Help me setup my 15 gal nano - lots o questions

[Kevomac]

Posted this in the nano forum, too, but here goes...

I'm finally going to try a tank in my son's room again. I bought a ~15 gal tank at a garage sale last weekend, and I'm looking to set it up as a small reef tank. Its a AGA (all glass brand) tank. 14" x 14" x 19", so its essentially a tall cube. It came with a stand and full hood. The hood is recessed with a single 12" tube fixture in it, but the fixture is rusty and needs to be replaced. I am having a hard time finding 12" fixtures that I could replace it with. I'd prefer to find a retro-fit kit that I could fasten into the existing hood, but am considering making a new hood out of plywood that I could put a light under. I'd like to run something like pc lights to keep low light softies or small lps corals under.

I am also torn on filters. I don't usually like non drilled tanks for saltwater because of salt creep, but this one has a nice raised canopy built onto the tank. However, if I use a HOB filter, I'm still going to have salt creep. What is my best bet for a HOB filter? Should I use a canister type or an open, Whisper filter type, or something else? The current stand would not work with a sump, so adding an overflow isn't an option right now.

Finally, besides light and filter, I'd like to paint the back of the tank blue or aquamarine. What paint can I safely use to do this, and do I need to take any extra precautions besides keeping the other surfaces tightly covered?

Thanks for any help!

[Laddy]

I've had a 10g going for quit some time now, with only an aqua clear 150 (I think they call them 50s now), a 50w heater inside the HOB, 96w quad compacts, and weekly 1g water changes. I got the whole set up from a coworker who was running it freshwater for a year.......so in my opionion the aqua clears can't be beat--almost 8 years with the same motor, that's pretty good in my opinion. Maybe they can use me in their commericals or something, sort of the way Toyota use to have those 300k mile drivers jumping in the air :D

I've painted tanks with everything from Krylong rattle cans to regular paint applied with a roller. Most paints will adhere to glass--just check the back of the can/bucket at home depot. Now a days, I actually get a piece of acrylic cut to fit the back of my tanks so that I can change the color at will.....this works out well for my nano. My 60 I painted, but I can't remember the name of the paint.....just something I got at Lowes I think.

[SW_nOOb_SC]

I also have a 10gal and use an Aquaclear HOB filter. I modded it into a DIY Fuge. I like the Aquaclear filters, large squarish filter box, simple design, easy to mod, and pushes a lot of water. Also can use interchangable parts from smaller models like impellers...which is an easy way to reduce/increase flow just switch impellers! Truthfully i really havn't had a major problem with salt creep at all, a little bit in the usual places but it really is very minimal.

I used to run a 94w PC fixture on the tank but switched to a 250w MH retro kit (soon to be over my 40gal).

[Kevomac]

So Aquaclear seems to be a good way to start. Someone else in the Nano forum suggested an AquaC Nano, but that seems like an awful lot of money for such a small tank. I've used an Aquaclear on another tank before, and liked it, so I'll probably go that route again.

The next question is, how to put lights on a nonstandard tank. Any ideas?

[TheApprentice]

I used an Aqua C Remora protein skimmer on my 10 gallon and I was able to keep am nitrite and nitrate down to 0 because it was so much of an over kill. haha