Hello I thought I would introduce myself and my fish tank to this forum.
I had been thinking about having an aquarium for a few years now, so with my wife’s go ahead, I bought a 30l tank. This was always going to be a starter tank for me, to see if I could cope with all the pressures, as it turns out.
I bought the tank a few days earlier and had put water in it with added ‘Aqua safe’ and heated the water to around 23 degrees, although the weather was really good so the heater did not switch on much. The filter was also running.
I visited a local fish shop for advice. I told them the size of my tank and with their guidance we chose our fish. I had 8 neon Tetras and 4 Otto’s. Picked my substrate a few plants and went home with them.
I added all the fish, carefully, as told. Everything looked fine. They settled in very quickly. The fish were not fed on the first day, but I did on the second day and they all ate something.
My problems started on day 3. One of the smaller Tetra had died. I thought it may have been down to the shock of moving from the shop tank to mine. The next day I had 2 more deaths, one Otto and one Tetra. This was now worrying. So I searched on the internet for help, as the shop was not open. During my trawling I found Thinkfish. I read the article on cycling tanks. Was amazed by its contents and decided to follow it.
Starting with a 50% water change and ordering a test kit, I lost one more Otto and Tetra the next day. So I carried on with water changes. My test kit arrived 2 days later. The first reading for ammonia was 2.0 ppm. Poor little sods! No wonder they were dying.
My cycling started on the 25th of July this year. I did a 25% water change every day, not always taking readings, but always did a WC. My ‘fish in ‘tank was cycled on the 24th of August. (3 days of ammonia 0 and nitrite 0). The 6 neon’s and 2 Otto’s were still alive. They had been through the tank cycling, tough little cookies!
Nowadays I do a 20% water change about every 10 days now. All readings are good. The fish look healthy and some of my plants are growing well. The light in the tank is only about 10 watts, so not good for plant growing, so I read on Tropicas website.
I’ve made a decision to go for a larger tank. I know that my tank is too small for the type and quantity of fish I have and I also like the idea of aquascaping, so a nice tank like the new fluval fresh aquarium would fit the bill. I put a post on here asking if anyone has one and could give me there experiences of the tank, but I’m almost certain that this will be the one early next year.
Well just to round up, I should have done more research online or in the library before I started. The fish shop was a load of rubbish, never going there again

. I suppose they made their money! And I wanted to send my thanks to everyone on this website and forum for their help and advice. Just by reading your posts I have learnt so much, it’s been an eye opener for me.
I wish you all a Happy Christmas and thanks again for all your help.
Hopefully I can get a few pictures on here of the early and later days of my 30l tank.
I took a few over the last 6 months!!
Mike