Whats going in? What did you decide on for filtration?
I need to dig out some boxes. I have a canister of some sort, but I need to check the specs, I bought it a while back, not sure it works with the current finish out. I need to work up my plumbing plan, but I intend to utilize several bulk head cutouts and various valving to allow for a couple different flow and filter options. I do plan some sort of canister filter, but I am not abandoning the under gravel. I have had excellent success with under-gravel in my 180 gallon tank, but I agree the 50 gallon tanks with aquaclear 110 over the back filters are easier to maintain and work very well. My thought is to keep an under-gravel infrastructure (2" water line split to a 1" or 3/4" grid or PVC pipe with holes spaced out) but use if for water return as a reverse under-gravel filter. The theory should be the same as traditional under-gravel, with less solids loading (that is where the canister's primary role would be mechanical, with secondary chemical and biological functionality. The under-gravel would provide additional biological filtration. Unfortunately I never tested this on a smaller tank, so if anyone has experience operating reverse under-gravel filters I am interested in your experience.
Tank mates will be mostly south american cichlids, with a few select Africans. Originally I had 3 @ 18" pacus that were to be the center piece so to speak, but they became too aggressive and had to be re-homed. I would like to add Tin Foils back into the mix. Hard to find now days. At this point my interest is more in observing the social behaviors of smaller fish in a larger tank. In the 180 gallon tank you can tell the silver dollars are schooling, but the school spans 3/4ths length of the tank. The goal is to have enough caves for everyone and hopefully observe territorial behavior with enough tank space to support territories. Incidentally this was possible with 3" honduran redpoints in the 180 gallon tank. They would pair off and stick to a territory of 1/3 of the tank or so.