Custom Setup advice...

You migth consider heading to the library and checking out "The Complete Aquarium" by Peter W. Scott. He has a few river setups in the book. The book shows how to make specific tanks that recreate a specfic environment just like you want to do. The book shows how to make amazon river, asian river, zaire river, and papua new guinea sandy river tanks.

You might consider bleeding heart tetras, rainbow fish, red tailed shark, tiger barb, scissortail, bumblebee goby, or african glass catfish. The book suggests many more and plants and substrates to go along with it.

You can definately cut down on the height of your tank. But I'd say it needs to be at least 8 to 10 inches.

Last, I don't think that they really check tanks that closely. At the college I go to, they are more interested in stopping drugs and booze rather than people having aquariums with a few extra gallons

I have a tank in mind for sometime.... (ah to be able to do anything at anytime) ok enough daydreaming .... that is a long low tank like you are speaking of. I will have 2 or 3 power heads on one end and pipes/hoses under the gravel carrying the water from intakes on the oposite end of the tank to the powerheads to make a directional flow. I might also have an external power filter with the intake output helping that flow.

The idea is to make a high oxygenated, possibly slightly cooler than tropical slice of a stream.

I might consider fish like hillstream loaches, white clouds, darters, fish that live for the current.

my actuall plans would be to big for the aproximately 10 gallon limit. I had thought of making that tank in a 30g or 40g long, and haveing the bottom be mostly larger stones like a stream bed might be, with only the ocasional plant hanging on.

One idea for a not-so-common fish theme would be a couple of Blockhead (or Buffalo-head) Cichlids. These are african river fish and are used to these areas.