New from Scotland!!

[DocDoc]

Hi all,
Gosh I hope I’m doing this part right because I don’t usually ‘do’ social media!! I’m a relatively new fish keeper living in Scotland. I have my 60l. Biorb (I know… but with modifications it’s been a thriving system for 8 months…) and a 3- month old 230l. The big tank was second-hand and came with 2 cycled filters so it’s well underway as a nice planted tank. I’ve got Endlers, baby Mollies, Cardinals and shrimp in the small tank, and Rummy nose and black phantom tetras plus 2 kribensis in the big tank. My only losses have been the Mummy Mollie and her friend during a water change incident and 3 guppies in a bout of white spot right at the start of the small tank. Since then… all present and correct and… happy?! I hope so, doing my best!!

 

[Slaphppy7]

Welcome to TFF

Endlers and mollies are hard water fish, whereas tetras prefer soft water...do you know the hardness of your source water?

 

[Wills]

Hi welcome to the forum!

 

[Essjay]

The majority of Scotland has soft to very soft water, though there are pockets with harder water. Even the harder pockets won't really be hard enough for mollies, I'm afraid. Keep an eye on them, you may need to set up another tank and add minerals to make the water hard enough for them. That's how multiple tank syndrome starts (an incurable disease of fish keepers presenting with the symptom of wanting more and more tanks)

 

[connorlindeman]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Lynnzer]

It's Scotland. more likely than not very hard water area but best to check anyway.
The larger tank is seemingly sparcely populated but believe me ...... when the Kribs start their first brood you'll be glad of the spare room for them. They are so lovely but so likely to fill a tank with offspring in less time than a Deliveroo driver gets to you with your pizza order.
Best get aquainted with your local fish supply shop and make enquiries as to what they'll buy or give shop credit for.

I took apart my 120ltr Aquaone last week for a rebuild (image below) and had a spare 65 yellow sakuri shrimp. I dropped them off at FishAlive in Durham yesterday for £56 credit.

By the way, I just love trout fishing in various parts of Scotland that I've been to. Compared to the river Wear most rivers and streams, and even a ditch running alongside a field we camped in at Tayport, in my army days I could guarantee catching fish. Plockton was best though
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Ah, I see Essjay has some knowledge of the water hardness. Still best to check though. I have found that when fish are in hard water if their preference is for soft they don't live long. They get body malformities such as hunchback, lose their colour and go to fishy heaven too quickly.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I consider forums to be different to social media. We normally try to provide informative answers to help people with fish problems, rather than 1 sentence responses about jibberish

But you posted in the right section so your doing alright so far

 

[Essjay]

more likely than not very hard water area but best to check anyway.

Scotland is mainly very soft water.
Download the "Water Hardness Data 2021" pdf here and scan down the German degrees (aka dH) column

Water Quality - Scottish Water

Water Quality

www.scottishwater.co.uk

 

[emeraldking]

Well, hi and welcome to TFF...
I wouldn't call a forum social media as well... But that's just me...
Well, endlers will do good in moderate soft water till hard. Mollies however do prefer harder water but as long as they're not full grown yet, moderate soft shouldn't be a problem. But once they're adults or at least bigger, the urge of harder water becomes more clear.

 

[DocDoc]

Yup as most of you suspected, I’m in a soft water area, as of course the tests confirm. I have tried adjusting that by adding crushed coral to my filter, (the Biorb one - I removed the media and replaced with K1 media and the coral) which seems to have helped, now I’m in the process of re-jigging my stock so the softies are all in the softer water big tank.
As for the Kribensis - yes I am now scared Im going to be mother to millions…

 

[Slaphppy7]

Knowing you have soft water, do the best you can for the mollies for now, but stick with soft water fish from now on...much easier to deal with the water you are sourced, than trying to manipulate params as often as every week (water changes)

You've many options with the Characins....which happen to be my favorite species

I know very little about cichlids, but I've "heard" that can be as prolific as livebearers...I'd doubt that you'd be a mother to "millions", though*

Speaking of "social media", this forum is pretty much all I need

*Thousands, maybe

 

[DocDoc]

Exactly the route I’m now taking now I know a bit more. I’ll do all I can for my Mollies since they’re my first ‘babies’. I absolutely love both my Rummynoses and my Black phantoms - could quite happily stick with just this family for a while!!

 

[Lynnzer]

The black phantoms are great. I had them in my 65 litre tank but it had dark substrate and background with a good number of tall darkish plants. They weren't too easily seen so I changed the tank setup to show them better.

 

[DocDoc]

The black phantoms are great. I had them in my 65 litre tank but it had dark substrate and background with a good number of tall darkish plants. They weren't too easily seen so I changed the tank setup to show them better.

They’re just great, the males are great to watch having their ‘stand offs’!

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Welcome to the forum!
I hate social media - don't do facebook, Twitter, insta etc, but a forum like this is different. You could spend a decade here without ever revealing anything about yourself, and no one would mind. It's not about that! We're not competing with each other, we're not collated and sorted so we only see people similar to us etc. Very different purpose and atmosphere from most social media!

We're just all aquarium hobbyists. We try to help each other out where we can, share our tanks sometimes (if you want, never pressured) share our successes and losses, learn from others in the hobby, stuff like that. It's always nice to have new people join!