What to put in new tank?!? plants/fish/setup

[6DK6]

Hey all, I used to raise and breed african cichlids as a young kid and I quit rasising fish as I grew out of everything else.

Well now I have 1-55 gallon long, 1 - 40 gallon breed(wide), 1-25/30(nice sized tank), 1-20 gallon(my fathers), and mltiple ten gallons all open and I want to stat a fish tank or two. but I dont want your everyday pet store fish.

How can I clean the white,calcium? im guessing, off the sides of the tank and the dead algae without using  chemcals that'll harm my fish?

My idea so far it to have a pretty large tank in my room just for a little extra enjoyment, color, and exoticness.

I would really like to setup one of the large tanks, sand will be my bottom, and I want to grow a TON of plants on one side and glue a bunch of rocks together with aqaurium safe glue to build I bunch of nice caves on the other side.

Are there any plants that may grow ON the caves of rocks, really well like some sort of moss?
Are there any good fake plants?

With the plants, I only really know of the bulbs at walmart and I know their selection isnt the greatest/healthiest. So I was wondering what is a good website to order plants from and what kind of plants are best to look at in your opinions?

Also what lighting suggestions do you guys have to grow healthly plants?  I'd prefer easy to access place to get these lights like wal-mart or home depot. So what "specs" should I look for?

Does anyone know of a good website to order plants from?

Does anyone have any good examples of setups for tanks, I'll explain the fish types I want to.

The kind of fish I want are; exotic(something people haven't seen, if I have to order it off the internet that is fine aslong as it's before winter).

I want some sort of cichlid or large GOOD looking fish that eats other fish.. ha I want a tank FULL of action with little hiding and down time.

I'm really interested in schooling fish, mainly catfish like coryodoras and pictus cats. if I could find something like those with many more colors and could hold there own in a tank with large cichlids and possibly another school or interesting fish. I'm really un-decided at the moment on this project and all help would be great!


I love watvhing bottom feeders eat the algae tablets but I want fish that can eat a small goldfish as well.
I would like to have a nice school of beautiful fish that are tough to enough to deal with 1/2 large cichlids and will stick mostly around the plants while the cichlicds stay around the rocks.
I'm doing some search on fishprofiles to look some fish up; pictures, websites, and any help would be great. I just want to setup a really nice looking EXOTIC NON-everyday tank that will WOW people.
I prefer aggressive good looking fish, bottom feeders, and schoolers.
please post, fish,plants, aquarium setups.

Let me know what you guys have for ideas, after my one class(woot, usually 2) I'm going to start cleaning one of the tanks either the 55,40 or the 30. So hopefully I'll have some responses by then. PLZ bold and quote the questions you're answering helps me keep tract of what I've asked,

[6DK6]

I've been looking around at fish with qualities that I like and I REALLY like pictus catfish and would like atleast 4. or if someone knows of a smiliar better looking species I'd be highly interested.

I'd also mabe like a a male and female Ram cichlid.

possibly a pair of blue convict cichlids. are these too aggressive for the pictus?

I would like some chinese algae eaters since they stay small and can take care of algae, since i'll have lights on. I think I'll just get the regular bulbs rather than going all out on light s and plants.

and I would like a large tetra schooling fish that is fast an moving but big enough not to get eaten by the convicts/rams.


does this sound like an alright tank?
I'm going to probably cycle it with gldfish or some guppies while I get all the materials ready and once it's ready I'll get the fish... is there better looking fish tho? I just did 30 mins worth of searching but I'm off to clas.... some experts let me know of something sweet! please!

[Morgrid]

For cleaning the calcium deposits I would use vinegar. It is basically an acid that is safe (as long as you rinse it out) for fish. As far as suggestions for fish. There aren't too many fish that like to both eat algae wafers and consume live fish. I would not really reccomend trying to get a cichlid based on the fact that it eats other fish. Although there are quite a few that do, most of them don't really need to and you are better off not using feeders. The convicts sound fine and I think they shouldn't have too much problem with the pictus.

[Mollielover]

I would like to add that if you are thinking of growing plants that sand does not anchor them well.  You will need to think about what kind of lighting you want too.  I would suggest some low light plants to start out.