Beginner - New To Fish Keeping, Would Like Some Help And Advice :)

Hi, welcome to the forum 

Lots of questions 

I'll start with the last one first. Live plants are better than fake ones. They don't have to be high-tech (that's the kind you read about injecting CO2 etc), low tech plants work just as well. These don't need fancy substrates or CO2 etc, just a bit of fertiliser. I'll come back to plants later.


Before getting any fish there are two things you need to do.

The first is find out how hard your tap water is. See if you can find that info on your water company's website. Ignore words light slightly soft, moderately hard etc and look for a number. We need that number and the unit, in full. There are half a dozen different units for hardness, but only two are used in fish keeping so we may have to convert your number.
The reason is that fish should be kept in water with a similar hardness to where they live in the wild. It is harmful to keep soft water fish in hard water and vice versa. Yes, water can be altered but it is not something I would recommend doing with your first tank.

The second is cycling the tank. This means growing the good bacteria that remove toxic chemicals from fish waste. The safest way for fish is a fishless cycle. The method for doing that is here https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fishtank-filtration-and-cycling/fishless-cycling-how-to-do-it/ If you do this method, get the plants once the cycle has finished as high doses of ammonia added in one go can harm plants. Fish may make the same amount but in tiny amounts all day long not in one dose.
There is an alternative - live plants. Fish make ammonia as their waste product and plants use ammonia as fertiliser. Unlike the good bacteria, plants do not turn it into nitrite. The way to use plants is to get a lot of them, not just the odd couple. Floating plants are best for this as they get lots of light being at the top of the tank, and they can get CO2 fro the air. These make floating plants grow faster and the faster they grow the more ammonia they need.
If you decide to go down this route, get your plants and wait a couple of weeks to make sure they are thriving. Then get fish a few at a time, and test for ammonia and nitrite every day. This is to make sure the plants are taking up all the ammonia. If you do see any ammonia and/or nitrite, a large water change will reduce them to a safer level. Once you know that the plants are coping with the first batch of fish - no ammonia for at least a week - get the next batch of fish, test for ammonia and nitrite daily; and so on till you have all your fish.



Fish selection.
Bettas are not community fish despite what a shop may tell you. They should be kept alone. Once you have got into fish keeping, you'll probably succumb to multi tank syndrome, an affliction of fish keepers, characterised by the desire for more and more tanks  if this happens, think about a tank of around 25 litres for a betta.
Zebra danios may be small fish but they are incredibly fast swimmers and need a tank at least 100cm long, preferably more. They are also temperate fish, meaning they need cooler water than most tropical fish. I recommend you look round for something that doesn't need as much swimming room.
Threadfin rainbows are fine, though it does depend on your hardness. But you need at least 6 rather than 4. I should warn you that in the shops where I've seen these fish, they've only stocked males because they are the ones with the big fins and look prettier than females.
Neon tetras are also OK, if your hardness is right. Again, at least 6.
Otocinclus are also shoaling fish so you need at least 6 of those too. But they should not be added straight away; there must be algae in the tank for them to eat as many otos won't eat anything else.

Shoaling fish live in groups of hundreds in the wild. Their DNA is programmed to expect to be in a group and they will become stressed if there aren't enough of them. Stressed fish have lower immune systems and get sick more easily. It is thought that fish lose count at 6, which is why that is always the minimum number for shoaling fish - though always, more than 6 is better.





Got to go to the dentist - I'll add more later 

The absolute minimum for a betta is 2.5 American gallons which is 9.5 litres. 5 American gallons is much better, that's 19 litres. I've always used tanks around 25 litres. Have a look at the tank that your mum's friend has, measure it - there is a calculator in the menu at the top of the page you can use to work out the volume.
A lot of people keep bettas in unfiltered tanks, but this means daily water changes - or a lot of plants. If you do keep a betta, sponge filters powered by an air pump are ideal, as is this filter https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/product/aqua-range-aqua-internal-50-filter because you can turn the flow rate down low.



Something I forgot to warn you about in my previous post - don't believe the shop. Any of them. So many shop workers are trained only in how to make a sale. They will say any rubbish to get you to buy something. Always check here first - we aren't trying to sell you anything 
The shop will probably either never have heard of fishless cycling or will tell you it's rubbish, just buy this miracle product and get all the fish you want now. Some of these bottled bacteria do actually work to speed up the cycle, but not if they've been stored incorrectly at any time since they left the factory.
And they probably have no idea about using plants to cycle a tank.



I won't suggest any other fish for your tank until you've told us how hard your water is. If you can't find it, tell us the name of the company and we'll see what we can do.



Plants. A lot of shops sell only a few plants. I've always resorted to on-line plant shopping to get what I want. Even Ebay sellers have a good range.
I have gone down a very low tech route. The vast majority of my plants are slow growing plants attached to pieces of wood (though they will attach to anything). I have java fern, several species of Anubias, Bolbitis, and Bucephalandra. I also have water sprite as a floating plant. I don't use CO2, I just use a plant fertiliser.
If you want plants that grow rooted in the substrate like land plants there are plenty of those too. But I'll have to leave those to other members as I have no experience with them.


I see you like snails. I have several nerite snails in my main tank. One you'll read about is apple snail, or mystery snails as the Americans call them, but the EU banned those a few years ago. Look at this thread for some ideas https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/gallery-showcase/snail-photos/

Hi @Alostangel and welcome to the forum 

Great to hear that you are doing research before buying anything. 

I use live plants in my tanks, all low tech set ups so I don't use CO2. Matt, one of our moderators, has great information on his site http://scapeeasy.co.uk/ and I'm sure he'll give you some advice on plants.

Alostangel,  Welcome.  this is a fantastic site for info.  I only got my tank last year and I'm always on here asking for advice
As someone who started with silk plants and now wants to change, read my earlier post today re substrate depth.  From experience It is much, much easier to get it right without fish than it is with fish swimming around    whilst trying to add gravel and position plants.

I would forget the special water your mum's friend gave you because once you have fish you will need to change half the water every week, and buying water works out expensive. It also means you can't do an emergency water change if you have no bought water to hand. It is much better to use your tap water and add dechlorinator to that. The best one is API Tap Water Conditioner which uses 1 drop per American gallon of new water - that's 1 drop per 3.75 litres. A small bottle lasts a long time.

If you can, get a test kit with liquid reagents and test tubes, they are better than strips. Most strips do not test for ammonia so you have to buy a separate tester for that.



Most shops don't have a clue about fish. Never take any notice of what they say. Most of them are trained only in how to make a sale, and to make up anything to get that sale. On the other hand, we are not trying to sell you anything, and we have a lot of experience between all the members  Don't tell her I said so, but be careful about believing what your Mum's friend tells you as well. It is possible she goes by what the shop tells her - for instance, using tap water is the best way to go.

While you are cycling the tank you have plenty time to research fish. The first thing you need to do is find out how hard your water is. Ask your parents for the name of your water company, and either look the hardness up on their website, or ask one of us to do it.
There are fish that have evolved in hard water so they must be kept in hard water, and fish which have evolved in soft water so need to be kept in soft water. You need to know what type you have so you can chose fish that will be happy in your tank.

Alostangel,  Welcome.  this is a fantastic site for info.  I only got my tank last year and I'm always on here asking for advice
As someone who started with silk plants and now wants to change, read my earlier post today re substrate depth.  From experience It is much, much easier to get it right without fish than it is with fish swimming around    whilst trying to add gravel and position plants.

So I need soil to get my plants to grow? I have medium sized gravel at the moment, I’d say at probably a 1 inch depth?

Another thing, can I add pictures to here that I’ve taken on my phone? Might make it a bit easier for you to see what I’ve got and what to do with it.
Oh and I also brought a couple of small bits of wood, planning on soaking them in a bucket of water as I saw a couple of people on here struggled with their water turning cloudy if they put them straight in

You are right, the fish you name all need soft water.
Have a look at endlers. They need hard water and are lovely little fish. But males only as they breed like rabbits and you'd need at least 3 females for every male which soon means more endlers than you can cope with. They come in several different colours and patterns. A tank with a dozen or so mixed pattern male endlers would look stunning.
(The reason you need a lot more females than males is because like all livebearers, males chase females constantly. With more females, each female gets time out while the males chase another female)

Make sure you use straight tap water, not water from a filter. Some replace the hardness minerals with hydrogen ions. pH is the measure of hydrogen ions, an upside down measure. So if you add a lot more hydrogen ions, the pH drops. My old Brita filter dropped my pH from 7.5 to off the bottom off the scale so less than 6. Other types of filter replace the hardness minerals with sodium, and lots of sodium is not good for fish.

You do not need soil for plants, sand or fine gravel is fine. But you need deeper than 1 inch if you intend plants rooted in the substrate.
The alternative is to use plants that grow attached to decor. That's all I have in my tanks.

A lot of wood floats at first. Soaking it in a bucket gets it water logged so it sinks. It also allows the worst of the brown tannins to leach out.
And wood is ideal for attaching plants to 




I know what you mean about your mother. My husband thinks I'm mad the way I treat my fish  The only thing you can do is to tell her that fish are living creatures and they must be treated with respect. This means making their home as good as you can, which means getting the tank suitable for them. More fish die from water problems than any other cause.
Your Mum's way is probably based on old time thinking, or based on what shop workers say. We now know that all lot of old information is not correct, and it is well known that shop workers haven't a clue.




Re the photos, I'll have to let someone else help with that. Do you have access to a computer to down load your photos to? I upload photos from my laptop, which is easy. I have no idea how you do it from a phone 

So I should go and get another bag of gravel then for the tank?

Yeah, she keeps pushing me to get some fish. Pretty sure I’m gonna end up with fish on Tuesday whether I like it or not tbh. I was trying to explain soft vs hard water and the different pHs to her and her view of it was that I’m ‘looking into it too much’. I said about getting the water tested because she said we’d get some fish from pets at home while we’re near one on Tuesday (not sure about pets at home for fish but that’s another issue entirely) and she said not to bother with testing the water until a month after the fish go in there which is how the soft, hard water and pH conversation came up. My plan is that I’m gonna have a fish who likes soft water and a fish that likes hard water in my idea and I’ll go with whichever my water comes out as.

I do have a laptop, I’ll try on there

Does the laptop have the app Paint installed? (If it's anything like my Windows 10 laptop, you have to do a search to find it!) You can resize the photo using that. Home -> image -> resize. You can reduce the percentage while keeping the aspect ration the same.

Edit - I've just had a play with one of my photos. I used resize in Paint and changed the % from 100 to 80 keeping the aspect the same. This reduced the image size from 1.44 MB to 842 KB.
In the box under the reply box on here it says the max size for any one image is 3000 KB (or 3 MB), so as long as your image is less than that it will attach.

Forgot to add - don't believe anything anyone tells you at Pets at Home. I read a post on another forum by someone who worked there. He said they are not trained in how to care for fish or which fish go together; they are trained to work from a sheet and to make something up, anything, so that the customer buys something. Staff who keep fish themselves are usually assigned to any section other than fish. The staff assigned to the fish section either have no pets or they keep dogs or rabbits or anything that is not a fish. Fish keeping members of staff are not allowed to help a customer by telling them something not on the 'sheet'.

Several years ago I wanted to buy a male/female pair of dwarf gouramis. I read up on them first and asked for a stripey one (male) and a plain one (female). The chap serving me insisted that the pale blue ones were the females, and he refused to give me what I knew was a female. At the checkout, I said that I was sure I'd been given 2 males; the woman looked at them and agreed with me, and told me to go back and make him change one. If I hadn't done my research I would have come home with two  males of one of the more aggressive species of gourami which would soon have resulted in one dead fish. The chap on the fish section hadn't a clue.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound great... I was against them more because I’ve heard a lot of stories about fish becoming ill once you get them home so was gonna avoid them more for that reason but my mum is adamant that you’ll ‘get that anywhere you go’