Okay - it's home and in the bedroom - will post pics tomorrow. It is DIRTY. I don't know about the guy we got it from... We were told that he drinks heavily - he kept offering us beers... At any rate, he hadn't done any tank maintence in a very, very long time.
The fish don't look too good, and we had to euthanize one because it kept floating on its back (red zebra) on the bottom of the tank... When we got there he had one large fish (couldn't ID) in a dry bucket, gasping for air. He kept trying to tell me he was already dead - but dead fish don't gasp. Apparently the one we put to sleep had been having a problem for a while, because he mentioned that he thought it might have swim bladder problems. None of the fish have eaten much if anything yet.
We originally had them in a rubbermaid tub with a powerhead and a large air pump, but in just one day the ammonia was over 4.0 in the tub, so I cleaned out the QT and put them in there, because it has an established filter. Not sure it will be much better, but it isn't a lot smaller than the tub I had them in. However, the loaches are coloring up and getting active. Probably the best water they've been in in quite a while - maybe they haven't been fed regularly, and aren't sure what to do with the flake. He was feeding them pellets. It does bother me that African cichlids aren't eating - usually they are like puppies (or at least our other's are) beggin for food everytime we pass the tank.
there is a clown loach that he said is three years old, but is less than 4 inches long. (Stunted from lack of food, bad water, etc? - certainly not from lack of room) Also a orange fin loach that is very small - several cichlids, haven't ID'ed all of them yet, and a catfish - not sure what kind, but hubby says he looks like dinner... he does look an awful lot like the ones I have caught before.
The tank is toooooooo dirty to set up, although it is what the fish are used to. it needs to be scraped and scrubbed, and the stand and hood need a good scrubbing with old english wood cleaner. The gravel, which he said he cleaned before we got there, is NASTY and SMELLY. I will have to rinse it very thoroughly.....
We still love it and think we got a good deal.
The filters look like they haven't been cleaned in months, if not over a year, and the filter media was falling apart.
Here's the really funny part - when he was checking the gravel for rocks and such, he pulled out a glass pipe... LOL young bachelors... he said they used to have bongs and all sorts of stuff in the tank... Maybe the fish are having withdrawls!!!
There is a lot of really sweet looking rock (lace, lava, etc) Probably 100 lbs or so - well over $100 if purchased at the lfs, probably 100 lbs of fine gravel, 2 emperor 400 filters (haven't checked to see if they work yet) a powerhead, some food, a 5 gallon bucket (filthy, of course) and I don't remember what all else. Mostly junk though, I'm afraid.
Anyway - it is a good project for us, and we are thinking about converting it to SW, but not sure yet - will have to post in SW forum to find out equipment needs if we do that. The fish that came with it will either go into our other tanks, once we are sure they are going to be okay, or given to a friend who is setting up a cichlid tank with his young sons. But they are not going in anyone's established tanks until they've been QT'ed for a while. I will probably hit them with some binox tomorrow (just in case), after the charcoal has done it's thing on the water (used some of the gravel without rinsing it, for extra bio-filtration and it made the water a little cloudy, but it is already clearing.) - will pull the charcoal and see what happens.
but I'll settle for $100 