Top Fin 10 Gallon Goldfish Aquarium Starter Kit

I recently purchased a Top Fin brand 10 gallon goldfish aquarium starter kit. While I have never had much luck keeping fish of any sort, I must say that I am impressed with the simplicity and function of the Top Fin brand aquarium.

To begin with, the Top Fin 10 gallon goldfish aquarium kit comes with nearly everything one needs to set up a functioning aquarium. The only addition things you will need to get set up are gravel, water, and fish. When purchasing the gravel and fish, be sure to get enough gravel and not too many goldfish. It took nearly twenty pounds of gravel to prepare the tank, and a ten gallon tank of this size will comfortably support only two goldfish or so. Any more fish than two will cause the tank to become dirty much too frequently and will cause there to be less total oxygen available for all the goldfish. So be sure to limit your urge to buy as many fish as you can pack into the tank. Just pick out the two goldfish that you find most attractive and be content with those. You will be much happier with your tank if you follow this guideline, which I can attest to from experience with previous aquariums I have had in the past.

The Top Fin goldfish starter kit includes such necessities as a carbon filter, goldfish flake food, water conditioner to remove chlorine from the water, a cover with a twin lamps, etc. The Top Fin filter has cartridges that should be replaced monthly, but the cartridges are easy to replace and one does not need to empty the whole tank to replace the filter cartridges. The filter lifts right off the back of the tank, which makes for an easy filter change and cleaning, and as long as one remembers to rotate the water out gradually and periodically, then one should be able to avoid having to clean the entire tank for a good long while. A regular vacuuming of the gravel with an aquarium vacuum will also prolong the life of the aquarium as it removes a good deal of the composing waste and uneaten food.

The Top fin tank had a total setup time of approximately half an hour, not counting the second pet store trip I had to make because I failed to notice that the Top Fin goldfish starter kit did not come with any gravel. But once I obtained the gravel, the tank snapped together very quickly, and the most time consuming part was filling the tank with ten gallons of water. While the Top Fin manual stated that the tank should circulate for 24-48 hours before adding fish, I like most people ignored that rule completely and just plopped the two fantail goldfish right into the tank. While this is supposed to be hard on the fish, my experience has been that goldfish are hearty enough to handle this with ease, and I have never lost a fish yet with this method (although I have lost many a fish through other mistakes!).

The Top Fin goldfish aquarium starter kit uses a biological filtration system, which is supposed to be more efficient than other type of aquarium filtration systems. The manual recommends that one add some highly activated charcoal (available at pet stores) to the charcoal filter pack when replacing the filter cartridge. I can’t help but wonder why the filter packs do not already include this, but at least it is very easy to do and should cause no hardship when performing regular tank maintenance. Supposedly this highly activated charcoal will speed up the biological processes in the tank, such as the nitrogen cycle, and cause the faster decomposition of tank waste. The nitrogen cycle causes a buildup of nitrogen in the tank’s water, though, which makes regular water rotation an important factor in maintaining a healthy aquarium and environment for your finned friends.

An additional word of advice would be to set up your Top Fin goldfish aquarium starter kit right where its final home will be. It is extraordinarily difficult to move a filled aquarium, even one as small as ten gallons; so be sure the tank is where you will want it to be before adding the water. Water is extremely heavy, and the last thing you will want is a dropped or spilled fish tank all over your living room floor.

In conclusion I am very impressed with the quality of the Top Fin brand 10 gallon goldfish starter kit. The craftsmanship is superior to other brands of tank that I have tried in the past, and the filter is first rate. The filter is the single most important element of your tank, so I was happy to discover that the Top Fin aquarium kits all include high quality tank filters. Moreover, the filter is easy to maintain, which is an advantage over almost every other brand of filter that I have tried in the past. A Top Fin brand aquarium starter kit should bring you many years of happy fish keeping, and I would recommend all of Top Fin’s products to anyone who was looking into getting started with a basic aquarium.