It's Here!

My fish tank arrived today courtesy of my grandparents, to put it mildly I'm excited. There's a lot of work to be done but it can get started now. Before I get started though I wanted to give everyone a quick overview of what I got.

First up, the tank and stand themselves.


We'll talk about the junk in it shortly. The tank itself looks to be in good condition. All the seams look to be good and there are no cracks or anything. It does need a good cleaning though. My first step will be to research what is a cleaner I can use inside the tank without turning it into a fishy gas chamber. The stand is a simple metal angle iron stand. A good dusting and a piece of plywood for a lower shelf should be all it needs.

Next up the filters. First the bio wheel.


This is the filter I really want to work, its the better of the three, well four. There's a cover for it and all the pieces are there. It's a Penguin 300, not an Emperor 400 like I thought. The bad news is that its out of production, the good news is that really doesn't matter because aside from the pump there's nothing too complicated about this thing. Just like everything else it needs a good cleaning.

In addition to this filter there were two regular power filters included.


These are a back up to the biowheel. I'm pretty sure between the two I can cobble together one working filter, probably two but we'll see. I'll hold onto one just in case the bio wheel ever pukes its guts. There was also an undergravel filter but since I'm going to have a sand substrate its useless to me.

Lighting looks to be in good hands. I have two choices, a single 48" long unit or paired 24". With just one cord and one piece I figure I'll go with the single piece light. I got multiple hood pieces, I plan on using the least dirty. I'm not sure if the bulbs are the best for the tank but right now they make light. At some point in the future I'm going to replace the bulbs just to be sure they're right.


I got a big air pump with the deal, it looks to be in good condition. It also had a nice gang valve as well. It's way over sized for what I want it for, to run a few bubble makers but hey, I've got it. The tubing that came with it is iffy though so I'm going to get rid of it and buy new stuff.


I also got a gravel vacuum, in need of a cleaning like everything else.


On a really good note I also got a ton of slate rocks. With a little aquarium silicone to hold it together I can turn this slate into some decorations for my fish, stuff like caves.


Now onto the not so hot. Fist off is this big tub of gravel I got.


I'm pretty sure its quartz and for me its useless. My catfish can deal with gravel if its nice and smooth, this stuff is like broken glass. Oh well, sand for me.

Unfortunately I didn't confirm the wattage of the heater when I was talking to the seller. It's all of 50 watts for a 55 gallon tank. That's at least 100 watts shy of what I'd need to keep the water warm. So I'm going to have to spring for another heater before too long, and by before too long I mean before I can put fish in the tank. If I had the cash to swing it I'd just buy two 100 watt heaters and toss out this thing. As it stands now though I'm probably going to have to spring for a single 100 and use this for as long as it lasts. When I save up some more cash I'll toss this thing and buy another 100 watter.


The truly good news I suppose is that I'm ready to go. Now I've got all the gear, all that stands between me and getting things going is a couple days of hard cleaning and a second heater. My next update will most likely be talking about cleaning that biowheel filter up and putting it back together.