I'm so excited so just had to share it on here! I'm bidding on a lovely Jewel Rio 180 litre tank and cabinet at the moment on Ebay- that's 40 gallons (about 48 in american gallons) YAY.

It'll be a new home for my beloved common Usher who currently lives in a 20 gallon tank all alone since his friend died suddenly from dropsy and I didn't replace him due to lack of space.

If I win this tank, which I fully intend to haha, I'll put him in when it's cycled and use his current tank as a quarantine home for a friend for him then add the friend after a month or so. Eek! It's more exciting than Christmas! Might even get a purple apple snail as well to match the purple background I have ready haha!

I saw some gorgeous baby Bristol shubunkins today and would love to get one to be Usher's new friend- I'm definitely sticking to buying tiny babies to avoid buying older but stunted fish from now on, I think that might be why my last one got dropsy I hope they have some nearer the time. Some were only an inch big, so cute with their lovely big tails. Actually does anyone know if Bristol shubunkins are fast swimmers compared to normal shubs with the more streamlined tails? Usher is just a common and he's ridiculously fast so I am a bit worried about competing for food!

Anyway here are the pictures of the tank I'm bidding on. They're a bit small to judge but it seems to be in good condition...






It says it comes with a twin light fitted in hood, 200 watt heater and an internal Eheim Aquaball filter (or the original Jewel filter if I want that instead because the guy still has it) and a Fluval 205 External filter with all pipes and fittings as well as brand new filter media for the fluval boxed and unopened, with gravel/stones, two pieces of bogwood, and several plants.

If I don't win it (my dad's made me set myself a price limit!) I'll just keep trying because I really want this specific model of tank and they seem to come up on Ebay quite frequently

beautiful tank!! it comes with so many accessories. i hope usher would like his surprise!

How exciting!! I hope you get it!

Sounds like a nice deal. Juwel tanks are well made, they tend to be made for the European tropical fish market but are great for goldies too. I have a Juwel Vision 180 (the bowfronted one) and I too removed the filter box, so I recommend if you get it you do without it too and just use the canister and the internal filter that comes with it to make up your filtration mix. The Fluval 205 is a good filter I have one of those on my Juwel tank, but I also have a 405 too, so if you wanted you could even add a second canister filter - that works well on these tanks I've found. The Juwel filter boxes are OK in terms of biological filtration, but they do take up a lot of space, so if the guys already removed that's great I say!

Best of luck - looking forward to setup pictures when you win it!

love-rabbit-fish, Usher will love it I'm sure! especially when he's destroyed the majority of those nice looking plants haha. I'm wondering what he will think of having a light as he's never had one before- his tank gets plenty of light so I never really thought it was necessary so now he'll have an extra luxury! And a heater too, he's never had one of those either!

mrbumblebee I like how you're saying 'when' not 'if' I win it I've seen the bowfronted one, it's really nice! Yeah I always look at the Juwel tanks when I'm in the nearest fish shop, they're so nice, but I can't afford a brand new one so Ebay is the answer! The Fluval 205 does look good, I always trust Fluval ones anyway, I have one at the moment but it's not an external one and I've never had an external one so it's going to be all new for me! I don't really like the look of the Jewel filter, I googled it and it seems rather bulky. He doesn't say what model of Eheim Aquaball filter he has but I've never actually heard of that brand. If it's no good I will shop around for something better. The Fluval website says the 205 is enough for up to 200 litres but I quite like going overboard with filters haha.

Well, you strike me as a determined person Caroline, so I'm sure you'll win it! Get those positive vibes going!!

Eheim internals filters are VERY good filters, well designed and reliable.

If you need any help with the 205 let me know as I have one, however they're easy peasy to set up so I'm sure you'll be fine - once you've got an external filter you'll never look back, they do make such a difference. I agree, in terms of filtration - more is definately more! Those ratings they do are based on tropical stocking levels so it's definetely worth having a second filter for goldfish

Oh I am determined! When it comes to the final day I won't leave the house just incase I get outbid!

I just googled Eheim filters. They seem ideal. Not sure why I've never heard of them before. My locallocal fish place (Pets at Home) isn't great I suppose.

Cheers, I'll let you know how I get on with the filter and will probably pester you about it when I get it. And yep, why is everything ALWAYS about tropicals?! Haha.

Tropicals are good!! lol

I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't leave the computer at all 'til it ends

So jealous of the external filter. I think one might be going on my birthday/christmas list lol.

When does the auction end Caroline? Cleared a space for it yet?!

We're selling a huge mahogany bookshelf to make space for it in the study haha, it'll be near my computer so Usher will get to watch me reading this forum It ends in 3 days and 8 hours. Not that I'm counting or anything. Roll on Thursday!

Fingers crossed for you Caroline. That would be awesome to have- and a new fish is always exciting. I think all the shubs are fast so would make perfect companionship for your other fish.
Oh and Eheims are just the best filters IMO.

Ooh that's good to hear, nothing but the best for my fish! I will try and pick out a particularly speedy companion!

Just a thought- those Bristol shubs were labelled as babies and were around an inch long, the smallest goldies I've ever seen actually. Yet they had proper shubunkin colouring. If they were really that young surely they should be browny grey like Usher was when I first got him? I may post this question in the breeding section too. I have bought "baby" fish who were entirely gold before and they've never grown as well as Usher has, even in the pond we used to have, leading me to believe they were stunted.

The calico color fish are usually the very first to get their colors. The shubs are balck and white right, maybe some orange? For shubs the breeders probably wait for the colors to come in before puting the out for sale .The ones destined to be all orange often stay gold for a much longer time.

Ah, I see, yes they did have some orange on. That's good to know, I didn't realise calico fish became colourful that young. My fish was almost a year old before he turned gold. He's a lemony gold now!

So, today's the day, right?! Remember to stick to Ebay like glue! Best of luck, fins crossed for you!

I'm actually missing a night out just to glue myself to eBay! AAAAAAAAAAAARHGH! I hope I get the thing or else there'll be trouble- someone else has bidded so it's a fight to the death (of my bank account).

Tell them to back off else they'll be trouble!!

I'm sure Usher will appreciate your efforts Let us know how you get on!

GOT IT!!!!!! :D:D:D:D
We bidded over the other guy with 16 seconds to go! I was terrified my internet would conk out at the last second or something awful! WAHAY! Only £147! I'm so pleased!

Woohoo! Congratulations! Sounds like a good deal for that much stuff Now the real fun begins!! Getting it all setup will be great. When do you pick it up?

Just emailed him asking when it's possible to pick it up. Hopefully he'll say this weekend! The only thing I'm not looking forward to is cycling it argh. I want to do a fishless cycle I think but I go back to uni in just over a month...

You could just do a "transferred" seeded cycle, sometimes you get bumps other times it works well - in any case it's a lot quicker that starting from scratch. You just transfer all of you existing filter media from Ushers current filter into one or more of your new filters and that will carry on working and seed the new media too. Alternatively, put the whole filter in the new tank and that will seed the new ones over time. When the cycle is established again you can move the media around/swap the filters around or whatever you want. You get bumps sometimes (in my experience usually nitrItes) but if you water test and change as necessary, it could all be settled again in 4 weeks

Yeaaa!! CONGRATS! i cant wait to see Usher in his new home. Dont forget the pix

lol on that "fight to the death" that was too funny!

Picked it up today I can't get over how huge it is eek so exciting I can't stop looking at it! Well worth the 4 hours driving for it!
Just tested about 50 polished stones with vinegar for the bottom of it because I'm giving up gravel forever!

Great!!! Can't wait to see it all set up now!

Setting it up right now... I have the Fluval 204 not 205... don't know if there is much difference! It says on the website it's for over 40 gallons so it should be fine along with the Eheim 2210!

I can't wait to see it set up!! We'll have to have a tank-off or something lol. Battle it out in Tank of the Month

Ps. I've been meaning to tell you for like a week that I have some common / comet fry! You may have one if you fancy growing Usher a new friend! That said I still think you should get a Bristol

No there's not, essentially they are exactly the same model - they tweaked a few minor things for the 05 series and made it a different colour, but in terms of operations it's the same.

It's a good medium sized canister filter - that plus your internal filter should work well together

Matthew if you have a common (I don't want a comet really!) baby that I like it could happily have a new home with me if I don't see a Bristol I like:P

We've worked out how to set up the filter now

We're going to finish it all tomorrow, currently it's half full, for the plants, and the light has been tested, never had a light before and I love it! I've decided to only use one of the big pieces of wood because they really are huge! I may change my mind yet though. I've got polished rocks we've had for ages on the bottom, not covering it all, they look really nice and you can see the wooden cabinet through the bottom which actually looks quite good! It came with a natural looking background of rocks and plants. I may change it to wrapping paper if I get bored with it.

I'm a bit worried about one of the plants which seems to shed its little leaves every time I touch it. I can't see it lasting long once Usher is in there attacking it. It's a sort of feathery fern thing that I thought looked like Anacharis on the ebay photos but definitely isn't, after doing a google image search I think it is Hornwort. One of the other plants is strappy and HUGE, we had to break it up a bit. It's leaves remind me of daffodil ones! The third type of plant is only small, a clump rather than being a tall flowing one, I've been on some aquatic plant websites and it looks a bit like "Cryptocoryne Petchii". Exciting salads for Usher then...

congrats! Sounds like a really nice tank, I bet Usher will LOVE it!

He does love it- I put him in the plastic tank he goes in during waterchanges and held him up to it before so he could have a look... This means I'm officially mad I know.