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Buying a Nano Setup From Scratch

Aeropars

Member
Joined
9 Jul 2007
Messages
818
Location
Leicester
Hi Guys,

I'm interested in giving a nano aquarium a go but cost is something i'm concerned about.

Does anyone have a rough estimate of how much one woudl cost to get started excluding plants? I think my main worries are the lighting and CO2 as I'm not sure of the alternatives to refillable cannisters.

Lee
 
I'd allocate £300 to a GOOD nano, here's the break down:
Tank £15
lighting £40 (24w power compact or similar)
Filter £60 (tetratec ex600 or similar)
substrate £30 (ada Aquasoil, the only real way to go)
plants £30
co2 £80
optional extras, lily's: £40

This is of course assuming you go for a cheap tank and the rest of the parts (except the co2 kit) from AE, knock about £100 off if you intent to shop about on the ol' ebay.
 
It depends on what you want to do really, you could easily get it down to £100 if you went second hand or bought one of those kits of ebay.
Supafish do kits for £40 + an extra light and a better filter that'd come in at about £120.
 
If you already have a pressurised CO2 rig, just use a Y piece to branch off it. That`s what I did to keep the price of my nano down.

Dave.
 
You could indeed, that'd knock £80 of the price straight away.
Dave, how do you regulate the speed of the co2 on the nano?
 
I've just set up a nano aswell, like you, one of my aims was to keep the cost low. Here's what I bought:-
arcadia arc tank - £40 (it includes a small filter, which is adequate for my needs since I'm not stocking heavily, and a 9w light, which is nearly 2w/gallon - should be enough)
Amazonnia substrate - £13 for enough for 20l
Flourish excel (250ml) - £9 (should be enough to run a 20l tank for nearly a year, and keeps Co2 costs down)
Tetra Plant Nutrition + (250ml) - £9.75 (a good all-round fertilizer which should last ages)
Slate for hardscaping - £3.50
And then all you need is plants - I've splashed out and spend £30, but this could probably be minimised

So thats got me a nice, low-tech nano for around £100. Of course, if anyone can pick me up on anything, that would be great.
 
I thing the fertilisers should be counted seperate really as its more of a consumable and not hardware. Taking that out of consideration i think you've got yourself a good deal there. I'm not sure on the lighting though as the WPG rule doesnt count for tanks under a certain size.... (dont quote me on that but i think thats what i read)
 
Aeropars said:
I'm not sure on the lighting though as the WPG rule doesnt count for tanks under a certain size.... (dont quote me on that but i think thats what i read)
The WPG rule still counts although very inaccurate, it's just that lighting should be higher in a nano so the "magic 2 WPG" doesn't really count.
I recon i'll have an arc tank for ya if you want one?
 
Nice nano tank in that link Fred!

Some good advice there.
If you want to keep the cost down. Think about buying a HOB fliter, very cheap, do the job with a little modification and they sit out of the tank, thus not loosing valuable scaping space.
Some of these neat off the shelf nanos have all that you need, be they would inevitably be low light tanks.
Using Excel or easylife carbon are great wasy to add you carbon hit, very cheap an economical in such small tanks.
You want more light, you can add an arc pod or interpet PC tube with relfectors, but you will need more Co2/carbon going in there.
If adding a PC tube, think about how hot it will get inclosed in a small space!

Cheers.
 
Garuf said:
Dave, how do you regulate the speed of the co2 on the nano?

What I do is have a separate needle valve in line with each branch. Fully open the needle valve on the regulator and control each tank on its own needle valve.

Dave.
 
Dan Crawford said:
Aeropars said:
I'm not sure on the lighting though as the WPG rule doesnt count for tanks under a certain size.... (dont quote me on that but i think thats what i read)
The WPG rule still counts although very inaccurate, it's just that lighting should be higher in a nano so the "magic 2 WPG" doesn't really count.
I recon i'll have an arc tank for ya if you want one?

Really?? Send me some details chap!!
 
Dave Spencer said:
Garuf said:
Dave, how do you regulate the speed of the co2 on the nano?

What I do is have a separate needle valve in line with each branch. Fully open the needle valve on the regulator and control each tank on its own needle valve.

Dave.

any links to parts needed to split co2 over two different sized tanks... i have seen the 4 way regulators on ebay .. but they are a bit expensive...
 
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