You can nearly always pick up free tanks and equipment from your local yahoo freecycle group. Yahoo freecycle is a worldwide site used for getting rid of things you have no use for. Often there are fish tanks and equipment that people wish to get rid of. The sites are worldwide but have individual ones for each area. Type in freecycle and your city into yahoo search engine and you should find your local one. You will have to register and get a yahoo e-mail address. Once you are registered and approved by the moderator you can make contact with other members who may have fish stuff available. You can also put a wanted add in for anything you want and its a great place for getting rid of items that you no longer want. It makes sense environmentally as well by taking less stuff to landfill sites.

I would advise anyone buying a second-hand tank to fill it up with quite a lot of water first before setting it up in doors. Don't just put a little bit of water in it and take that as it's all right. Sometimes, leaks don't show themselves until there is quite a lot of water pressing down on the fault.

I had a 30 gallon tank a while ago that I had bought second hand, I had only had it a few weeks before it sprang a leak, I didn't even bother trying to fix it, I just put it in a skip that I happenned to have on my driveway. Would you believe it, the next day someone had nicked it. I actually hope they did set up in their house, I wouldn't have minded them having it, it would have just been nice if they had asked rather than encroaching onto my property and stealing it like a thief in the night.

thanx for the tip "dinger"

Definitely worth keeping an eye on freecycle i just picked up two four foot tanks with fluval filters all working and my penance was draining the tank and carrying it out. The lot is now on my garage roof waiting for me to start my new fishroom in my garage (whenever i get round to it)