10 gal nano...questions?

[minireef75]

who else here has a nano?..i know tj does...do you have problems in fluctuating levels?..also how often do you do water changes and how often? Also I am planning on having another ten gallon underneath to use as a refugium/sump...i need help with the plans...i want a low water flow for the ref. the main problem being that I need a small overflow box...the smallest one that i've seen is way to big for my tank..the skimmer box would take up to much room...any and all suggestions would be greatly..trully appreciated...right now all that is in the tank is a blue mushroom rock...a feather duster 1 margarita and 6 astrea snails 5 blue leg/2 scarlet reef hermits...a domino damsel..and a tiger serpent starfish..plus tons of misc. reef bugs..tiny shrimps and who knows what all the stuff is on my rock...which is mostly dry base..only about 3 lbs of live..real nice stuff though..and about 3 inch of live sand/live rock rubble....i am adding rock to it slowly...2 no flourescents...I am ordering a 96 watt quad 50/50 PC friday..is this plenty of light..it will be aroung 10-11 watts/gal..i know there is a debate about w/gal but does it seem sufficient?

 

[worm]

don't know much about a nano, but if you cant find a sufficient size over-flow, why don't you get a small powerhead, attach tubing to the end and send it to your sump? you may have to get the same size powerhead as the return.
just a thought as reading yer post....

 

[keisersosei]

I wouldn't do the 2 powerhead thing. If you buy two identical powerheads then the water will overflow the sump and spill out onto the floor. You would have to account for head pressure. If you get too big of a return pump, though, the "overflow" powerhead won't be able to keep up and the return would pump all of the water from the sump to the display and you would again have a wet floor.
You could rig up a system to allow for adjustable flow rates, though.

 

[tjkohler]

I decided against having a sump for just the reasons that you are having trouble with. You can't have 'dualing' powerheads, and an overflow box takes to much room.
I do maintenance on mine 2-3 times a week. Here's the rough schedule:
Sunday: 1 to 1 1/2 gallon water change. Take about a pint of that from the water surface. I took a little glad tuperware containter and cut a notch at the top of it, so it acts like an overflow. That's how I get all the 'junk' off the top. I'll call that skimming later on.
Tuesday or Wednesday: Replace evaporated water with freshwater and skim a pint of water off the top again. Replace the pint I took out with saltwater. Light feeding, 5-6 Kent pellets.
Friday: Freshwater top off, and sometimes skim. I'll feed the tank with 'enchanced' foods. 1/5 of a large grocery shrimp (for the star), 1/2 cube frozen brine, 5 Kent pellets, all soaked in Selcon.
In the last week I've had a little out break of red slime. I don't think I have enough current in the system. Tomorrow I plan on bumping up my powerhead to a Maxijet 1200 and put a PVC spray bar in there. Tank looks fantastic, and even the red slime looks ok because it's so red (the color of blood) and is all in one compact 2x2 area. The green star polyps are my new favorite of the tank.

 

[jedimaster]

Why not buy a new tank for the main tank and get it drilled for proper overflow. then you only need one pump and as long as yo make chamber the proper size you'll never have wet floors even if you have a pwer outage.