All it takes is good planning, patience & dedication.
Imho, don't cut corners. Plan your setup, get good, quality equipment, and don't experiment. Also, many people seem interested in just setting up a nano, not really thinking about long-term.
My custom acrylic 2.5g was started in Dec '05 and would still be up and running just fine if not for a seam separating 2 weeks ago. Everything was doing very well. I just put in what I wanted, and let it just grow on it's own - didn't constantly put in & take out corals.
My 5.5g is 2x as old, but I made the mistake of letting grape caulerpa into the tank
. It was one of my first, (2nd official nano) and I went with 5.5g standard, AC500 modded into fuge, and 96w quad lighting. Not really a great setup, imho. I'm currently reorganizing & planning and will rebuild the 5.5g better, hopefully running it for
years. 5.5g standard, tank-length overflow as well as closed loop manifold, and fully seperate fuge. 70w MH lighting.