New Hobby Looking For Any Advice

Hi again. The api masterkit is great - it's the one I mentioned in my post. I was going to pets@home to get my tank water checked but tested my tap water as soon as my own kit arrived.

I agree with the other two posts 1.0 Ammonia is really too high. The nitrite is a little too high aswell but not at panic stations just yet. Do as suggested and change some water, making sure you de-chlorinate it and I would add the ammonia stuff to the bucket of fresh water too before putting it in if you are able to. At least if there's a small amount of Ammonia in your tap water it's being treated before it gets to the fish.

Try not to feel guilty. Your doing your best and that's all you can do - no-one here expects you to be an expert straight away. It's a steep learning curve to begin with and then it's a new lesson everyday - that's how I see it anyway.

Good luck and we're never far away if you need anything.

Good luck

Akasha

fab thanks akasha i will add some to the new water and order my api now so i should be all prepared then and i will definitely be testing my water when my kit arrives i'll let you know how i get on

maria.madeline22 said:

i am just about to buy a api freshwater master test kit from amazon anyone know if this is any good ?

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I had 3 of them and there ok for your needs, if you can find sailferts defo get them if not API will do. make sure you not paying the earth for the API should be £23 odd, ebay power sellers are good for them.

one thing to learn for this is never listen to LFS they are inexperinced and not giving good advice.

once you run out of tap safe buy a bottle of seacham prime, thats the daddy and will last 3 times as long without fail is the best.

Ill im working from home for 2 days so ill be on here nearly 24/7 ill pop in here see how your doing

thanks just ordered the api should be here in 3 to 5 days any thing has got to be better than all this worry
i think i just going to listen to advice on here from now on you all seem to know more than stores etc
i will look up seacham prime you sound very confident in it
i'll prob still be posting before my kit arrives i seem to have more and more question that i am dreaming about fish now lol

maria.madeline22 said:

i will look up seacham prime you sound very confident in it
i'll prob still be posting before my kit arrives i seem to have more and more question that i am dreaming about fish now lol

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I am my 350L 220L 250L 70L 60L 20L tanks all say so

Just post up here when you have a question we do our best we have no agenda on here, we give advise to help you and your fish that all

lol that is alot of tanks my other half already thinks i mad to want another one for my sons room when i get the hang of things lol
there is another question if anyone can help due to my tank not being mature yet from what i ve read it would be bad for one of my fish to be having fry i have just attached a picture of one of my platy which i think might be pregnant could someone tell me if this is right or it is just fat and what to do for the best if it is please

I'd say definitely pregnant ... but (you may not like this) most of the fry won't survive. The moment they are born they become live food for all the other fish in the tank - especially guppies I've found. If your tank is heavily planted you may get one or two that survive.

My two female platies gave birth about 2 weeks ago, at the same time my 4 female guppies also had babies - so far I think one may have survived but I've not seen it since yesterday morning so it may well have become breakfast for one of them.

Sounds barbaric but it's nature - plus as you've already said, you don't want to add to the filters load right now (not that tiny weeny little fry will make that much difference).

Don't worry too much, what will be will be and if her babies don't survive there will be plenty more. They give birth about once a month.
I got really upset 2 weeks ago when I was watching all these babies being eaten but then Soybean reminded me that there would be more and it made it easier to deal with.

oh ok time to start preparing myself for it then thank you for turning it into a positive it does help from what i can see and what you've said i got more than one pregnant fish they must have been when i had them and if i am right my tank wouldn't be big enough for them all to survive, it is a shame i ain't got a tank for my son yet he could have some of the fry but still way too advanced for me
i am sorry to here what happened to your fry but knowing i not going to be the only one does give me some comfort
hope you find your missing fry

Just thought to add ... don't rush out and buy a breeding trap like I did. All it did was stress the mother and then the fry swam out through the slots rendering it a complete waste of £5. If you want babies later on the best advice I've had here is to plant the tank heavily with plants the fry can hide in. That's my plan at present. I think my platies may be pregnant again and I feel a little more confident now and I'm hoping they might survive this time.

I'm big on nature and nature does as nature likes. Everything in nature happens for a reason and if every tiny baby survived the tank would be brimming with fish in no time.

your very right it still dont stop us being upset tho still loads more to come and will have more knowledge then and hopefully if i get my own way another tank lol don't worry i not going to buy breeding trap personally with my experience (which is none) i don't think it will be fair on the mother nor fry me interfering, once my tank stable and i understand more i may go from there if they breed so often

Just give the fry plenty of places to hide - it's what they'd do in the wild. I have some aquarium rocks in my tank and I've grouped two together to create a tiny hole that fry could get into but not the fully grown fish. I think that's where my lone baby (if it still exists) is hiding.

As I understand from reading information on here the live bearers breed like rabbits - it's impossible to stop them breeding so as you say, wait it out you may see babies at some point.

Good luck

thank you i will put some more hiding places in once i sort my levels out i do have 3 plants in at the moment which the adults like hiding in lol i so cant wait for my kit to arrive i got up this morning and they looked like they were gasping for air so i've done a water change seem to be fine now but panic stations yet again i never realised how attached you get to fish they seem to be more hard work and worry than other pets lol

The reason they are such hard work is because every pet shop employee I have encountered are liars that just want to sell fish and fish supplies to make money so they don't care if your fish die. This forum cares and won't lie to you. I went through the same thing as you starting out because the huge accepted lie about fishkeeping is fill the tank with water, run the filter a few days and add fish.... Not true! I was lugging up to 50 gallons of water in buckets a day to save my fish and it was worth the effort! These people on this forum helped me and saved my fish for me! Now my aquarium is a beautiful ecosystem to enjoy everyday! I love my fish so much I bought a Seneye aquarium monitor from the U.K. for $222 last night!!!

Do you know anyone who has an established, mature aquarium close to you?

KISSfn said:

The reason they are such hard work is because every pet shop employee I have encountered are liars that just want to sell fish and fish supplies to make money so they don't care if your fish die. This forum cares and won't lie to you. I went through the same thing as you starting out because the huge accepted lie about fishkeeping is fill the tank with water, run the filter a few days and add fish.... Not true! I was lugging up to 50 gallons of water in buckets a day to save my fish and it was worth the effort! These people on this forum helped me and saved my fish for me! Now my aquarium is a beautiful ecosystem to enjoy everyday! I love my fish so much I bought a Seneye aquarium monitor from the U.K. for $222 last night!!!

Do you know anyone who has an established, mature aquarium close to you?

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keep us upadated on the seneye was going to buy one myself last night but opted out when i found out you have to go online and reg the refills every time

Will definitely tell all about my Seneye adventure! They sell the slides in 3 packs so that's better than every month!