Hey Peps, Soo, I'm setting up a nano 14g in my office at work which will house my anemones and two clowns. Thats it. I haven't done this in a while, (going small) and so I'm a little hesitant on not having the works for filtration, skimmer, L2, Carbon, ATO, etc.. So the plan is. Biological: About 10lbs of live rock. Skimmer: Aeroforce hang on back GAC in exit chamber of skimmer along with heater. Koralia Nano for flow. So whats missing? The scrubber of course. I was thinking since its going to be fed very little, less than half a cube a day, maybe a HOG.5 would help somewhat. Whats your opinion? Would it help or should I just do weekly water changes and call it a day? Thanks, Ricky
I have seen way to many successful 20G tanks and below do fantastic with no filtration at all, just weekly water changes, powerhead, heater, and good light. I am just about to setup a desk tank at work (working on my acrylic mfg skills now to make my own tank, watch out Floyd, another 5 years I may be as good as you! LOL). My plan is to have my 6 baby clownfish I am raising now from my first 2014 batch in my desk tank, which will be about a 10G tank. Right now they are in a 5G tank and it will take them over a year just to outgrow that, so 10G at work should last for at least a couple years with just 6 clowns and a rose anemone.
Your call, if it were me I wouldn't use one for several reasons. Risk of overflowing (depending on the model), noise, size of the pump in the tank, and micro bubbles are all things to worry about with a skimmer, and that is a lot of hassle for something that is going to do so little. A tiny bag of carbon once a month would do much more good than a skimmer would, but even that shouldn't be needed if you do weekly water changes, and with a tank that small, the cost is negligible for salt/water. Doing 50G a week is costly on a large tank, but 5G a week is easy for me. For me, 20G and above is where filtration is needed, but a 20-29G can do fine with just a simple HOB filter. Once you reach the 40G size, then that is where all the other filtration methods (sump, ATS, biopellets, skimmer, etc) start to come into play for me. Just speaking of what I would do, obviously there are 1001 ways to do it successfully.
I ran an orca 56 litre for a year (until the base cracked) just with 5 litre a week water changes, and levels were great. It only had a couple of tiddly fish, hermits and shrimps but how much do you want in a small tank. There was a skimmer but it was crap and really only aerated a bit. Had to add some DIY calcium chloride and some bicarb every other day or so, but my monti digi frags grew like wildfire. Edit - I seem to remember I used a bit of carbon now and then also.
Ok cool thats what I'm going to do. A bit of live rock, heater, two nems and two clowns. In a 14g I would have to do 2gals a week. Should be ok. Now if these stupid clowns don't host Imma throw them in my omelette.
