180 Gallon Tank Ideas

[Triggerobsessed]

I am just about to buy a 180 gallon tank, and can't decide on what to put in it. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Opcn]

I am just about to buy a 180 gallon tank, and can't decide on what to put in it. Anyone have any ideas?

You could build an awesome reef in a tank that size, or you could og with something new and exciting, like cuttle fish, or you could do a SW planted tank, Maybe pile in lots of sand and have a little bit of rubble and small rock for macros and true plants that need it, then sea grass, it would be especially impressive if you made the sand into mounds and ridges, then after a few years if everything was well rooted you could toss in something that will make a burrow in the bottom like a pistol shrimp, maybe keep a school of Bangai in there, let them swim between the blades of grass, or seahorses, you could have a breeding pair of seahorses and there offspring in a planted tank, maybe something big like giant seahorses, that would be bad assed

 

[Lynden]

Bad assed indeed. Sounds like a great idea.

-Lynden

 

[Triggerobsessed]

sounds like a good idea, but i don't know if i want to spend extra money on a powerful light system. Would the plants need it?

 

[Opcn]

Depends on the plants, there are Rhodophyta that grow down at 30 meters and phaeophyta that grow under ice sheets in the arctic, but you're definitely looking at some good lights for most everything, I'll bet that the cheapest you could go would be with some full length HO T-8s in a home made hood , and leave some slots for MH,s later on when you inevitably decide that some acropora would look great amongst your Macro-Algae.

 

[Redstratplayer1]

How much are you willing to spend?
A mixed reef would be awsome but would coast a small furtune for a 180.
I like the sea grass idea it would not coast as much as a reef .I was thinking of doing this on a 10 gallon.

I would do a intertidal zone set up .You would have to have a pump that filled a 50 gallon drum above the tank with water and a slope of rock and sand in the tank as water fills the barrel it gives the feeling of the tide going out when the barrel fills.At a ceritin point the pump turns of and the barrl starts to drain into the tank simulating high tide.

 

[Triggerobsessed]

i will most likely do the mixed reef. I won't be able to buy the rock for a while though. I'll go to my lfs and try to determine how exactly much this is going to cost me. If all else fails I could always just make the tank a large fish only tank.

 

[andywg]

You could set up a colony of garden eels with a 6" or so substrate. They should work well with either some walking batfish or some jawfish. That would look amazing.

Other alternatives are a venom themed tank featuring a coral catfish, fox-face rabbitfish, a lion fish or two and then a scorpionfish or toadfish.

You can fit a panther grouper in there, and they are amazing as they start to grow. I would heavily recommending grabbing a copy of Reef Fishes Volume 1 by Scott W. Michael and flicking through there. That should give you an idea of some the amazing "oddball" marine fish there are out there.

 

[Opcn]

No coral catfish, they are a bad idea, They need need need to school when young, and then they get big and they need some space to spread out a bit, and they need live rock and coral heads to hang out in. I like the idea of Garden eels and maybe sea grass with them, is there a souther facing window you could light this tank with? Maybe time for a bit of a home remodel as well perhaps.

Also mixing jawfish with garden eels is a bad idea, the jawfish will not enjoy having other critters messing about near its burrow.