Hello Everyone,

[Dave L]

Hi all,

Been snooping around a while and reaping lots of info so I thought it about time I posted.

Firstly, great forum and a great bunch of fish keepers here. Also, loads of experience being shared. Very much appreciated.

I used to keep tropical fish as a youngster and have been promising myself your years that I would one day get back into it. And now I'm making the same promise to my 7-year old daughter. Looks like I have to come good on it now.

I have picked up from various threads that generally, larger is easier so I'm gone big. Reality is that I happen to have a nice alcove in the living room going spare and a friend who is a furniture maker, so last week I ordered a new 71 x 24 x 24 from Wharf Aquatics, and I have a nice unit being made to suit.

As stated, I have gleaned a lot of useful information from this forum and this will be put to good use very shortly. But as always I have a couple of newbie questions:

I'm going to be using T5 lighting for this planted tank, most of the hood mounted tubes seem to to be 5' long as a maximum. Would these be OK in a 6' tank or am I likely to see dark areas at each end? (I'll probably be using two - twin 80w T5's)

My daughter doesn't quite grasp that Nemo is a salt water fish and we are having Freshwater, but she clearly has a preference for colourful fish. Can anyone suggest any community tank fish that tend to be more colourful which I can start reading up on.

I have seen some colourful shrimps in the past but not sure if they were freshwater or not. Are there any that would live happily in a community tank?

I'm sure I'll have loads of questions going forward but at the moment I'm wanting to learn as much as I can before I start installing the tank.

Many thanks

Dave.

 

[5teady_2012]

First of all welcome to the forum...

Being more in to livebearers myself, the really colourful ones are...

Male guppies.. females ten to have a bit of colour but not much

Male Endlers.. females tend to have no colouring

There is all diffrent kinds of colorful platys, mollies, swordtails...

Other colorful community fish are, neons.. they are a nice red and blue

Thats all i can think of on the livebearer side of things, but im sure more will reply with other types of fish for you..


Enjoy the forum

 

[-SPB-]

Hi

Welcome to the forum, i'm sure everyone wll be welcoming and will give all the help and advice you need.

Thats a nice size tank you have ordered and the options you have are plentiful.

Clown loaches are a nice fish, they can grow to around 12" and need to be kept in groups, your tank would be great. They have an orange and black stripe on them. http/www.fishforums.net/content/Cyprinid...53/Clown-Loach/.

Angelfish can have really nice colours on them and would be great for a large community setup. http/www.fishforums.net/content/Cichlids...5001/Angelfish/.

German Blue Ram is also a colourful fish. These can get aggressive towards other cichlids. http/www.fishforums.net/content/Cichlids...erman-Blue-Ram/

There is also the gourami. There are various different types of gourami, these can be quite colourful. http/www.fishforums.net/category/39/Labyrinth/

Hope this info helps.

Also, here is a link with regards to fishless cycling, it's a real good piece of information about setting your tank up, and could also save you losing fish.

http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/

 

[Dave L]

Thanks for the replies guys and the info.

Thats given me something to start to look at. Looking forward to getting the tank in and cycled. It's likely to be a few weeks yet though. It'll give me time to get all the other stuff together.

Thanks again

Dave.