[Blackheart]

They have one of these at my local petsmart for a 169.99 with everything included. I thought about purchasing it

There seem to be a lot of negativity towards these style of tanks. Is there anything wrong with them?

 

[TexasCichlid]

Weird viewing angles, very tall tank makes cleaning and scaping difficult, shape makes scaping in the first place a challenge. LED lights only suitable for very low light plants. Depth of the tank compounds this. If it does come with a filter, it's not going to be appropriate for the setup.

 

[somewhatshocked]

Cleaning can easily be done with long tweezers and a magnetic algae cleaner.

You can build your own LED system (or buy one) that will provide much more than low light.

A nice canister filter for a tank like that isn't prohibitively expensive, either.

If it comes with items you don't want or need, you can always sell them online.

They can be nice if you take advantage of their height by using driftwood and such.

 

[Rainer]

Agreed with most of that. I wouldn't spend any money on the lighting or filter and would use a canister filter with a lily pipe instead of a spray bar.

The viewing angles can work for you - the filter intake and lily pipe are virtually invisible from the most common viewing angle - straight ahead - on my 10g half moon.

This tank would go well with a driftwood stump centrally located. The rule of thirds does not apply here.

To de-emphasize the height, try something like the giant frogbit that H4N sells here (7" roots).

 

[Blackheart]

I already have an existing LED light that's good. I kind of have a thing for tall tanks. I already have a 25 gallon, which is pretty much a 20 gallon high, but more like extra high. It looks rather huge.

But this 30 gallon half moon looks a LOT bigger than the one I have. and taller.