Fish tank

Ok well I have finally decided to go and buymyself a large fish tank. My old little 10 gallon is fun but I love fish and want a new tank. A display tank to put on my dresser. Now Ive done some shoping and I want to buy a 4 foot long 55 gallon tank.

Now thats the easy part I know thats what I want and need.


SOO where is my delemia?

I have 3 stores to buy the tank from each with its own pros and each with its own cons. SO here we go this is my choices
Keep in mind these are all 55 gallon 4 foot tanks.

OK I can go with a local family owned buissness. I have shoped there alot and my family is freinds with the family. However I will nto get a discount on the tank.

They offer the tank ONLY THE TANK for $119.00

The pros of this is that its a small buissness and I like to support local small buissness. Even if it means payign a tid bit extra.

OK so next retailer is PETCO.
so they have a perty nice deal going on. They have the same tank for $99.99 perty good and "$5 of free fish" which is absloutly pointless for a tank that big and for 5 dollars you cant really get an awesomeness fish liek I want. so thats perty good.


Now I have PETSMART which does not offer a 55 gallon tank alone. They offer a "Kit" which comes with a light a cover and a filter. Which in total is for a verry nice price of $149.99. THe filter is not the one I want but for the light top thats a good price also.

Keep in mind I have to also buy the filter the light and everything for the otehr two tanks if I buy them and filter I am lookign at cost about 40 - 50 dollars.


ANY WAY what do you think?

I am leanign towards the small buissness just because its a small buissness and in my "nebighorhood"

although it is the most expensive route.



And BTW Koi fish eat ALOT! too much I should have never bought them....

If it won't put U too far out of pocket go with the small business I say, I always try to also

Mind me asking what kind of fish U have or are planning on getting for it ?
I would like a big fish tank one day too, once I have my own home sorted and all (which is happening soon!) but I have no idea about fish lol I want pretty ones that aren't too expensive lol

FIsh can be an expenisve hobby. Im lookign for a project to pool my money into slowly. Just like some people have cars some have motorcycles (as do I) but I also enjoy fish. I only have about $200 saved up which is not nearly enough to complete the project with docerations, fish, filter, lights excessories etc....

But I guess in a buissness terminology I have capital or money to start. ANd I can poll about 15 dollars a week into it which is about a fish a week or a new decoration. And after so long the project will be self rewarding. And I have the ability to watch it grow as an enviorment. Proablyl when its all said and done I may end up puting close to $500 into the project. But its just somethign to enjoy doign that has a constant relaxing rewarding value. And peopel will go MAN THATS TRIPPY!

And I can feel like im in the 60s again Now I just have to buy a VW.... hmmm

Support the small business, by all means.
They also tend to have the most knowledgeable staff...
And, you make friends....
"good morning Mr Mizar, how is Percy Plecostimus today?"

I see ok cool, I just always thought it'd be great to have a big ass tank in the huse for people to ooooh over n stuff and I know that can be expensive but it's something that can be rewarding and U can take ya time with adding more to as well

MY wife wants the coffee table one..


A little overboard, if you ask me, but great for fresh sushi..

WOW I want that one too now!!! lol @ fresh sushi

I remember seeing them in huge TV's at the bottom, they were awesome but a little impractical.

I duno If I would want something like that. I would actually like a 5 foot tank but they need to be custom made which is $$$$

CRAPOLA! I need to get rid of this Koi he is too big for this tank

Thruthfully though.
I remember as a kid, having various tanks... It was a lot of fun.

Sometimes just goldfish I won from the carnival games...But they would grow very big in my tanks..

Then, a few more evil fish, the Piranana...those were fun to feed...

Ive decided to return the koi to the pet store... And buy f group of schoolign fish instead for my 10 gallon tank I have now. The Koi are producing too much waste and eating too much food for this tank.

Gerr bastages. Well it looks like im gojng to buy from the small buissness. Sounds good that will make me happy. Thanks for the input I guess I can thake pictures of the set up as it comes along in the next month or so.

That would be great to see it as it flourishes..
Good luck with your project Mizar..

Ok I got the waranty info....

Local Dealer/ Small buissness: 1 year limited waranty

Petsmart: DOES have a 55 gallon tank for sale alone and it too is 119$ but it has wood grain finnish which I have grown to like ALOT. However this wont matter as I will eventualy buy a coustom hood. ANy way the tank has a LIFETIME waranty.

Now Petco is looking like the worst of the worst. I couldnt find waranty info on any of their tanks and they have the tank at 99$.


Any way. as I have stated I would like the wood grain and The local small buissnes is on my ride home and my ride to school so I stoped there this afternoon and told them. "Hey I want to buy a 55 gallon and Im shoping do you have this tank?" and they told me they ar geting a shipment of new tanks in tommorow. So I will be going back to check out if they have a wood grain. IF they do I will buy it this weekend.

I really want to support them even though they have good buissness. The tanks they sell are made in Mississippi by a company that does that solely. So that to is "Local."

im most likely going to go for chiclids in this tank. I am not sure yet. I still need to
1. Decide on a tank
2. Decide on a filter
3. Decide on a tank floor medium (Fine pebbles Gravel sand etc...)
4. tank decor style
and then maybe introduce some fish.

Ok on friday I bought the fish tank and put it in my room. Today I bought my air pum anf the undergravel filtertration system.

I Just got done seting up the system and the air lines. So far so good.

OK now I need your help in deciding how to design the seascape of my tank... Can you please comment on how you feel for each..
#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

Mizar:

Nice choices , but it depends.....

Will this be a saltwater or a freshwater setup?

What size/kind of fish are ya looking to show off (small or medium/bigger)?

Spacedoubt:

Love the coffee table, let her get it.

Coolest coffee table I've seen was a perfect square (about 4'), really shallow (about 1'-1'6" tall), and had a small freshwater stingray!

Kinda like this:
www.poolandspa.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>





[edit on 1/8/06 by redmage]

I like 5 and 7, they'll project nice lighting into the room..
Hopefully the fish likek those colors too..

Ok seince then I have put in the Mechanical filter. Today I purchased a 60 gallon Canister filter, 50 pouds of natural bed rock pebbles. and a 6 stage water test kit. I am setting it up currently. so far this is my spending....


Tank : $130.49
Filter 1. : $60.67
Undergravel Filter: $22.99
Air Pump/ tubing : $24.83
CAnister Filter: $76.69
Rocks: $29.29
Test kit: $32.80

Total:$377.76

Hmm hasnt seemed like that much


Pictures to come

Can't wait to see them..
You are inspiring me to possibly set up a tank again...

OK here you go sorry about the quality of some of the pictures. I really didnt take my time messing with the manual settings on the digital camera. After all its only 4 mega pix. Now If I had my SLR..... any way this is about the tank

This first picture is just the tank the tape measurer is out to 4 feet.




This next picture is with the undergravel filter installed. This one is a bad picture... you really cant see it but its there so uh yeah.





And here is the product right now. It has a 75 gallon mechanical filter, and a 65 gallon canister filter. (thats the blue thing to the left. And as a joke I put one fake plant in the gravel. and thats Giz cat to the right. the white thing with some black





And here is my small 10 gallon tank that is just blah.





so um yeah. there you go it will be about 2 weeks before I start to decorate. because I will be out of town until next tuesday.

Originally posted by Mizar
OK here you go sorry about the quality of some of the pictures. I really didnt take my time messing with the manual settings on the digital camera. After all its only 4 mega pix. Now If I had my SLR..... any way this is about the tank

sorry if it has been discussed.. but what kind of fish are you putting in here? That will weigh big into how its designed

I would say go for african cichlids.. very hearty fish, almost as colorful as saltwater fish, and you HAVE to overstock them, which is a good thing because anytime im at the fish store i end up seeing something i want

I'll post pictures later. I have black moon rock as the substrate, all white marble as the decoration

I was thinking about goin chichlids. But I really want a small school of about 12 neon tetras so I need to really build a community tank around that. I should be geting my books in eitehr today or tommorw on the whole setup deal. I orderd a few off amazon the other day. Please do post picutes of your faquarium if you have them that would be appreciated.