Hi,
Thanks for your interest. I was planning on surprising everyone when it was all built but maybe I should spill the beans now incase there are problems with my design.
My plan is to turn an eheim 2222 cannister filter into a "sump" for a 3gal nano
.
I know that some cannister filters come with heating elements inside but these are designed to heat large tanks and are usually 250W and bigger!
If I needed a heater at all it would be the smallest that I could possibly find 50W??
I actually don't believe I will need a heater because my plan is (and this stays between us
) to put a submersable light bulb in the bottom compartment of the cannister along with a handful of chaeto. The top layer of the filter would be for live rock rubble and both of the lines would be plumbed into the bottom of the tank through 1/2" hosebarb "bulkheads" with the inlet and outlet hidden by rockwork.
This will allow me to add more water volume, additional biological filtration, and provide all of the circulation needed without having any visible equipment or plumbing or electrical cords!!
My plan was to put it on top of the island in our kitchen and have the cannister below with the pots and pans. I think it would be awesome because it would allow for 360 degree viewing, but my wife isn't too excited about me drilling the countertop. It would be lit by a desklamp with a 50/50 pc bulb and contain a rock "pinnacle" in the center of the tank with clippings of soft corals from my "big" tank. I would have a hermit, maybe a neat looking snail, and an arrow crab.
Man, I'm gonna build the thing now, even if I don't have a place to put it yet!
I would need to decide on what would be the most stable heating technique and also how to match the return flow to the size of the tank. Possibly through splitting the return or modifying the impeller.
What do you think?
- Chad