Introduce Yourself!

So you have a tank with plants but no fish. Are you feeding the filter or will you be stocking slowly and letting the plants keep your tank healthy, ie a silent cycle? If the latter, you'll have to write it up as an example of how to do a silent cycle 


I've always been intrigued by shell dwellers. It's just their need for hard water that's put me off. My tapwater has GH9 (or 6 if you believe my water company) so I'd have to add rift lake salts at every water change.

I'm going to try and keep the filter fed.  I may write up my remodelling as a project, as I say, it's on the low priority list at the moment until I decide exactly what my plans will be.

Living in London, my water is naturally like concrete.  My "normal" pH, in the tank, is 8 - 8.2.  I don't have a hardness tester but my water company says it's CaCO3 equivalent is 275-300 mg/l which is about 15-16 dH.  So I think they'll be OK with that "out of the bottle".

 Hi Sue I think your right I did have a different user name on the old forum, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was !!

Hi, good to see the forum up and running again!!

I got into tropical fish in 2005 with a 110lr tank, and have now got a 160ltr tank!! 
What's in the tank:
2 Albino Corys
2 Leapard Corys
2 Zebra Loach
2 Ottos
2 Dwarf Guami
2 Galaxy Danios (did have 5)
Hi Fin Cat Fish
4 Swordtails
2 Rumueynose Tetras
2 Redeye Tetras
4 Pearl Danios
Did have 2 Kribs but one died yesterday??!!

Got all live planted tank, n ot sure it quite how I want it looking at moment, still not right, but.............

David.

Hi Jiros

Fishkeeping is a very interesting hobby, but as you have no doubt already discovered, there is a lot to learn at the start. Can I just warn you to take anything a fish shop tells you with a pinch of salt. Research before buying anything! There are some good shops around, as you get into things more you'll be able to spot which ones they are and which ones talk rubbish.
So just to start you off, have you read my 'how to' threads in the 'filtration and cycling' section? You'd be surprised how many people have problems when they've only just started because of bad advice/lack of advice from the shop or tank instructions.



But I need to warn you - fishkeepers are never satisfied with the tank they have. They always want more, bigger tanks. We even have a name for it - multiple tank syndrome 

Hi Jiros

Fishkeeping is a very interesting hobby, but as you have no doubt already discovered, there is a lot to learn at the start. Can I just warn you to take anything a fish shop tells you with a pinch of salt. Research before buying anything! There are some good shops around, as you get into things more you'll be able to spot which ones they are and which ones talk rubbish.
So just to start you off, have you read my 'how to' threads in the 'filtration and cycling' section? You'd be surprised how many people have problems when they've only just started because of bad advice/lack of advice from the shop or tank instructions.



But I need to warn you - fishkeepers are never satisfied with the tank they have. They always want more, bigger tanks. We even have a name for it - multiple tank syndrome 

I got that a few months after I had my 108 litre tank ..... went to a 450litre lol .... infact I think I'll always have it !

Hey Natalia - good to see you 
I was hoping you'd find your way here sooner or later! Nice to know theres a good aquatic gardener lurking in the background.

Im sure you talked about a freshwater flora & fauna tank before? Great to hear you've got it underway.

Sorry to hear about your mum - I hope she's on the mend. Not easy for you being so far away. Have a safe trip, keep your chin up and try not to worry too much 

Hi all,

Glad to see the forum finally up and running again.    The revamp of the whole site looks pretty amazing.

I joined the previous forum just a small number of weeks before the site went dark, so here's a quick recap of where I was up to.

I had scrapped an an attempt at a planted fresh water tropical tank because I was having problems with plants and decor and decided to go for a "temperate" fresh water variant instead.  When I arrived at the forum last time (21st April 2012) I had just started a fishless cycle.

By 28th April I suffered a pH crash, which I think it was Sue helped me out by suggesting addition of a small quantity of bicarbonate of Soda.  This worked a treat and got me back on track again, but it did take until 26th May to get the cycle completed, and then I started to add fish.

The decor has gone through some changes, from just plastic plants to some potted live plants, which are just about to be replaced by some silk plants and the live ones are slowly being devoured 

So, here's the low-down thanks to the ThinkFish "tank mates" and stocking calculator (hope they come back):-

64 litre Interpet "FishPod" (aka "FishBox") ([L] 60cm x [W] 32cm x [H] 37cm)
[26th May] 5x Vietnamese White Cloud Mountain Minnows (Tanichthys micagemmae)
[2nd June] 4x Japonica (Amano) Shrimp (Caridina multidentata)
[22nd June] 1x Zebra Otocinclus (Otocinclus Cocama) *deceased 11th July 
[30th June]  1x Zebra Otocinclus (Otocinclus Cocama) *deceased 20th August 
[7th July] 5x Glowlight Danios (Danio choprai)
[14th July] 5x Glowlight Tetras (Hemigrammus erythrozonus)

Very Soft water is a steady heated 24 deg, pH 6.5 to 7.6
Fluval 130 External Cannister filter (replaced the manufacturers internal one)

You'll see from the above that I lost both of my Zebra Oto's.  I'm convinced that the first developed an illness that went undected due to their reclusive nature and the second I think gave out during a water change, possibly suffocating, but I can't prove it.  The body of the first Oto was not touched by the other fish, whilst the second was almost half eaten by the time I spotted the carcus.

Not happy about loosing both, as they were absolutely brilliant lookers, but I'm not planning to get any more.

I've had one outbreak of Planaria which I replaced the whole of my substrate to combat. This worked great, and indeed it looked like it was caused by waste food rot.

Well, that's where I'm up to at the moment and all is going fine. 60% water change once a week is keeping the Nitrate levels at 20ppm and below, and I'm a happy fishkeeper at long last. 

Hi Darrell, yes I really am keen on live plants, and it would be simply fab if the Amano's would stop chomping on them. 

The fish fortunately don't bother the plants at all, so its more like a slow death than an all out assault.

At the moment the plants look positively sick, with holes all over them so they need to come out.  I think the Amano's are pooing more as a result of their feasting too (and they do poo a lot).

I've got hold of some nice looking silks, 20 & 30 cm mixture of different sorts and will be putting those in at the weekend. I'd like to see the Amanos eat those! 

Hello. I feel like I've been away for ages! And a bit slow on finding the new forums. 

Nearly 2 years ago, my boyfriend asked me if I wanted a fish tank for Christmas, on the condition that it would be wholly mine and he would not take any responsibility for looking after it in any way. After a (very) bit of research, I decided that a planted tropical freshwater fish tank would be a great 'first pet'.

I now have a 240l Roma tank, that is fairly heavily planted. I live in a fairly soft water area, so found it a bit of a struggle to keep my plants alive - until I discovered CO₂ injection and fertilisers. I started researching fertiliser salts, and got to a point where my tank was doing really well plant wise, but not so well fish wise. I think this is where I was up to before losing touch with the forums.

I had to move my fish tank, fortunately only to another wall in the same room. But found it incredibly stressful. I made the decision to take out the minimum water I had to and leave the fish in place. I ended up removing at least 100l of the 170l of water, and by the time I realised I'd have to do this, it was too difficult to catch the fish amongst all the plants. So they spent the best part of an hour or so in less than 10cm of water!

Turns out, I was the only one that suffered from stress and the improvement in water quality that resulted from such a large water change benefited my fish enormously. I didn't lose any fish for several months (except the odd stupid cardinal tetra swimming into and getting stuck behind my second small pump).

Then in May, I discovered that I was pregnant and morning sickness as well as an increased sense of smell, meant that my tank maintenance was somewhat neglected. My husband is a bit of a worrier, so water changes are now a joint effort, as he does all the lifting of buckets of water - both into and out of the tank! (I don't think he factored that into his original conditions! 

Over the last 3 weeks, the water conditions have started to show on my fish and I have lost several - including the last of my dwarf gouramis.    But today I've done a 90l water change and hope to 'get back on the wagon', so to speak and make a much better effort at maintaining my tank. I will post a photo at some stage, when I work out how. 

Btw, I currently have 5 kuhli loaches, 7 bronze corydorus, 3 harlequin rasboras, a pair of cherry barbs, 9 cardinal tetras and a glowlight tetra.

Helen