Hey guys, I have a friend who decided to buy a 28G tank and unfortunately it's one of those aquariums that functions as a table as well, it's essentially a coffee table with fish in it. He knows nothing about keeping fish and asked me to help him out today, so I spent some part of the day informing him about what to buy for the tank, how he could potentially stock it, how the cycle works, etc etc...but I also have a few questions of my own due to the difficult nature of the tank.

The main issue with the tank is that the light is designed to go under the tank, and the manufacturer provided glass (literally) substrate, presumably because normal gravel would block the light from coming from the bottom. I'm pretty sure this glass substrate would only spell bad news for fish, not only is it incredibly sharp/jagged but I'm guessing glass isn't very conducive for the growth of beneficial bacteria. I suggested to my friend that he get normal gravel. Right call?

Normal gravel is all fine and dandy but now this will block the light. Would relatively dim basement lightning be suitable for fish during the day or should he try to rig something else up to provide lighting from above? Also would lower-light plants (I'm thinking anubias here mainly) be okay in low light as well? I realize fish prefer less light to more, but would dim lightning be insufficient for their needs?

Another issue is that the tank came with what appears to me to be a relatively cheap Tetra Whisper in-tank filter and due to the nature of the tank your standard HOB eternal filter doesn't seem possible since there is only about an inch and a half gap to work with (the glass top sits directly on the tank but there are several spots where the glass is cut lower to allow for heaters, filters, etc). I'll try to see if I can fit four 20 or three 30G HOB filters in there, but failing that are there any decent HOB filters that would be suitable or would it be advised to just go to a canister filter? I've never used a canister filter so I wouldn't know how to help him with that, I'd be more comfortable with an Aquaclear filter or something...how hard is it to maintain a canister filter?

Lastly, has anyone ever had an aquarium like this? If so, any other advice?

If you guys could help me out with any of these that would be greatly appreciated.

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30G planted aquarium with Aquaclear 50 and two Aquaclear 20s. 7 Cherry Barbs, 12 Cardinal Tetras, 1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Golden Honey Gourami, and a handful of Ghost Shrimp.

Chris...been a while, hasn't it?

Yes indeed, had a pretty busy summer and admittedly lost a little bit of interest in the hobby as we got a couple kittens that we were pretty excited about. I didn't neglect the fish, still, of course...my tank's going strong, picked up a half dozen baby Cardinal Tetras a few months ago and the tank's looking pretty lively these days (still no fish deaths outside of the initial problems I had when first setting the tank up, which I'm happy about). My friend getting an aquarium of his own and asking me to help him out with it revitalized my interest in it.

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30G planted aquarium with Aquaclear 50 and two Aquaclear 20s. 7 Cherry Barbs, 12 Cardinal Tetras, 1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Golden Honey Gourami, and a handful of Ghost Shrimp.

Cool. How are all the plants doing? Didn't you get a few from me some time ago? You should add some pics to your gallery.

I understand losing energy (won't use the word interest) in this hobby. Been there a few times, especially when you hit the next crisis - whatever that may be. What you need is a nice fat 75g tank to rejuvinate you

Haha yeah, once I have my own place (as opposed to a shared apartment with my gf as I'm in now) I'll definitely look to go bigger.

Your plants didn't make it, I could never get them to properly anchor in the tank and they kept getting caught in the filters and such. I don't think the tank had enough room to be honest, there wasn't much surface area on the bottom for more vegetation. My anubias are doing well though, I purposely let a couple of them loosely hang from a couple of the others and they formed 'layers' of plants that the fish love to hide in.

I ended up letting your clippings float atop the surface and provide some shade and such for the fish and they seemed to enjoy it, my shrimp would do this odd thing where they would hang upside side from the plants and the Gourami would come up for air in the middle of the plants and inevitably get a clipping stuck on him, pretty entertaining. However they still kept floating into the flow of the main filter which would throw them under water where they would get sucked up by one of the other filters, causing some issues.

I'll post some pictures when I get home in a bit, though in my opinion it's still a relatively unexciting tank. Not much as changed in it :p

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30G planted aquarium with Aquaclear 50 and two Aquaclear 20s. 7 Cherry Barbs, 12 Cardinal Tetras, 1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Golden Honey Gourami, and a handful of Ghost Shrimp.

No one with any suggestions?

Anyways here are pics:

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30G planted aquarium with Aquaclear 50 and two Aquaclear 20s. 7 Cherry Barbs, 12 Cardinal Tetras, 1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Golden Honey Gourami, and a handful of Ghost Shrimp.

Is the gravel different? I don't remember it being so dark... and your cherry barbs are sooo red! Nice!

As for a coffee table tank.......... that scares me a bit....... poor fish are going to be scared all the time with stuff being set down on top of them and moved around, then people's legs going by them..... seems to be not the best idea. I'd try to get him to set it up on a shelf and just use it like a regular tank....

I can't really think of any lighting ideas, as a light fixture on top of a coffee table would be in the way.

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

Nahh the gravel is the same, but I added a bag of the Eco a while back which is why there is black scattered around, mostly under the plants. I should have bought another bag - but it was somewhat of a project to get the gravel in there and the anubias don't really benefit from Eco so I just left it. Yeah the males are as red as a fire engine, I'll try to get a better 'still' pic of some of the fish but it's tough to do :p

Also I agree with you about my friend's tank, I suggested to him to set it up as a normal tank in the corner but that sortof defeats the purpose of having it - it sucks he bought a $500 tank without doing much research but we have to make do. I think Aquaclear 20's/30's can fit in it but I'm worried about the little flow knob being too high up for the glass top to sit on the tank, but we'll see.

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30G planted aquarium with Aquaclear 50 and two Aquaclear 20s. 7 Cherry Barbs, 12 Cardinal Tetras, 1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco, 1 Golden Honey Gourami, and a handful of Ghost Shrimp.

Make sure you get pics! I want to see how this thing turns out! (I'd suggest getting fish that are not timid.... then he'll see them a bit more, lol.)

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981