AR980

[Billaney]

Hi

Has anyone got one of these tanks and how do they find it for cichlids, we are thinking of buying one for Adele's Malawi's she has 14 and not looking for adding much if anything.

Is the built in filter good , whats the lighting like, maybe marks out of 10 ?

thanks

[Dawn]

Hi Billaney

I have an AR980 and did have five Jewels in it when I first got it. After awhile I decided it was such a waste of a huge tank to have the fish hiding all the time so I changed it to a community tank.

The lighting in them is excellent, so good that it didn't take the algae very long to show up!

The filter is also excellent although I have one little gripe - the long bit on top where the water is filtered out of is too long for my bottle brush so I have to go outside and clean it out with the force of the hose! It would have been much better if you could pull it apart to clean it.

At first I had a bit of a problem of where to put the lead from the lighting hood as I didn't like it hanging out the side of the tank. In the end DH cut a small piece out of the filter hood so I could thread the lead through that and out the back of the tank.

You can see photos of it when it was new if you click below - one last thing - AR tanks are designed to be filled with water right to the plastic rim of the tank so the water line can't be seen, I didn't find that out until after I took my photos!

[Wok]

dawn you can buy brushes for pipes that are quite long and flexible. they have a difffent size brush at both ends and is using a metal cable to allow you to clean filter hoses.

works a treat, cause I have one.

[Dawn]

Thanks Wok, I just keep on forgetting to look for one when I go to the LFS! And when I do remember they've sold out. :roll:

[BK]

Hi I run mine as a bear bottom for my Discus. I've found them to be good tanks as I also have the 820 and 360 models as well. One thing I would do is replace carbon with noodles and place floss on top of filter trays. This makes it easyer to clean.