Needing A New Fish Tank

As I had posted previously, we are doing some work on our place, namely installing new hard wood floors and getting rid of the old, grungy carpeting.

In the midst of draining my 55 gallon fish tank down to about a quarter full of water and fish, we discovered that it had a slow leak. When we pulled up the old carpet, we found the floor under which the tank had stood was damaged with water. Apparently, the tank had been seeping water. So, what to do? Either replace just the top part with a similarly sized glass aquarium, or find an entirely new system, stand and all.

I never thought it would be so tough to find a good tank, at a good price. Years ago, I had a 45 gallon "high" tank, meaning the size was more vertical and deep, rather then horizontal. This way, a larger tank would fit in a tighter spot. Although my current tank was a "long," I was hoping to find a taller tank, but in the same amount of gallons.

It took stops at 5 different pet stores for me to find what I wanted. It seems as though the stores carry a lot of the "cookie cutter" style tanks, and mostly the long versions, bow front versions, or overpriced hexagon tanks. And most of the tanks were under 30 gallons.

In the end, my persistence to find the perfect tank at an affordable price paid off, but not without a lot of visits to different stores, and a lot of wondering if I would find one in my price range that would do the trick. Even the big box stores carry different tanks at different locations. Due to the size of a tank, and the amount of room they take up on the show room floor (or in storage), many stores don't carry a wide selection as it is more profitable to fill the shelves with other, higher volume items.

So if you're looking for an aquarium, do your research, be persistant, and don't be in a rush. Hopefully you too will find that perfect tank.