Newbie with a Nano

[Madreefer]

Welcome to canreef
I say this to all who run with a canister filter. Take out all the sponge filters and media in it and fill it with liverock rubble. It's the best thing thing filtration you can use in a canister filter. When you do clean it just use water from your water change to rinse the rubble. You can also put a nylon sack full of carbon in one if the compartments to polish your water. As for peppermint shrimps, go to a reputable LFS as quite often stores sell camelback shrimps as peppermint. You can put a chunk of prawn in a piece of pantyhose to catch bristle worms if you would like to thin them out.

[Dearth]

Yes water changes weekly

HoB skimmers are good investments everybody has their own personal choices I ran an Aqua C remora HoB on my small tank till I upgraded tanks and I never had issues with it.

[mike31154]

I used to run a canister filter as well, with empty baskets & a bag of carbon. If you run it in a similar fashion it's essentially a mini sump that adds a gallon or so to your total water volume, which is never a bad thing. The main reason I ceased using a canister is they all eventually developed leaks. I've always run a skimmer & seeing the goo that it collects, it's really a no brainer to have one. It doesn't have to be anything fancy or costly, I use an old wooden air diffuser counter current skimmer & it works well. Fine bubbles & maximum contact time are the key to effective skimming and a wooden air diffuser run by a good air pump will create some of the finest bubbles you'll ever see. Then all you need is a small pump to circulate the water slowly through the skimmer body for maximum contact time & you have a nice quiet unit that does the job. The thing runs 24/7 so what it misses on one pass, it will eventually capture during another. Since you don't have any livestock yet, you can take your time & do some additional research on skimmer technology. Once you get a couple of power heads into the tank, your cured live rock will be the first stage of filtration. You probably won't even see a cycle since everything is already matured.