New Tank - Cycle Or Use Water Additives?

http://aqadvisor.com/
... Although the stocking levels are stricter

It is a useful website to cross-check against and useful for the reasons you mention; however, its stocking levels seem to be stricter for some people but less strict for others - it would "allow" me an extra shoal of fish in my tank which, while very tempting, I don't actually think is realistic.

It's always worth getting the numbers confirmed before making any decisions. 

I'll also add that those reports were for 2015 and 2016. There is probably a more up to date report, if you can find it.

I'll echo what @Matt says and highlight that the water companies can change the source of their water. I'm at the edge of the peak District so that is where my water usually comes from (lots of peat on those hills, so soft water). But when I checked my postcode before Christmas, we were apparently being supplied by the Lake District! (A very long way away). But I'm guessing that a lot of their water is direct into the reservoirs, so is even softer. Just as I was getting my head round the implications of this on my fish, I noticed that the data had been updated (the day before my last check) and we were back on our normal source. Phew.

Just to let folks know progress regarding the water quality issue raised previously, I did contact my local water company via their website and they replied as follows (slightly paraphrased) - (yes, I know it was a while ago now. I was going to wait until I'd actually got the aquarium set-up underway; to update you all, but I was browsing the forum today and reading the latest posts and thought I clear things up


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Dear Mr Xxxxxx

 

Thank you for your email which I received on 4 February 2018 regarding the water quality in your area.

 

I understand your post code was uploading incorrect information on our website for your water quality report. I have spoken to our Water Quality team, who have confirmed that the water in your area can change and it is dependant on a few factors.

 

Your water is fed from a ground station in New Winning; ground stations can be expensive to run due to them needing pumps and electricity to work. Therefore, depending on the cost the water can be alternatively sourced from a service reservoir.

 

The source can also change depending on the demand for water in your area and surrounding areas, if the demand is higher than what can be pumped out of New Winning station, again the water would need to come from a different source. 

 

I appreciate you needing this information to enable you to understand the water conditions for your intended new hobby. I have set out a table below - [I couldn't figure out how to cut & paste the actual table from their e-mail, so I just copied the information manually] - which shows the correct details for your area from 2015 to 2017 from our water quality team, they have sent this to our media team as I am aware this is different to the information you were given from our website.



Year 2015
Water Quality Zone S110 Easington South Zone
110 (mg/l Ca)
Description Hard water
 
Year 2016
Water Quality Zone ZS111 New Winning and Peterlee Zone
190 (mg/l Ca)
Description Very hard water
 
Year 2017
Water Quality Zone S211 New Winning and Peterlee Zone
150 (mg/l Ca)
Description Very hard water
 

I hope the above information is useful, should you wish to discuss any of the details contained in this email or have any further points you would like to raise please contact me by...


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So, as of this point in time, I'm still thinking of either Rainbowfish or Cichlids and assuming things go according to plan, I hope to be in a position to get the project started in a couple of months.