Sorry for your loss. You seem to be coping well, look to the future!
Starting from scratch, you have the luxury of building something with intent, rather than piecemeal as catches your eye at the LFS (how most of us build our tank's population).
There are lots of great theme/biotopes that would be fun with a tank that size.
A single or trio of these ... Talk about a fun interactive wet pet.. wouldn't mix them with cichlids but they are alot more then just pretty to look at. These guys are always a hit. Even my mom thinks they're interesting.
Thank you everyone so far for your replies and thoughts of kindness. What i had in the tank was a vast range of types. I had these fish along with some oddballs.
24" silver Aro
3 12"-14" buttercofri (spelling)
2 7"-8" green severums
1 8" gold severum
1 7" pike unsure of its type
2 6"-8" red devils breeding like rabbits
2 4"-6" columbians doing the breeding dance all the time
3 6" yellow labs
2 6" albino colbalt zebra breeding pair
1 6" male OB peacock
2 6" male peacocks
1 8" sun catfish
1 8" lace catfish
3 8"-10" Haplochromis different breeds
2 8" clown loaches
I have pictures of some of these sweethearts in my photos.
I am thinking about doing something with Aros again this time. I am going to the Chicago GCCA swapmeet on Nov 7th in search of new monsters to stock the tank.
I would love to creepy. I also have a number of other tanks with some beautiful stock in them. I dont want to move them because they are doing so well in the tanks they are in right now. I have a beautiful 125 with 4 fronts, 2 pairs of severums, 2 trophius, a pair of OBs, pair of ali's and a redhook silver dollar in my living room. I also have a male and 7 female Haplochromis Nyererei in a 70 gallon tank.