... besides, I have 11 gerbils and two cats... dang so close too....

Sid's just a mild mannered 2' ball python who'll only grow to 4-6 feet. He's non-venomous and is such a little character. He's on my lap as I type. I think he's looking for a way up my sleeve :-) Or something. You just never know what he's got on his little reptilian brain ;-)

We've had gerbils. Their cute and have more brains than a snake. Don't your cats lick their chops around them?

DH Chris goes to Burnaby on business once in awhile. He suggested you and he get together to work out the details of the possible merger. I'm sure he was just kidding about the merger part ;-) Geez, he'd better be kidding ....