Okay, so this is the first time I've posted here.

I just purchased a 30 gallon tank, with all needed equipment (light, heater, filter, rock). I don't have any decorations or plants quite yet, as I don't really know what I want to do with it. I'm stuck on what kind of fish I should keep. I was thinking about maybe an oscar, or some african chiclids. I do know that oscars are dirty fish, and they dirty their tanks up pretty bad. And they also get big.. to big for a 30 gallon tank when full grown. I want to start setting this tank up in the next week and get the cycle going, but I don't want to buy anything else until I've decided what fish to keep and what I want my tank to look like. I want it to look natural and keep some fish that are interesting (semi-intelligent even) and have a nice rockscape, some live plants.. just something that will be entertaining and fun to look at.

Any suggestion on what I should do? This is my first tank, but I've worked in a pet shop, and know the basics of keeping fish, and I've also owned many exotic reptiles and amphibians, so animal care is nothing new to me.

Thanks for the advice!

my suggestion would be to get the africans over the oscar anyday(in my opinion they are dirty and downright dumb) not to mention they get quite huge..just an aggravating fish altogether. i tried them in an agressive tank and they weren't agressive enough, and i know they will eat most community fish. The africans on the other hand don't get very large, in fact i've been doing a bunch of research lately and found there are many malawi cichlids that don't get over 4-5" perfect for your 30 gallon. example the pseudotropheus demasoni only get to 3" and all sites i found said they can handle thier own even with larger fish. on a final note don't overstock your tank i see alotta tanks on here with WAAAYYYYY to many fish in them looks good when they are small, but these folks are infor some serious drama in the near future. hope this helps