The Premier Pet Fish Wesite - Established 1996 I recently bought a Top Fin 10 gallon tropical aquarium kit to use as a quarantine tank at Petsmart.  I paid $40 the whole kit in the box.Here's what is in the box along with ma good, bad or neutral rating.  Please note that ratings are in relation to what you might expect to get out of a reasonably priced aquarium kit.10 gallon tank:A standard glass 10-gallon tank from a major manufacturer.  It's dimensions are 20"x10"x12".  Tank is what you would expect from a modern tank for quality.Rating - GoodFilter:A 10 gallon rated HOB power filter.  This is a rebranded Whisper 10.  It just has a piece of grey plastic on the top that says Top Fin.Rating - GoodHood:A standard black aquarium hood with a transparent plastic section for a light fixture.  It has cutouts on the back so you can cut holes for filters, cords and such.  I believe the hood is manufactured by Perfecto.Rating - GoodLighting:The setup comes with a lighting fixture that holds two incandescent bulbs. 

I assume that these are also produced by Perfecto.  These lights are totally inadequate.  Not only do they not provide sufficient light to even see inside the tank, but they get extremely hot.  With a tank this small that means rapid temperature changes in the water.  I left the lights on for 3-4 hours and the temperature rose from 79 deg to 84 deg.  That is less than ideal.Rating - BadHeater:A Marineland Neptune heater.  It's a glass heater.  There is knob on the top that allows you to adjust the temperature.  Unfortunately, there no markings for settings.  This means you have to set it somewhere.  Wait for a few hours and then adjust based on what the thermometer reads.  This is time consuming.Rating - NeutralNet and thermometer:It comes with a small net and a stick on the tank thermometer with a Marineland logo on it.  The net is the right size for the fish that would fit in a 10-gallon tank.Rating - GoodEverything else:There is wealth of samples with this product:A 15ml sample of Aquasafe(oddly, this is 3 times what you would use for this tank size)A 5ml sample of Stress CoatA 5ml sample of Stress ZymeA 3g sample of TopFin tropical flakesA 3g sample of TetraMin flakesUser manuals and a water log for tracking ammonia, nitrite and nitrateRating - GoodConclusion

:This would be a great kit for the money if it wasn't for the lighting.  Having lighting that heats the tank that much is just plain silly.  fish tank filter renaEverything else is either good or about as much as you can expect from the price point.  fish tank snail infestationAll in all, I would have rather paid a little bit more and received some inexpensive fluorescent lighting. fish tank gravel worms Barbs, Tetras And Minnows Goldfish, Ponds And Coldwater Fish Diseases And Fish Health Spawning And Fry Care Products And Services Reviews Conversions Volume CalculatorAquarium Measurements And pH ScalesThe Ultimate Aquarium CalculatorDesign Your AquariumLink to PetFish.net © Since 1996, All Rights Reserved All content is copyright by petfish.net and/or the named author and may not be used without written permission.

Sponsored In Part ByMarineland Aquarium Emperor Power Filters The Marineland Emperor 400 Power Filter with Bio-Wheel is a "Hang-On Back" (HOB) aquarium filter system featuring 2 separate water pumps. The Bio-pump pressurizes and sends streams of pre-filtered, oxygen rich water to each Bio-Wheel, while the Rite Size E filter cartridges trap debris and remove dissolved contaminants. Refillable media containers hold an additional 4 oz. of chemical filtration media for maximum pollution removal. The Marineland Emperor 400 is the ideal aquarium power filter for your aquarium. Requires 9.5" of space along the back of your aquarium. The Emperor Bio Wheel filter comes complete with Rite Size E filter cartridges, refillable media container, and Bio-Wheel assembly. Questions about which Hang-On Power Filter is the best one for you? Check out our Hang-On Power Filters Comparison Chart today!post #1 of 21 (permalink) I picked up a Petco branded 3.7 gallon cube tank today I've never been very big on writing anything resembling an in-depth review, but this thing really impressed me.

I spent the better part of the day not working while at work. I was looking at reviews for every nano sized tank I could find that would fit on my desk at home and had decided on the Marineland Contour 3 gallon. The store I went to was sold out of it, but they did have the Petco preferred branded Cubic 3.7g. This tank is not listed on their website so I was a bit surprised when I saw it sitting on the self. It looks like a great little tank. The price was only $50. They had two in stock. I brain-farted and didn't open the box while in the store and when I got home I discovered the entire bottom piece of glass was shattered. But after a quick trip back to the store I was able to exchange it with no problem. It is all glass. The front and side panels are one piece of curved glass. The glass is 3/16" thick. All of the joints are sealed with black silicone. Overall, the tank is 9 7/8" x 9 7/8" x 9 7/8". The actual usable tank area is 7 1/2" x 9 3/8" x 9 1/2. It sits on a plastic pedestal that is glued to the bottom of the tank.

It does come with a glass lid. The instruction leaflet that was in the box showed plastic hinges for the glass lid, but they were not in the box which I honestly dont care about since I probably wouldn't use them anyway. There is enough of a gap with the lid in place in the back for power cords for the pump and a heater and also an air line. It has a 3 watt Led light that has blue and white leds. It is plastic and does not feel like it is built to last. It can swivel to either side and also be tilted up. It does have an interesting way of turning it on and off. It is not an actual button or switch, but instead a spot on the top of the light that each time you touch and it will cycle through off, blue, blue + white, or white. It does seem to remember where it was if the power supply is unplugged so I'm guessing a no frills wall outlet plug-in timer should work. I am also willing to bet that the circuitry for the touch button (for lack of a better term) is extremely cheaply designed and will fail.

The light is to say the least, not bright. I'm sure it would be just fine if the only thing alive in the tank were fish, but for plants...not so much. I did notice that the power supply is rated for 12 volts, 1.0 amp so I'm thinking there is at least some room for modifying it by replacing the leds with higher output ones. The back of the tank has what looks like a very well designed filter/pump compartment. They seem to have done a good job to make sure the water flows through evenly. There is a piece of black plastic glued in place separating it from the main part of the tank. It has three compartments for filter cartridges, a black plastic sponge, and a removable (replaceable) pump. They are all 2 1/2" wide, and then 3 1/2", 2 7/8", and 3 3/8" long. The filter cartridges sit one behind the other. The compartment that houses the pump is plenty big enough to add a heater. The picture shows an extra Aqueon 100 watt heater I have. I'm not planning on using it, it's just there to help show how much room there is.

I though it was odd that even though they used a piece plastic to separate the main tank area from the filter area, they used glass to separate the three filter compartments. It seems like that would have been a golden opportunity to cheap-out and just use more plastic. The water enters through two places (green in the picture). The primary area is a series of slots that are at top at the water line. There is also a single small slot towards the bottom at the substrate level. The slots are about 1/8" wide, so I'm thinking they are probably not very shrimp or fry friendly. It has two filter cartridges, one with carbon and the other little ceramic balls. It also has a pretty good sized plastic sponge. I think I will probably just ditched both of the cartridges and replace them with a single bag of ceramic rings. The sticker on the pump says it is rated for 40 gallons per hour and the flow rate is adjustable. It also has four little suction cups on the bottom of it to hold it in place.

I filled the tank up to see if it leaked and clean it out and to make sure everything worked correctly. Once the pump was pluged in, it did a really good job of circulating all cardboard box lint they included for free. That was definitely the one thing they seemed to have spared no expense on. I think they put extra lint in the box just for me. I was really impressed that even though there it did not have what I would call a strong current in the tank, everything was moving around quite well. There didn't appear to be any dead spots either in the main tank area or the filter area. The stuff that was floating on the surface was also being drawn into the filter area quite well. The pump is small, 1 5/8" x 1 1/4" x 1 3/4". But, I'm not quite sure if I would label it as quite. I definitely would not say it's loud or noisy. It just seems like something that size shouldn't be as audible as it is. I don't know, maybe it just needs a break in period. Even though I have not had it long enough to keep anything alive in it yet, I would say this was a good purchase for me.

In spite of the black piece of piece of plastic they used to separate the two areas of the tank and the filter cartridges that I'm not going to use, would end up costing way to much for replacements, it appears to be very well made. The glass is not low iron, but it is very clear. There are no cracks or chips [or gaping holes in this one]. It also looks like somebody who actually likes their job and wasn't in a hurry applied the silicone. It is in the joints evenly, and ONLY in the joints. For only $50 I think this is a good deal. Like I said at the beginning, I've never been very big on writing anything resembling an in-depth review, so that's all I have to say about it. post #2 of 21 (permalink) post #3 of 21 (permalink) Originally Posted by Art by Stef* post #4 of 21 (permalink) post #5 of 21 (permalink) Originally Posted by EndlerGame Managed to get a slightly damaged one at my store for 41$. Have yet to set it up but it looks of decently good grade, better than other Petco tanks atleast.

post #6 of 21 (permalink) post #7 of 21 (permalink) post #8 of 21 (permalink) post #9 of 21 (permalink) Well, I couldn't resist the urge to take apart my new toy. After many attempts at trying different pieces of driftwood and rocks I just could not come up with anything that looked good enough. The problem was the built in filter. After spending about 5 minutes with a couple fresh utility blades the problem was solved. As nice as I thought the filter was, it was taking up 25% of a 10" cube and it had to go. I ended up replacing it with a Tetra Whisper PF10 HOB filter. The water is still a bit cloudy and I'm still not happy with the layout. My fingers where getting all wrinkly from being in the tank arranging and rearranging everything so many times, so I decided to give up for now and just let it start cycling. My other tank is starting to become a bit too densely planted so I ended up just using a few plants from it. I have some Anubias Nana, Anubias Nane Petite, Crypotocoryne Undulata and Wenditi, and a bit of Java Fern.

I also bought some glossostigma elantinoides online. It was to say the least not what I was expecting. In all the pictures I had seen of it online it is a lush bright green and rather compact. What I received was a clump of elongated yellowing thin stems with leaves that only seem to stay on by shear will power, they come off very easily. I have very little faith that my $10 was money well spent. I also got all Mr Wizard on the light that came with the tank. I wanted to see if the LEDs could be replaced with some brighter ones and still be able to use the touch button to turn it on and off. As it turns out they can. There's a tiny circuit board inside the light housing and I was able to very easily reverse engineer it. It had a couple of IC's and a few transistors and I was able to read the IC chip codes with a magnifying glass and found out it is capable of handling far more current than the original LEDs use. I though it was odd that a 3 watt led light came with a 12 volt, 1 amp power supply.

Now I know why. It is basically a 2 channel LED controller that can handle at least 1/2 amp per channel. I couldn't pinpoint exactly which transistors were being used because the code printed on them was a bit generic. But, I was able to find out that that type of transistor is manufactured with a few different current ratings that start at 500ma. The touch button cycles though off, channel 1, channel 2, channel 1 + 2. It's still in the proof of concept phase, but I replaced the original LED's with 36 5050's. I have 18 of them on each channel. I would have used more, but the light housing wasn't big enough. They are left overs from the light fixture a made for my other tank. For the time being they are mounted to a small strip of aluminum and are being held in place with a couple of twist ties until I determine once and for all if the lights generating too much heat for the thin plastic light housing. The difference is pretty amazing. The top one is the original LED's and the bottom is the new and improved.