Newbie

[Pedrod355]

Hello All,

Just joined , know nothing about tropical fish! Hence joining here, looking into purchasing tropical fish & a column fish tank.
Lot of questions to be asked

 

[Fish4dawin]

Hello All,

Just joined , know nothing about tropical fish! Hence joining here, looking into purchasing tropical fish & a column fish tank.
Lot of questions to be asked

Do you have the tank already? I'd start out with a 10 or 20 gallon tank (40litre-70litres). Do you know you GH and pH? Your GH is your general hardness and can be found by looking up your address in your water companys website.

 

[Pedrod355]

Not purchased anything yet, still undecided on tank shape, either a column (147L) or maybe a corner unit style. Ph levels range from 7.7-8.4?

 

[Essjay]

I would not advise a column tank. They tend to be tall and narrow which creates two problems. Being tall, it is hard to reach the bottom of the tank to clean it; and being narrow there is not much swimming room so you have to stock with only very small slow swimming fish.
A corner tank is better, but again it causes problems with maintenance (the back corner is hard to get at) and there is less swimming length than with rectangular tanks of the same volume as the longest part of the tank is restricted to a few inches/cm at the front.

Both can be used successfully as long as you bear the restrictions in mind, and can reach the bottom/back corner to clean it.




Fish4dawin mentioned GH as we need to keep fish which come from roughly the same hardness as our tap water. But you have plenty time to research fish as any tank you buy will need to be cycled before you can buy fish.
This explains how to do a fishless cycle https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/ Using a bottled bacteria product can speed it up, but not cycle the tank instantly as some brands or shops will have you believe.
The other way to cycle a tank is by using a lot of fast growing plants and waiting till they are actively growing before getting fish. If you intend to plant the tank, we can go into more detail about this method.

 

[Pedrod355]

Thanks for comments,will take onboard. Does anyone recommend any online shops for purchasing? As the nearest store is 2-3hr drive away.