No Mechanical Filtration?

[His Coral Highness]

Long story short, I have a 16 gallon tank that I’ve only been using to house some feeder shrimp, crabs, and a toadfish. I originally broke it down as a reef tank when I moved everything in it to my main 75 gallon reef system. I only have it about halfway full and I primarily just use it to raise live food. I have a canister filter on it that I rarely ever clean out. Would I be able to get away with removing the canister and just putting in a few powerheads and a heater? It has live rock and gravel substrate. I’ve actually been surprised that it’s done as well as it has with just a weekly 2 gallon water change. I also threw in some chaeto for the shrimp and crabs. What do you think?

 

[The_Paradox]

Only mechanical filtration I have ever run on saltwater is skimmer. You could just remove the media from the canister and replace it with rubble and leave it as is.

 

[Red_Beard]

Ya, can for sure be done. Just keep an eye on no3 and po4 and change water as necessary

 

[His Coral Highness]

It’s on a desk without a cabinet so the canister looks ugly… Yeah it’s really a side project compared to my main tank so I’d like it to be as low maintenance as possible, but I don’t mind weekly water changes

 

[Red_Beard]

It’s on a desk without a cabinet so the canister looks ugly… Yeah it’s really a side project compared to my main tank so I’d like it to be as low maintenance as possible, but I don’t mind weekly water changes

Yeah, i can understand that. Depending on how much rock you have and how much food you put in and algae etc you may not even need once a week WC's (but then again you may need more...) just test water and change as needed.