Good fish tank for a studio apartment

[anewbie]

I order a lot of plants online from Etsy. Generally they arrive in good condition. Now there is one big caveat. This time of year when temperatures go down is the trickiest to ship live plants. Most retailers on Etsy will offer heat packs and insulated packaging. It's still rolling the dice.
Most local fish stores offer live plants. You mentioned Petco in one of your posts. Personally, I don't mind buying hardware or other supplies from them. Their sales on tanks are very good. But I generally avoid buying anything living from them; fish, invertebrates or plants. I'd look for a good local fish store in your area. They generally offer live plants. Make sure it's a good one. Check it out before buying anything from there and make sure they are squared away. Like Essjay said, never trust a fish store employee. There's a million stories of bad advice from store employees. I recommend doing the research. My personal rule is I know what fish or invertebrate I'm buying before I walk through the door of a fish store. I might buy a plant or anything non living on impulse but never an animal.

etsy like ebay and aquabid quality will depend on actual seller. Be sure to check reviews of individual sellers you use. A store i liked a *lot* is aquariumplants.com out of florida (winter is always a bad time to order plants); not to be confused with aquariumplantfactory (out of california) which i hate and recommend be avoidced. buceplant is always reliable i guess and then there is the smaller seller like dustinfishtank and marcusfishtank which have a small selection but sometimes provide a bonus here and there (since pandemic marcus has been less 'special'; haven't actually used dustin in a while since the plants i look for these days are less commonly available and harder to find.

aquahuna is an excellent place to order cheap fishes but winter is always a bad time to mail order; as to petsmart and petco that comes down to individual store and management at the individual store - we have 2 petco that is better than the third but since the pandemic and staff turn over none are that great; before the pandemic there was one petco in particular that was excellent.

 

[emeraldking]

I want to do research on everything first before I even consider getting one. I've read horror stories online about people not knowing what they are doing and everything ends up horribly. Don't want that to happen to me.

Check also your floor. If it's made of wood, be sure it van carry the weight of a filled tank.