Any suggestions?

[mitch.]

I just aquired a 44 gallon pentagon tank from work that has a small crack in the back, upper corner. It's perfectly capable of holding water, but we can't sell it. One of my customers last week was telling me about his 40 tall that he had setup on his deck with no filter, lots of plants and a few small comets. It sounded like a cool idea. He says he's had it setup just like that for over a year. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this setup? I like the outdoor aquarium idea. I'm a little skeptical about the whole no filter thing though. Would this be better as an indoor setup? Basically I'm trying to avoid having "just another fishtank". I'd really like to have something different.

Thanks!
Mitch.

[softturtle]

Screw the fish tank idea and build it into a vivarium / paludarium. A paludarium is a vivarium that incorperates a water feature into the vivarium design. Put in some whiteclouds and a few tree frogs and you got the coolest box on the block.

At least thats what I would do.

[guppy]

Hiya Mitch, welcome to MFK.
The paludarium sonds like a good idea with that shape. You could do a bog hummock of local mosses, sundews and pitcher plants, spring peepers, some killies, and maybe a madtom. you would only be looking at around 10g water so you could get away with a small concealed box filter.

[mitch.]

That does sound like a good idea. I hadn't really thought of that before. Thanks everyone!