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.