mastercave

Hello folks!

I just started my freshwater tank (5 gallon with 1 betta) last week and everything seems to be running smoothly - everything is balanced! Phineas (get it?) seems to be enjoying his new home!

My ultimate goal was to start freshwater and stay for a few months until I get the hang of it, then move on to salty, but while I was at Petco, I got bit by the bug and I want to start the setup soon so I can use some time now to get everything perfect before adding fishes in maybe 2-3 weeks or so.

Now questions:

1) I am making room for a 55 gallon tank, even though I wanted to start with a 20, but then I saw a 55 for a good price. At Walmart, there's a 55 gallon stand from AquaCulture. Anyone have any ideas on it's reliability?

2) If I buy water from the store, how do I buy 55 gallons of water? Or how do I get it home?

3) Is there any reason why I should buy equipment, rock/sand, fish from a LFS vs Petco/Petsmart?

Thanks, hope this will be fun!

bbfeckawitts

Can't answer the other questions but we bought a 29gal aquaculture stand from walmart for our 29gal freshwater and its working out great, I like the design and the shelf inside. Its not wobbly at all and works good.

Oil_Fan

First off, welcome to Fishlore!! I'm sure you'll find a wealth of info here.

Some of the things to look for at that tank at Wallmart. Make sure the heater is SW compatible. What kind of filter does it have?

The biggest expense in a SW tank is the LR used for filtration. There are ways to cut down on that expense though. Get mostly base rock and a bit of live rock. The base rock will convert overt over to live rock though it will take longer. The biological filter part of it won't take that long though...just not much coloration for a number of months. You can also add half as much LR (live rock) that you'll need in the end and then add more as you can afford it.

Another good thing about a larger tank is that it's easier to maintain water parameters.

Don't get the water from Walmart or Petco. Find a good LFS who sells water in bulk. Here in metro Atlanta, most of the stores sell it for $1 per gallon of salt and $0.50 for freshwater (to replace water due to evaporation). As for getting it home, you'll nice large containers. The store I deal with charges $10 per 5 gallon jug. Needless to say, I spent a lot initially but after that it wasn't so bad. Now if you find other containers of decent size then that may work.

I do get some of my equipment from Petco or Petsmart since it's cheaper than my LFS but I only buy my livestock from my LFS. Some of their corporate stores are better than other when it comes to Petco or Petsmart but both don't exactly have great reputations in general. The LFS that I deal with has high quality livestock. But then again you have to check out each of those stores and see what's what.

Hope this helps.

mastercave

thanks for the tips and re-assurance on AquaCulture. I'm only going to get the stand from walmart and I'm not going to buy a kit b/c I just know I'll be replacing the kit equipment down the line. I'll just go and purchase all the top quality stuff right off the bat to save me time, trouble, and money!

Angela_96

I will let you know about some stands they have at petsmart.. they have some nice ones for the 55g for about 160ish.. we bought one that has a cherry finsh and we love it... it looks like a nice peice of furniture in our house. the bottom is soild across instead of the legs so the weight is evenly distributed also.

GreenMan13

Home Depot has 5 gallon buckets for like $5 with $2 lids.

Try looking on line for equipment since you can usually find it cheaper there.
Like here:Dr.ForsterSmith
or here:ThatFishPlace