Damon-Alter
New Member
Hi - I'm Damon
I already posted somewhere else so I'm a bit out of order, but here we go. I'm 33, live in Australia and have wanted to own and keep a fish tank for many years and finally decided to get started with my first decent sized tank. I work at a school and I like Beach Volleyball, reading and... escape rooms. I've previously had goldfish in a tiny tank (1 foot if lucky) as a young kid - I pretty much did everything wrong. No filter, no light, 100% water changes only perhaps 2-3 times a year, no water conditioner, straight tap water. Fish straight in from the store. Somehow they both lived about 6 years. Feel free to insert angry emoji.
Thankfully, I'd like to think I've done a bit more research this time which was an easy target to achieve. My current tank setup is a 127L/34 gallon tank with dimensions of 80/38/51 L/D/H (cm). I've got 7 Diamond Tetras and a single male Kribensis who does not appreciate the cave I built for him. I plan on getting 6+ Kuhli Loaches but haven't yet decided on a final inclusion that isn't too aggressive/large/rampant with inbreeding and disease. Something that lives in the middle-top layers of the tank preferably, which makes me feel a bit bad because I feel like hatchetfish are waiting for me to notice them and I'm ignoring them for superficial reasons.
I liked the idea of aquascaping a bit but realised that was getting a bit carried away for a beginner tank, so instead I bought some dragon stone (I really loved the look of the Seiryu, which apparently alters water chemistry continuously, and figured adding that extra responsibility was unwise) which I must say takes an extremely long time to clean (online tips to use bamboo skewers were thoroughly helpful). I then attempted to arrange the stones in an artistic manner which allowed me to discover just how much residue still remained after many, many washes of the substrate. I use Flourite Black Sand as a substrate and have a mixture of crypts and hair grass planted in it. One day I'd like to aquascape some shorter grass over the rocks but until then I needed to settle down and focus on actually keeping fish alive for the first actual tank I was running. I also come to understand that fish keeping is very expensive!
Anyway, that's a decent amount, hopefully at some point I'll have learned enough to provide helpful advice in return!
I already posted somewhere else so I'm a bit out of order, but here we go. I'm 33, live in Australia and have wanted to own and keep a fish tank for many years and finally decided to get started with my first decent sized tank. I work at a school and I like Beach Volleyball, reading and... escape rooms. I've previously had goldfish in a tiny tank (1 foot if lucky) as a young kid - I pretty much did everything wrong. No filter, no light, 100% water changes only perhaps 2-3 times a year, no water conditioner, straight tap water. Fish straight in from the store. Somehow they both lived about 6 years. Feel free to insert angry emoji.
Thankfully, I'd like to think I've done a bit more research this time which was an easy target to achieve. My current tank setup is a 127L/34 gallon tank with dimensions of 80/38/51 L/D/H (cm). I've got 7 Diamond Tetras and a single male Kribensis who does not appreciate the cave I built for him. I plan on getting 6+ Kuhli Loaches but haven't yet decided on a final inclusion that isn't too aggressive/large/rampant with inbreeding and disease. Something that lives in the middle-top layers of the tank preferably, which makes me feel a bit bad because I feel like hatchetfish are waiting for me to notice them and I'm ignoring them for superficial reasons.
I liked the idea of aquascaping a bit but realised that was getting a bit carried away for a beginner tank, so instead I bought some dragon stone (I really loved the look of the Seiryu, which apparently alters water chemistry continuously, and figured adding that extra responsibility was unwise) which I must say takes an extremely long time to clean (online tips to use bamboo skewers were thoroughly helpful). I then attempted to arrange the stones in an artistic manner which allowed me to discover just how much residue still remained after many, many washes of the substrate. I use Flourite Black Sand as a substrate and have a mixture of crypts and hair grass planted in it. One day I'd like to aquascape some shorter grass over the rocks but until then I needed to settle down and focus on actually keeping fish alive for the first actual tank I was running. I also come to understand that fish keeping is very expensive!
Anyway, that's a decent amount, hopefully at some point I'll have learned enough to provide helpful advice in return!
