Would this work?

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by BCOrchidGuy

I agree with the skimmerless camp.

.... get an aquaclear mini.

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.