Tropical Fish Forum
Think Fish Tropical Fish Forum => Welcome to our Tropical Fishkeeping Forum - Please Read => Topic started by: RachelN76 on July 23, 2014, 09:35:05 PM
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Hi everyone,
I'm a newbie here, and have just got a tank and fish, mainly for the children, but I'm a bit besotted with them to be honest.
We got the tank a few weeks ago, and we've had the fish in it since Sunday. We got six harlequin rasboras to start with, and they're lovely little things! They're quite sparkly, which I like, and they seem to really like playing with the water coming out of the pump, and when I change the water and pour the new stuff in, they really like that as well!
I've been reading all the information about cycling and cleaning and water changing, and I hope I'm getting it right so far, but I could really do with a recommendation for a water testing kit that will test for everything I need to, and be reasonably good value. I don't mind a reasonable initial outlay, if what I'm buying is good stuff. But it's paying £5 for four rubbish test strips that I object to!
I've also looked at several of the photos in the gallery, and you all have some lovely, lovely tanks and fish!
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Hi Rachel and welcome to the forum :wave:
The API Master test kit is quite widely used and covers the key basic tests of pH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. It isn't dirt cheap, often in the region of £30 in shops but I got mine off EBay for £18 delivered (new). They're liquid tests rather than strips so are both more accurate and you get a lot of individual tests out of them.
Beyond this you could also consider testing for things like hardness, although you can usually get approximate figure from your water company's website.
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Hi Rachel, welcome to the forum, im the same as dbaggie and use the API test kit, and have done for all my tanks and its never given me a problem. Do shop around though! Ive seen it as expensive as £32 and as cheap as £20.
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hi rachel welcome to the forum :wave:
Most people do use the api test kit as people have said here it does pay to get it online and shop around a little for it .What are you using to test your water currently and was the tank cycled before you added your fish.
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Hello Rachel, and welcome to the forum. You're in the right place here.
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Thanks for the welcome. :)
I've ordered an API kit, found it for £20 at amazon. :)
So far I've just been using some strips that came with a starter pack, and taking water to Pets at Home for them to test. But that's getting very tedious, so it would be a lot easier to do it myself!