This tank kit has some serious issues. I tried to like it. I really did.
First and foremost, the shape of the tank gives a funhouse mirror effect to viewing the fish. It's really unpleasant and frustrating if you actually want to be able to see your fish undistorted. That's not the product's fault, though, that happens with any cylindrical tank.
The tank is acrylic which isn't necessarily a negative, but it's extruded acrylic which is not scratch resistant whatsoever. I was slowly lowering a plastic log decoration into the tank, and it gently touched the side. Scratched forever.
There is no lip on the tank. The top, as pictured, is not attached, and you cannot fill up to the top of it without having water spill out. In fact, you can't even fill up the tank to the top of just the acrylic, because water movement will cause water to spill out as will turning off the filter and having the extra water in the filter empty into the tank. This means a relatively constant splashing noise, as the water level needs to be lower than the filter's output.
Speaking of the lid, the lid is where the LED lights are, and is not disconnectable from the rest of the setup. There are wires with almost no slack that run to it, which means you cannot take the top off the tank and set it down. You have to rest it precariously on top of the filter (the wires are too short to lay it flat) if you want to put any decorations in, as the clear plastic flap on top is prohibitively small.
In fact, the filter and lights are all wired together, so you cannot replace the built-in filter. In fact, even if it wasn't all wired together, you couldn't replace it because it is literally built into the back of the tank. Also, want to put in a heater, a bubbler, or anything that involved wires or tubes going into the tank? Bad news, there are ZERO areas through which to route such cables. Cleaning and maintaining this tank is made exceptionally difficult by these design choices.
Now, on a more positive note, the filtration and lighting are fantastic. The built-in filtration is a marineland penguin 100, so, if you're going to be forever stuck with a filter for a small tank, that's not a bad one to be stuck with. It kept the tank crystal clear and healthy. Also, the blue "night" lighting feature is gorgeous with the right decorations and fish.
My basic impression of this tank is that they cut too many corners to make the tank look streamlined and to keep the material cost down. I wouldn't recommend this tank for anything other than a hospital or planted tank. Plants do look very good in it.
After dealing with the headache of a Fluval hipster tank with all proprietary pumps and filters I wanted a tank that still had style but also had more common filtration elements. The Pillar is perfect in both those regards. First to address the complaint you can't add heaters or aerators, if you have a simple drill and a 3/8" bit you can remedy that problem easily. Cleaning the filter is about 1000 times easier than any Fluval I have had, in that you swap out the charcoal filter like a tea bag, pop off the intake tube, flush it and you are all set. The bio wheel sounded cheesy to me at first, but it seems to be doing a great job balancing the tank nice and clear. With reviews all over the place I was weary to go with the Pillar but I'm glad I did. I would just recommend you verify the pump works before going through the whole set up. I did that because of the guy who bought it for his sister, and sure enough the pump I got seemed weak and couldn't make the biowheel spin. I took it back and the wrong AC adapter (18W) was included when it should have been a 30w. Minor for such a sleek and affordable tank. Anybody with a shred of aquarium experience will find this tank to be a breeze to setup and maintain.
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I had this tank for 6 months. The lights over heated and melted the top of the tank. Could not get the smell of burnt plastic out of it so I had to get a new tanks. It killed 2 of my fish. Called customer service and all they would do was send me a new lid with lights to replace the melted one IF i sent them my melted one. Which is pointless since the entire tank is no good. Customer service is will not help you and the tank has electrical issues. do NOT buy this tanks!!!!
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This is a vey good tank and looks great setup. These other reviewers that say you can't change anything on this are crazy. I cut one wire to pump wired it to lights and bam works perfect now I can put any filter I want. People there is plenty of room for heater and whatever you want to add. Anyone with any common sense at all can modify this easily and make it how ever they want it. So yea maybe out of the box might not be the best setup but can be made however you want it with any brains at all. Just my two cents!!
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Very nice looking for the price, especially in the blue LED mode in the dark room. But very noisy, and the current is too strong if you have surface swimmers like betta. Virtually nothing can be done about the noise, I tried putting some sponge into the pipe, it seems to reduce the current but not the noise. Any flow strong enough to have a biowheel turning will be loud. It looks good assembled but don't touch the box on the back, it is flimsy and designed to be assembled by a person with more than two hands it seems. Single power supply powers lights and filter so I had to remove timer for the light and have resorted to manual operation of lights. The LEDs are not replaceable (short of ordering replacement cover parts from the manufacturer), but being LEDs they will likely outlive other things in this tank by many years. For the same reason power filter is not replaceable as well. The acrylic seems to be rather soft, I just put a plastic imitation log and it got scratched immediately, I try not to think about scrubbing algae from it in the future. This tanks has "cost cutting design" written all over it. I guess I will clean it up as usual and when it scratches I will have an excuse to replace it with something better. I am keeping it for now for looks but I'll probably not buy another one.
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This light is billed as fully submersible, so I put it on the gravel of my betta tank, shining upwards to illuminate an ornament in the tank. After only 90 DAYS, the light has quit.
