Hey guys.
I just signed the papers on my new house today, so I might FINALLY be getting my 510 up and running sometime soon. Since I moved across country in December and had to live with my inlaws for a bit, I didn't have room for any tank larger than a 56 column tank. This caused me to have to sell off all of my fish except for my goonch, little BATF and the remaining imperial loach that I had. The other fish were either too big for the 56 or easily replaceable (tinfoil barbs and such).
The 510 will be gorgeously aquascaped. I'm going to have a proper, natural looking substrate and I have two large, gorgeous root balls as centerpieces. The tank will have a 3D background from Designs By Nature. I'm going all out. I want it to look GOOD.
The one aspect that I can't decide on is what FISH to put in it. Billy Badass the BATF is a must, he's going to be the crown jewel of this tank.
Now, building around that, I can't quite decide where to go.
My first option.
My second option.
Help me out guys. I'm going to essentially be starting from scratch either way anyway. Tell me what you would do in this situation! What would be cooler?
I just signed the papers on my new house today, so I might FINALLY be getting my 510 up and running sometime soon. Since I moved across country in December and had to live with my inlaws for a bit, I didn't have room for any tank larger than a 56 column tank. This caused me to have to sell off all of my fish except for my goonch, little BATF and the remaining imperial loach that I had. The other fish were either too big for the 56 or easily replaceable (tinfoil barbs and such).
The 510 will be gorgeously aquascaped. I'm going to have a proper, natural looking substrate and I have two large, gorgeous root balls as centerpieces. The tank will have a 3D background from Designs By Nature. I'm going all out. I want it to look GOOD.
The one aspect that I can't decide on is what FISH to put in it. Billy Badass the BATF is a must, he's going to be the crown jewel of this tank.
Now, building around that, I can't quite decide where to go.
My first option.
The traditional monster fish setup. I can keep Billy, keep my goonch, add two more imperial loaches, add some clown loaches, maybe a pair of rays, a couple aros, etc. The same thing we've all seen done a hundred times. I LIKE these fish and it really wouldn't hurt my feelings to have a tank with your typical monster fish setup.
My second option.
An African biotope. Billy as the centerpiece, a couple of ornate polys on the bottom, maybe an afrowana at the top and... what? I find that in spite of my rabid love of the tiger fish and my familiarity with a couple of the other large characins from Africa, I'm not overly familiar with interesting things I that could throw into this mix. I know about polys, a few of the larger cats and that's about it. I'd want to avoid rift lake cichlids in this tank if I went that route.
Help me out guys. I'm going to essentially be starting from scratch either way anyway. Tell me what you would do in this situation! What would be cooler?