Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Several things were troublesome: 1. QA: the rear of the aquarium has a plastic lid with groves to fit the sidewalls... but it doesn't fit. The side walls of the aquarium are too far apart, so the lid wiggles and is never stable. It seems like nobody checked size during quality control. 2. DESIGN: This aquarium holds indeed 5gal Water, but the rear quarter is sectioned off - it houses the filter and the pump. But because this partition is so narrow, it's extremely hard to clean. 3. TRUTH IN ADVERTISEMENT: while the tank technically holds 5 gallons of water (leaving a 1 inch distance from the top edge), the partitioned design means your fish only have 3.5 - 4 gallons of water to swim in. 3. Design/QA: the filters sit in a carrier, which is inserted into slots in the rear partition, so that overflowing water is flowing through a filter, and then through a sponge into the rear section. However, the "maze" that the the water is supposed to go through has gaps so that the water isn't actually forced through all filter stages and can bypass filters. on top of that, all these things are proprietary design so you can't just go buy a regular aquarium pump to replace it. 4. QA? After filling the aquarium with thoroughly-rinsed aquarium gravel from the pet shop, I planted my live plants and filled the tank with water. Then I turn on the pump - but after about 3 hours the entire aquarium smelled like a sewer. I'm glad I didn't put the fish in, yet. All components in the packaging looked brand new - so I thought one of the plants was the culprit. The entire water stank - so I had to empty it completely. plants were thoroughly rinsed again and set in a bowl of water overnight. they smelled fine the next morning. everything smelled fine after a thorough rinse. Starting over ... same problem: no bad smell developed until i turned the pump on. I decide to give up and return the purchase. I clean everything once more in preparation of returning it, including putting the pump into a bowl of clean, lukewarm tap water and starting it to rinse out the nasty water... and then it becomes clear: the pump is the source of the horrible stench. Maybe the filter and assembly issues have allowed plant matter to go into the pump and cause issues? maybe the pump is otherwise defective? maybe the new aquarium had a refurbished pump that was never properly cleaned? I don't know. But with all of these issues, especially the obvious manufacturing tolerance issues, I don't even want to give this company another try: the amount of time and effort that will forever be lost is just not worth it.