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I'm presently doing a fish-in cycle with hardy fish (yes I know that's now the way you're supposed to do it) and for weeks I've been religiously taking water quality readings every two days. A few days ago the ammonia finally reached zero. I took a reading tonight and again ammonia was zero but...

Hello mate. Welcome to the forum and it is indeed a great site

Nice to meet you and welcome.

Welcome to the world's best fish forum.

Nice bit of Egeria in the first tank. Gotta love that stuff.   Welcome on board.

You've come to the right place. Welcome.

Some pictures finally :) I wish to stress that it's far from complete. We'll soon be adding a black background as well as some smaller rocks to sit at the base of the larger rocks. As for the plants: There are currently only several real plants in the tank; two Amazon Swords attached to bogwood...

  As I've already got Golden Barbs I won't get anymore Barbs. Good suggestion though.   Lefty: For various reasons I won't be putting invertebrates in the aquarium; only fish. Guppies are livebearers so that's a no also.   After all the input, which I greatly appreciate, I'm leaning towards...

They look absolutley lovely and seem perfect. The only problems I can foresee are the fact they're so timid and might be bullied by other fish and that they need a special diet.

My apologies for the late reply but this is the first 5mins I've had to myself over the past several days. They look like lovely fish - and exactly the type of colours I want + they are small and I prefer smaller fish - but I have hard/alkaline water. Not only that but my tank isn't yet mature...

  I've completed the move; with the gravel in. It was almost to heavy to move but two of us managed to edge it across the floor.   I didn't drip the water into the fish bucket by I drained 1/2 of it off and 1/2 filled it with the new tank water and left it like that for ten minutes before...

I don't believe it. Just after I had a look at this thread, guess what... Another snail! I promptly removed it.   Oh well I guess that means my tank will have snails from now on. Maybe I'll get a clown loach or assassin snails or something.

  Maybe I should pour some of the new water into the fish bucket and leave it for 10 minutes before putting the fish into the tank?

  We want a good mixture of males an females.     Are Rasboras livebearers?

Oops, I should have said I heard. Im pretty sure it does. So are you treating with copper?     No as the tank is fairly new and there are no snails in there. It's something I want retain as an option for future use.

Being new to the art of fishkeeping I placed my new aquarium in a sub-optimum position and have since filled it with ornaments, plants, fish and water.   Basically I placed it too near to the wall on the right hand side and the rear of the tank. There's a number of disadvantages to this, not...

It leaches into the silicone and will leach out for a long long long time, this is why they say once treated it cant house shrimp etc ever again     Well that's fine by me because I want to keep the option of copper sulphate treatment open. In a worst case scenario of a snail infestation I...

Thanks for the input.   The dimensions of the tank are 120cm X 40 X 43 (Fluval 240 litre)   Oh I forgot to mention that I don't want livebearers, for obvious reasons.

I heard that buying off the internet can be dodgy; snails etc.

I'm in the process of gradually stocking my aquarium and I'd like to have a wide variety of colours.   Right now I've got yellow covered after adding 8 Golden Barbs along with 6 Lemon Tetras. I'm also planning on adding around 15-20 Neon Tetras which will add a splash of blue to the tank. I'm...

  Awesome, where can you buy them from. None of my LFS sell floating plants (And I live in Swindon).     Why, does it linger permanently?

I'm just wondering how weak you should make the bleach solution. I don't want to turn my plants white! :P

Hi KirkyArcher and thanks for the reply.   I'm curious to know if you quarantine the plants after treating. If so, for how long?   I bought the bogwood with the plant attached, so I guess I'll leave it another week before adding it.

  I've heard they're beneficial. I still don't want any though. The reason I cancelled an order of bamboo shrimp with the LFS is because I heard that they'd die if the tank was treated with copper sulfate ;)     Tomorrow I promise!     Thank you, that's exactly the type of plant I'm looking...

Last weekend I visited my LFS and purchased 6 Lemon Tetras and a Java Fern growing on a piece of bogwood. I first placed the plant, then the fish, into the aquarium. They looked absolutely lovely... Or so I thought...   A couple of hours later I noticed something small, not much smaller than a...

Yesterday I added 6 lemon tetras and another plant; a java fern on a piece of bogwood. A couple of hours later, to my horror I noticed something small moving on the side of the tank. A snail! I quickly removed it and threw it in the garden. The snail must have come from either the fish or the...

Tested water again today. Great news. PH - 7.8 Ammonia - 0.1 Nitrite - 0 <<<<<<<----------- :) Nitrate - 40 I was so surprised that nitrite is zero that I tested again just to make sure. I think it's due to adding Tetra Safe Start a few days ago. As soon as ammonia reaches zero I'll start...

Tested the water again today and the readings are the same as before. Ammonia - 0.1 Nitrite - 0.1 Nitrate - around 30-50 The readings aren't particularly accurate, though, due to the poorer quality Nutrafin test kit. I'm expecting the API test to kit to arrive any day now so I'm looking...

Wow what a beautiful species of fish! Thanks for letting me know about them. I might add 8-10 blue eyes once the tank is mature. Tested the water again today and the readings are the same as before. Ammonia - 0.1 Nitrite - 0.1 Nitrate - around 30-50 The readings aren't particularly accurate...

Hi BerryAttack and thanks for the reply again. I have a spray bar on my output so I guess it's not an option to put a net over the output. Now from what you explain it sounds like you use the siphon hose to wash the media. Wouldn't it be more simple to wash the media kn a bucket of tank water?

Please explain what you mean.

  Oh I don't want livebearers. I can do without a population explosion inside the aquarium. I've heard Lemon and Glowlight Tetras are pretty good for hard water.

  Good point.

  I will sort one out at some stage, although I might be a bit embarrassed about the ship wreck haha. My girlfriend's 10 year old wanted some decoration ;)   Well today I did another water reading and the results were same as before, with only a trace of ammonia and nitrite; 0.1 at the most.  ...

... Or can you simply clean the filter in a bucket of dechlorinated water? This means you don't have to drain any water from the tank.

I'm thinking about using a little peat to reduce the hardness a touch... If need be.

I'm new to the hobby and I'd just like to check whether my water hardness will be suitable for tropical species such as tetras, zebra danios and other such small fish.   I presently have the facilities to test for PH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, but unfortunately not for water hardness.   I...

Hi Fishaholic and thanks for the reply. As it happens my girlfriend just returned from Canada. Sounds a lot nicer than this crappy little country :p But anyway, thanks for the advice, especially on Gouramis. I understand that you need a minimum of 6 for schooling fish, that's why I bought 6...

I know how you feel. My Zebra Danios have started hanging around in one corner of the tank, ever since I vigorously cleaned the front of the tank with a cloth. They began darting back and forth like crazy; clearly freaked out. I just thought nothing of it and carried on wiping the glass. Several...

So about 3 weeks ago the missus and I made the decision to buy a tropical aquarium. Neither of us know the first thing about fish keeping so we've had to learn everything from scratch. We were told numerous falsehoods by the LFS, such as, for example, that it's OK to add the fish after only a...