With out nearly daily maintenance the canister will turn into a
nitrate factory in no time, I use one for water polishing now and then but the vast majority of your filtration in my opinion, and many other on this site will come from natural means,
live rock, sand, macro, etc... even without a
sump/fuge you can have all of these things, the macro is definitely easier with a
sump but that could be something you add later, also what type of tank are you planning a
FOWLR, reef, ??? this will help us give you advice as some animals a capable of handling different things in our tanks.
