AphroditeIncarnate

Recently, I have been looking into getting a tank kit around the 10g size. the one that I am specifically eyeing comes with a heater, filter, tank, food, and a hood with a light. Any thoughts or experience with tank kits?

Lucy

I have 2 10g kits from walmart (no heater included) I've never had a problem with them.

AphroditeIncarnate

Cool, Lucy.... I've heard that some are real duds... what brand(s) are your kits?

Lucy

Ooops, I forgot 1 is the 10g kit from walmart. The other 10g, I had a hood but bought a 10g tank and the filter at walmart.

The kit included an Aqua-Tech filter (walmart brand, I guess)

For both tanks I bought the visi-therm stealth heaters.

I saw the kits that included heaters in another store, but I trust the visi-therm. They're fully submersible, unbreakable and guaranteed for life.

pinkfloydpuffer

I got a 10 gallon kit at Petco, and I'm satisfied with it.

Lucy

Oh, I have a 5g mini-bow, so I guess that's considered a kit. I added a visi-therm stealth heater to that also.

The kits can be economical to start, you can always upgrade the filter or the heater if you feel the need.

pinkfloydpuffer

I agree. I went all out with my brackish tank, but my freshwater tank was a last minute scrambling, so I just got the cheapest thing I could find, and it's doing alright. I would like to upgrade a few things later though.

Fishies-for-me

I have a 36 gallon bowfront kit from petsmart I love it. It is well made and very handsome with black silicone. The heater seams decent but hard to adjust. It is full submersible but has a rubber seal at the top where the dial for adjustment is so it is very hard to turn the dial. Other than that is works good. The filter is a trifle loud but that is the design of it as it has a plastic tray with holes the water goes threw to break the water up and airate it better . This makes it sound like a babbling brook...no problem if you like the trickling sound. Hood has a florescent light which works well. I have a 29 gallon kit from Walmart the heater is the same brand as the one in the 36 gallon tank and has the same adjustment problem. The filter is an aqua tech which I did not like so I bought an aqua clear 70 to put in this tank as I have quite a few guppies 7 neons ( had 8 but one got caught in an ornament and died) and a few snails in there and like to over filter. I added the fliter that I removed to the 36 gallon to help overfilter it. The tank itself is a good looking but basic rectangle tank...nothing special but does the job.It also has a basic hood with florecent tube that does a good job lighting the tank. I have 2- 5 gallon hex tanks . In one the filter really dosn't turn the water over much but it does do the biological filtration it is needed for and I only have a male betta in there so there is not a whole lot of stuff to filter out. The other one the filter is better....2 the hoods have no glass under them to prevent water from getting on the light therefore a airstone is not great in these as it splashes water up and burns out the bulbs ( not good when you have a $5 bulb in there...lol) I also have a 1.5 gallon hex tank with one little female betta in it....it came with an incandesent light( which works ok but I like th compact floresent better) It also had a undergraond filter which I did not like so I replaced it with a small world filter for small tanks....all 3 hex tanks did not come with heaters.

J J Indy

I have a 55 gallon kit I got from Petsmart and it has black silicone seals in all the corners and everything that came with it works very well. Sometimes in the kits some companies will skimp on equipment but it is a starter kit as time goes on you would probably want to upgrade somethings.

lee250

I got a 55 gal kit from wal-mart with the hood, filter, heater. No problems at all.

Red1313

I love starter kits!!!
Unfortuatly I also love gradge sales as well. lol. So I've only ever bought two kits, neither of which came with heaters. Over all it's cheaper to buy the kits complete with quirks. (All those filters and stuff that you don't like can become back-ups when things go wrong). It's up to you. Unless you can find a used tank that somebody is selling (with hood, Hoods are a pain to find b/c not all tanks are standard.) Then all you really need to buy is filter, gravel and decorations, which wouldn't be (much) more then a kit. It's your call though.