Water pump is the only thing that is loud so i set it up with actinic timing so that it's off during the night. The wave makers are on 24 hours but are quiet so that's ok. I have enough flow with wave makers alone so I can afford to turn the pump during night.

I have the tank in my bedroom.

yea i have a 40 gallon fresh water planted tank in my room and its nice, not to much maintenance and the plants make it look really nice.
so if your not looking at doing corals, plant make a nice change.:D

good luck!

We have a fresh water hexagon in our bedroom, the only issue is when the water starts to evaporate the pump sounds like a waterfall and well you know the sound of water first thing in the morning....makes you get up faster.

I've got my little 15 gal fresh water on my dresser (about a meter from my bed). It just has a Fluval 1 internal filter in it, so I can hardly hear it over the two FX5s. Oh, that's right, I've got 75 and 90 gallon turtle tanks in the bedroom too :p. A few years ago, I just had the 75 gal and a 404 running in it. At first, the noise was a bit annoying, but I got used to it. 1.5 years ago, I added the 90 gallon with the FX5, and didn't really notice any extra noise. Then about a year ago I upgraded the 404 in the 75 to an FX5, and didn't notice much of a change in noise.

Now I'm used to it. It's kind of like white noise. If the power goes out, it's too quiet without my 900gph white noise generators :lol: Only time I notice it is when the 24 hour cycle goes off when it's in the middle of the night, and I hear this big *blub blub blub* of the bubbles coming up :p

i had my 8 gallon sea horse cube on my dressor and then just recently added a 25 gallon salt tank for shits and gigs. i'll try and get some rarer fish in it