What Would Be Your Ideal Setup?

[ilwayne]

Hypothetically, let's say somebody gave you a 50 US gallon tank and free reign (money is no object) to outfit it. You have to get filtration, decoration, lighting, the whole shebang, though. Obviously, opinions are going to vary widely but I'm interested to hear all of them. Get technical and if necessary explain why you like one option over another.

 

[freshreef]

Ok.. this will be fun!
Well I would get ....water declorinizer... (this has to be freshwater right? LOL if not...OH WELL) then....
a 75 bioweel (or something else really good..never bougt a big filter so I wouldnt know...) a heater.... a power head.. ..then some REALLY strong lighting.... like...200 watt or something..... then for subtrate...I would do a VERY VERY FINE gravel or sand.... (black sand), then I would get a CO2 thing.... and I would make it a HEAVILY planted tank with all sorts of things.. and I would get rocks such as slate and some others, and drift wood... I would make a tank for discus, bolivian and german blue rams, neon/cardinal tetra, harlaquin rasbora, panda cory, and I would get a master test kit and plants would include things like java moss, java fern, amazon sword, cambomba, pygmy sword, anubias, water wysteria, and plants like that! it would be SOO COOL if I could do that!

 

[three-fingers]

Sand/aquatic soil/some sprinkles of large gravel mix as the substrate. Loads of java moss, elodea and windelov java fern(keeping it simple with easy plants). A few small pieces of bogwood scattered on the ground and some tall stones that reach the half way up to the top of the tank.

I'd have one 200 watt heater set to 25 degrees celcius for the day(turns off at night using a timer) and one set to 22 degrees celcius for the night also using a simple plug timer(simulates day/night cycle). I would have a regular tropical T8 tube for the day and a moonlight for the night. Also two fluval 4 plus internal filters and a small airstone at the back(just because i can).

Now stocking-a shoal of 6 of whatever corydoras take my fancy at the lfs, a couple of mosquito fish, 6 rosy red minnows and a pair of Kribensis. A bit strange i know but i'd love it. Also i would add around 10 amano shrimp, an apple snail and of coarse i would put any triops that were over 1.5 inches in there(i would have a small 3gal with an airstone and 25 watt heater set to 23 degrees celcius for raising them up to that point).

Maybe not everyones cup of tea, but i'm slightly strange i guess plus its would be a very interesting tank .

 

[OohFeeshy]

Thats 36x18x18, right?

Um...

One option would be some rounded rocks, a few caves etc, a few clear dividers, big powerheads and an Eheim. A different species of parasitic catfish in each section, with one large section containing a few indian torrent catfish, some non-parasitic trichomycteridae and a few nice garras. Topped off with maybe a few nice danios in each section and a few large mollies or goldfish as feeders.

 

[SmileyMan]

Shame you put a tank limit on, Not RTC setup then