Newbie Alert =]

[MSW]

Hi all,
I’m Matt and have finally talked the wife into getting on board keeping tropical fish (it’s only taking a year and a half)
I ordered a Fluval 125L tank and cabinet over Christmas and have been giving a Eheim pro 3 external filter plus a pre filter.
I’m currently in the research stage but very excited to start.

I will read through some of the previous posts and will do plenty of research myself for answers I’m looking for , but I dare say there will be many questions going forward and I’d def appreciate a nod on the proposed community I’m currently planning before I put it all together (but I’ll post in a separate thread once I’ve done a little more research)

Thanks for the acceptance ?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

If you contact your water supply company via their website or by telephoning them, they should be able to tell you what the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply is. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.
Tetras, barbs, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm).

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies) occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

--------------------
You don't need it currently but the following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth a read when you have some spare time.

What to do if your fish gets sick

If your fish ever looks sick or unwell, then the following steps might help. Test the Water and Clean the Tank. Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH and write the results down in numbers. Check it for general hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) too if you can, but...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Utar]

Welcome to the forum, hope to see you around and see pictures of your aquariums.

 

[ClownLurch]

Welcome.
Youve arrived at the most helpful fish forum around. This lot will keep you right.

 

[Essjay]

Re your hardness, you give location as Wales. If you are with Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru, they don't give a number for hardness, just words. These words can be misleading as water companies define soft, hard etc somewhat differently from fish keeping (for example, what they call slightly hard we would call soft!). If you tell us what the words say, it will at least tells us the band in which your hardness falls which should be good enough.

 

[MSW]

Water hardness never even crossed my mind so thank you for steering me in the right direction..
The dŵr cymru welsh water states it as moderately soft, and other area hard water checker sites state between 57-65ppm
(If this helps)

 

[MSW]

Welcome to the forum, hope to see you around and see pictures of your aquariums.

Thank you.. As soon as it’s up and running I’ll be sure to post a picture

 

[MSW]

Hi and welcome to the forum

If you contact your water supply company via their website or by telephoning them, they should be able to tell you what the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply is. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.
Tetras, barbs, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm).

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies) occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

--------------------
You don't need it currently but the following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth a read when you have some spare time.

What to do if your fish gets sick

If your fish ever looks sick or unwell, then the following steps might help. Test the Water and Clean the Tank. Test the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH and write the results down in numbers. Check it for general hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) too if you can, but...

www.fishforums.net

Thank you.. my water is classed (I’m told) as moderately soft with my actual water supplier and other sites state between 57-65ppm

I’ll also be sure to refer to the link in the event of sickness, I have been reading both books and reasearching the internet to begin to clue myself up on tank healthcare & wellbeing.

 

[Essjay]

'Moderately soft' in water company terms means the range 2.8 to 5.6 dH and 50 to 100 ppm (those are the two units used in fish keeping). Even the top end of that range is soft rather than moderately soft. The other sites give it at the lower end of the water company's range. Some fish profiles use ppm, others use dH. 57 to 65 ppm = 3.2 to 3.6 dH




The best site for researching fish is https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ Their profiles will tell you the hardness, pH and temperature any species needs; the minimum tank size they need; any types of fish they can't or can be kept with and any quirks you need to think about (eg needing a particular type of food)