My 96"x30"x24" - 300 gallon. Would have loved to go wider but my house is small. When I was still living at home I had multiple eight foot tanks including 180, 240, 400 and 550 gallons.
All used sump systems or multiple large canisters.
In this tank, I've cycled through arowana, to wild angels, to peacock bass, to tetras, to geos, to rainbows and now to discus and small schooling fish. 22 discus ranging from 4"-7", 100 cardinals, 75 lemon tetras, 75 black neons, and some randoms from my other planted tank.
Homemade trickle filter for bio, using nylon scrubbies, jap mat, hytroton and filter floss. I run an aquaclear 500 on it once in a while for mechanical only.
24/7 drip with 30 gallons per day changeover. Tank is drilled for overflow drain and waste water feeds into my garden. New water is filtered through a carbon block and sprayed into the tank with an irrigation nozzle.
Mainly Java ferns, moss, anubias and peace lilies (grown out of tank). I dose macros, especially nitrate.
As others have said, if you can do an auto drip, do it. No more water changes. Just feed, prune, and do a vacuum every couple of weeks and you're golden.
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