I thought about this more today. Without a decent skimmer I would go with that new knock off of ZeoVit, I think it was call ProPolyp or something. John and Brian at Kingfish in Austin were telling me about it and John uses it in a non skimmed tank with great results. Similar to alcohol etc. It has a certain bacteria, food, amino acids etc. that eat up the waste.

Sounds perfect for your setup. It's not cheap, but on a small tank it'll last a long time and you don't need to use up your space etc.

I think it was Nuke grade. It may have been buckeye, he had a special on the non color changing stuff...looked like rootbeer color. It was a long time ago as my big tank has been down for 2 years almost.

Todd