I know a better place for this thread might be in the freshwater but it's not really me asking for advice just me starting a conversation. I currently have a 55 gal tank with a basic setup thats running just fine, everything is healthy. I love the tank but I'd like to switch it up a little with all new fish. I would never kill or sell my fish I just wont buy anymore and in a year or two when all my friends are gone I'd start all over. I'd be switching pretty much everything and getting the deluxe package. Some of those overly expensive lights with the canister filter and probably eco-complete. I know I'd have it heavily heavily planted but this is the part I'm wondering. I'd either want to have it another community tank but with a theme like betta's. Since it would be a heavily planted tank I would be able to have two males since the weaker one would would have a bunch of places to hide and I would have 20 females in there. (I think it would look amazing.) OOOR I want have a just a few big fish in there and nothing I have to feed live food too. What does everyone think? Also if you think a few big fish would look best please give me some examples of fish that you think would look good no goldfish please. Lol I know my post is pretty specific but it's not meant to be. I mainly just wanna hear what other people what put in a heavily planted tank and maybe ill steal the ideas haha.

ok i think that, it may take more than a year or two for your current friends to (kick it) for lack of better terms, i feel that you should start a new tank from the ground floor and do discus with cardinal tetras, discus get fairly big so if you have three in there it would be about right. the bettas will still find a way to kill each other, have you ever seen a betta back down from anything? i never have, although i do like the idea of 20 or so females. maybe if you put a divider in the tank a plexiglass one that you can silicone in the middle, make sure you have plenty of holes in it so that the current flows freely and the filter can do it's job or have two filters, but still keep enough small holes for current. also i think if you desire diff plants you can do diff themes on the two sides. a dueling tank type thing, do some african plants on one side and maybe amazonian plants on the other. i think that would look great. discus do need room to swim and plenty i repeat plenty of hiding places. once they get use to you being around the tank they will come out more and more. and they are deff showy fish, although quite expensive, even little ones run roughly 29-50 bucks a piece, so save your pennies. lol you could also do sevrum and angels. although sevrum can be highly aggressive, mostly towards other sevrum. they can be just as pretty and get huge, they love eating lettuces and veggies, also fruit from time to time, they take less care, although if you are doing all live plants you may want to avoid sevrum as that's their main diet. stay away from pacu!! they get too big too fast. and you will 1 end up giving it away, 2 end up killing it as your tank will not be able to support it's size, 3 end up buying a 500 gallon tank just for that fish, i have seen them grow up to and over 2 and a half feet in length.
Hope these ideas give ya something to think about and look forward too, just remember discus are amongst the hardest cichlids to keep, water parameters have to stay constantly perfect or they will stress out and you will literally be flushing away hundreds of dollars.
Brandon

scrap that. go big. how about a giant shark tank! lol only kidding but I was just throwing that idea around today with some friends. I'd love to have a gym someday in my basement and construct an absolutely giant tank as one of the walls maybe between that and the spa. It would be sweet to work out or just chill while watching some huge fishies.