The tank i'm buying at 40 is a 110 Extra High.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I have 4 clown loaches, they do visit the top of my tank occasionally, but they mostly stay down in the lower 4th, probably 85 or 90% of their time is within 4 inches of the bottom.

The rest of my tank is african cichlids, and they are all over the tank at every level. Thats one of the primary reasons I love them.

The loaches are awesome though.. I love the clicking noise they make and the tumbling in groups up and down.
 
my loaches will swim and attack floating pellets. Get an fx5, or a eheim. larger canister.

you can get a fx5 for 240 on ebay.
 
alexmuw;4018746; said:
If your planning on buying the Cascade filters new, I would skip it and buy something better. I own a Cascade 1000 and 1200 and aren't as impressed as I hoped. They do seem to have some bypass problems (prefiltered water can just move around the media baskets without actually going through them).

I see PETCO has 1 cascade 1000 for $150 (thus 2 @ $300). DrFosterSMith has Fluval FX5 (900 GPH !!!) for $300.

A single Cascade 1000 for $150 is really overpriced. If you buy online from petsolutions.com they are $89.99 each thus 2 @ $179.98 and that includes free shipping.

I run two Cascade 1500 ($129.99 at petsolutions.com) on my 120g. Yes they have a little bypass, but they also hold a huge amount of media and are a "budget" filter. I will one day probably replace it with a better filter but if money is a little tight, I would whole heartily recommend them as a great starter canister.
 
The 1500's are a great choice.

Another thing I did was to get the heater out of the tank. I went to the Hydor ETH in line 300watt. It is so awesome not to see a heater in tank or worry about breakage or burns!

Just a little something to consider.

By the way I really love the set up on your stand design. I have always liked the taller tanks. Thats why I ended up with my 120g (60x18x26)
 
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