Nano Cubes also come with an extra bonus of unexpected cracks and floods..........I iinitialy wanted a Nano cube, but after seeing the returns at the lfs, and reading all the horrow stories on the Nano forum, I decided to get my feet wet with a scratch built pico, and move on up as I had time to play, and not fool with the Nano cubes. They are a nice design, but have lots of room for improvement, which fortunately a lot of which can be done DIY and not overly expensive.........but the crack rate and the way the manufacturer has treated folks with faulty tanks IMHO they just were not worth the risk of having them crack.......some have been received cracked, and other just up and cracked after being setup for a month or two or longer......True the company may honor the warranty, but a lot of money is wasted in livestock being lost.........
The way I figured it is if I can keep a small PICO, a larger setup shoul dbe much easier, and so far so good.......I view it as a learning process without dumping a huyge amaoiunt of money all at once into something that may or may not turn out into something I had thought it would.....Odds are I will always keep my Pico as it serves as a night light and adds color, and my gradual steps up to the large tank over time is not wasted as livestock can always be relocated or fragged........and eventually by the time I get around to finishing up my 90 gal the one smaller tank(29 gal) will become a QT tank........and another of those (40 gal) will be converted to my sump. My 40 gal is actually a converted reptile / small critter tank, I have used previously for a QT setup for my GF and other tropicals, after I made plugs from plexiglass to seal factory drilled holes, and now quite a few of those holes are just right for adding required equipment into a sump.....Certainly nothing wrong with starting small and pay attention to what your doing, and learn along the way.....Yes it may be nice to plunk down a heap of $$$$ and walk out of the store with all the equipment needed for a quality setup, unfortunately I have other needs in my life but stil want to have a SW setup so I have been creeping a bit at a time and in the process building up my knowledge of what I can and can't do....and whatI really need not what they say I need, and stil meet other obligations and still enjoy my setups.