In this paper, hydraulic & thermal developing and fully developed laminar forced convection flow of a water-$Al_2O_3$ nanofluid in a circular horizontal tube with uniform heat flux at the wall, are investigated numerically. A single phase model employed with temperature independent properties. The thermal entrance length is presented in this paper. The variations of the convective heat transfer coefficient and shear stress are shown in the entrance region and fully developed region along different nanoparticles concentration and Reynolds numbers. Convective heat transfer coefficient for nanofluids is larger than that of the base fluid. It is shown that heat transfer is enhanced and shear stress is increased as the particle volume concentration increases. The heat transfer improves, as Reynolds number increases.