Stuff your canister full of scrubbies they are an amazing surface for culturing bio, kind of like a cheap bio ball. You may want to look into using a UV sterilizer on the water and dosing it with special blend and or nite-out before adding it to the tank.My tank has no mechanical or chemical filtration strictly scrubbies and sponges for biological and my nitrate and nitrite levels are zero. A 30-50% weekly water change also won't hurt.