Would sunlight work?

Yes, you can grow plans with just sunlight. The problem is in controlling it - getting it to shine where you want it to shine, getting enough of it (3 to 5 hours), and avoiding overheating the water.

And, of course, there are those cloudy days.

You could also light that tank with those inexpensive gooseneck desk lamps with screw in fluorescent lights, maybe 15 watts each. They should work and with luck, cost not more than $10 or $12 for two.

Good luck!

Bill

 

That's what I am doing with my 10 gallon right now. It is kind of an experiment tank and I am using a screw in CF bulb at 5800K and a desk lamp. The hard part is finding out what temperature the bulb is. Many of the bulbs at my local hardware store didn't have it marked on the boxes. I wanted to find one around 6700K but all I could find was 5800K. It should still serve it's purpose. I have about 46 Watts above mine and tons of CO2 via 2 2liter bottle DIY setups.

It seems to be working beautifully. I successfully caused an awesome GSA spectacle! Okay that wasn't on purpose yet but I half way expected it with the amount of light. The plants have responded pretty well though also. The nice part about 10G is they clean quickly which should make it the perfect tank to mess with ferts, lighting levels, plant density, etc.

 

I haven't heard of anyone successfully making a canister filter they were happy with. At best they spend about as much as a commercial filter costs, and have a filter that works, but isn't easy to clean. Before I would try that I would look for used filters, like the Fluval or Rena, which are pretty cheap to start with. Or, watch ebay for strange brand, made in China, versions.