Some pics from my 180g stream tank

Nice set-up. I recently set up a 75 gallon but realized I went to small. I long for a 180 sine i like the 2' width.

Anyways, what sort of lighting do you have in there? Do you get nasty algae? One of my ideas to keep the algae down (which I didn't do) was put intense lighting only on the plant side of the tank. My 75 is set up with plants on one end and they haven't done well until I recently got better lights but the algae went out of control.

Right now I'm using this : http://www.hydrofarm....php?itemid=125 on the right 4' of the tank. One bulb is 90W and the other 125W as they no longer sell the 90W.

I let the algae grow on the back and side glass but clean the front every 3 weeks or so when I do water changes. The val consumes a lot of the nutrients so it doesn't get out of control.

Looks like you trim the val to keep it from stretching out across the surface. Do you think it helps send out more runners when you trim the tops?

When I let the val grow across the surface, it just blocks the light and grows algae. That is the main reason why I trim it. The shorter ones don't seem to get that much algae on them. But I have noticed an increase in runners doing so. I end up pulling up a handful of sprouts when I do maintenance to keep it from growing in sections I don't want it to. I also started with only one light on the right side so the val only grew over there. I recently put in the second lamp when I took those pics. Those sprouts on the left are now stretching across the surface and need to be trimmed as well.