New Tank Ordered

Oh wow, that is soft water! I hope you want to keep soft water fish. You may even need to add remineralisation salts to bring it up a bit.

Test kits - don't bother with those paper ones you dip in. Depending on how much you want to pay, liquid reagent ones with test tubes are much better, and Salifert (powders and test tubes) are the most expensive. On-line shops are cheaper than real ones. I use the API master test kit (contains pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) but there are others makes too.

With your hardness I would strongly advise a fishless cycle. It is so low that your carbonate hardness (KH) will also be very low. The filter bacteria need inorganic carbonate (ie KH) to multiply and you have next to none. And low KH means there is nothing to prevent the pH dropping. The simplest thing during a fishless cycle is to add bicarbonate of soda, which you can't do when there are fish in the tank as with a fish-in cycle.

Since you have bought a Juwel tank, the built in filter will have a black carbon pad which you don't need. You would be much better finding a source of crushed aragonite and putting that, in a mesh bag, in place of the black sponge. Aragonite dissolves slowly adding calcium and magnesium (GH) and carbonate (KH) to the water. This may be enough once the cycle has finished and you have fish. But with such soft water that may not be enough and you may need to add remineralisation salts, something like Tropic Marin tropical remineralisation salts (be careful to get freshwater not marine!)

Likewise.

All sounds good. My water is very similar to yours, so you're not alone. 

Fish will accept lots if different things in their tank. That submarine, with its holes, looks like a nice cave for them. Fish don't mind what the shape is as long as it fits their needs, ie somewhere to hide just in case some predator happens along, or somewhere to lay eggs for cave spawning fish.

We lived in Lowton in the 1980s. I didn't think about what the water was like there as I didn't keep fish then. But I do remember that one summer they started taking water from some bore holes rather than the usual source.


And as far as I'm concerned, Wigan is in Lancashire. It was only moved to Greater Manchester 1974 

The main use of bubbles is aesthetic.
Bubbles can help if you ever have sick fish as some treatments can lower the oxygen content of the water (and with whitespot medication you have to increase the temperature as well, which also lowers oxygen). Oxygen doesn't get into the water from the bubbles themselves but they churn the water up allowing more oxygen to get in at the surface.
And if the filter fails, yes the bubbles will help churn up the water to help keep it oxygenated but they won't help remove ammonia and nitrite

You can start cycling a bare tank 

It's very exciting isn't it.
The  planning stage, then the actual doing.

I like that submarine by the way, got lots of little hidey holes by the look of it.

I take it they'll be photos of the finished tank?

I'm getting the urge to do something to mine now!!