Community Creator - Let Me Know Your Thoughts

I think the CC needs to be a bit more conservative. It was a bit liberal with fish stocking.

I think a more comprehensive CC would be excellent as well, with most tropical and coldwater fish listed.
I think a good addition as well would be color coded fish.

Green = Easy
Blue = Medium, needs some research
Red  = Hard, recommended only for experienced fishkeepers, or has needs which are beyond the avg. keeper.

So an example would be, Xiphophorus maculatus, Platy

Also I think different shrimp and inverts should all have specific pages.

I think also, some fish should have a minimum tank LENGTH. Some fish can live in a 400l tank, but that tank is 2 foot long and massively tall, which isn't at all ideal for that fish.

Also is there any way to maybe get some biotope info's going? For people who may want their fish in a local familiar environment?

A few good points.

Most people think the stocking calculator was a bit liberal and I spent a lot of time fighting battles about it before! The previous stocking calculator was more realistic and accurate for many reasons, but many people did not like it!
However, being stubborn won't help me so I have to listen to the majority and I think the solution might be simply to have two stocking values with a FAQ icon to explain the difference. (I will use FAQ icons throughout the CC to explain different bits.)

Re Color Coding:
I have seen countless systems with color coding which don't work. Most shops have color coded labels which don't work. The problem with many fish is that they are too complex to fit into such tight categories. Typical examples are things like Guppies which are considered easy and would be a green, but they are also prone to bacterial problems so are actually not a great fish to start with. Also fish like Black Neons which are peaceful and will mix with anything, but put them with a male guppy and theres a good chance they will nip the guppy.
In this case we have two easy to keep, peaceful, small, 'green' fish which don't get along.
However, there are some fish which have virtually no issues, like white cloud minnows, and it would be good to mark these out as good starter fish.

Minimum length:
This definately needs doing. I can do a simple system whereby you enter tank Length and Volume. Volume can be used to work out stocking while length can be used to work out a max fish size. I wont do width, height etc.. or it gets too crowded.
The CC originally worked out volume from tank dimensions, but of course this only worked for rectangular tanks, so it got switched to just asking for volume

Shrimps & Inverts
These def need more detailing

Biotope,
I will introduce a new search system which will have search by region

Filters are a tricky issues, since one of the factors which determines your stocking level is the quality of your filter, but all filters rated at a certain volume are not equal. The adjustment of filter type is what increased stocking level above the base norm. I will keep this but attempt to explain it better.

I have been working on the layout template so I will try and get this done and then everyone can have a look at the  non-functioning template page.

Community creator was one of the best aquarium software I used. I hope that the new one will be even better. Good luck!

I' also think that is a good idea to add Color Code. To avoid problems, you can add additional colors (for example add Beginners fish), so we have e.g:
Light green - Beginner fish
Dark green - Easy to keep
Orange - Medium, needs some research
Red - Hard to keep

Beside of length I also think that is very important height of tank for some fish species e.g. Angelfish, Discus etc.

About a size of filter I think that would be maybe a good idea to define what you can consider with a oversized. Maybe give some percent directive or request from user to add type of filter and his volume.

I forgot to say that there's a very small fishes that they are very territorial (not aggressive) and require much more space then other fishes of the same size like some Dwarf Cichlids, so I think that they must have much bigger stock size number, and the number of that fishes must be in relation due tank dimensions unlike some schooling fishes that when they are together not require much space (mean stock size, tank dimensions also should not be ignored), but here is very important number of schools.

Just a quick pointer on stocking levels etc..
I plan to use the same stocking calculations as I've used on the new calculator section on this page:
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/calculators/stockinglevel.html

There is some explanation there about the various methods, although Im not sure how clear I've made it. The problem I have is trying to explain it all in as brief a way as possible - I find if I waffle on for ages, users will tend to switch off, so any explanation has to be as 'short and sweet' as possible!

The method used in this calculator is basically the same as was used in the previous CC, although some of the problems with apparent overstocking occurred because I adjusted a fishes stocking size based on its overall size to account for food consumption and waste production. For instance I would have a Neon which may grow to 3cm and just give it a stock size of 2cm in the CC (because it is very small and produces very little waste) where'as something bigger like a large Cichlid which grows to 30cm I would give a stock size of 40cm.
This adjustment made it easier to apparently 'overstock' with small fish. In reality there was no overstocking because the aquariums rate of waste production would remain much lower with small fish than if you had the same total length of larger fish. (10 x 3cm Neons consume and produce less than one 30cm fish)

Although the adjustment for size gives a more accurate result I think I will not use it this time around to avoid confusion and general comments about being over generous!

I'll try and get the mock-up finished with some FAQ type explanations and then post the link here to see what you guys think - Many thanks for the continued suggestions and advice! 

Great minds think alike Sue!
I have added different stocking recommendations based on tank age to the list. The CC will suggest a Max stocking level and a level for tank age (0-1 months, 1-3 months, 3-6 months) - these will equate to
0-1 months - 20% of max stocking
1-3 months - 40% of max stocking
3-6 months - 60% of max stocking
 

You can now see a draft of the layout on the page below:

http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/ccdemopage.html

Please note that nothing actually works yet, and the info is all 'filler' but you can see the icons which give an explanation of whats what. Also take a look at the search options for the fish database.
Tip: on the black bar header for the fish profile is the tab for 'Fish Search' (I might make this clearer)

Sue - take a look at the Tip info on stocking levels, I have put a note in about fishless cycle. (The black tip boxes don't let me put links in unfortunately, so i cant link to anything.)

When putting a raised terrace in my 240 litre tank, I knew I would be losing valuable water volume, but figured the bigger tank allowed for it - even so, I was surprised to find that it too actually holds about 160 litres of water.

wow!! loosing 80 litres to decor sounds a lot!!  Makes me wonder what my tank actually holds

You can now see a draft of the layout on the page below:

http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/fish/ccdemopage.html

Can we have some way of searching for fish that have matching requirements.  For example fish that require hard or soft water, or fish that require certain temperatures or pH or certain tank sizes or ... maybe, for chucklett, yellow ones

Quick update - Had a meeting with an app developer/brother of a old friend last night and the programming for the new CC is now officially underway.

- No search on colours im afraid.

- pH and hardness matching has been removed for simplicity/newbie reasons (but i'll keep it in mind when doing errors if anyone tries to mix dwarf cichlids with malawis etc.)

- CC will have a funky new search feature to search only for fish compatible with those already selected in your list

- Each fish will have 'recommended' tankmates and these will be used to create a 'recommended fish list' for each combination of fish. I.E. if you had three fish in your list, and they all shared the same 'recommended fish', that fish would appear as a recommendation for your tank. So not quite matching requirements, but should serve a similar purpose.

- Errors will be colour coded for importance. Mixing Neons and Oscars would be a red (Nooooo!). Suggesting more Neons if you only had 4 would be a light yellow (Maybe you could...) I also have green, but im not sure what i'll use that for, probably suggestions like making sure floating cover available for hatchetfish.

I've said I want it done in two weeks, I think it will probably be done in three!

We've all had to re-register  . When the old forum went, so did all the membership details.


I'm also waiting to see what the new CC has to offer. Interesting that on another forum I use, someone has asked can't they do a searchable fish database, one which allows you to search for what is compatible with what etc. Sound familiar? If Peter (the owner here) can manage it, the other forum should too