Freshwater Forums??

[cM iPro v3]

i will probably sound like i am obssessed with fish tanks now but

i have been trying too look into getting a freshwater fish tank which leads well on too my next question does anybody know any descent forums that will teach me things about those tanks

[chroma]

Theres not really much to it.

Step 1: Buy a tank
Best advice here is the bigger the better. reason being the bigger the tank the more water there is and more water is infinately easier to maintain than less. ammonia builds quickly in smaller tanks during the nitrogen cycle before it becomes nitrate.
Simply put, more water = less chemical impact.
Spend the majority of your budget on a decent tank, as big as space will allow.

Step 2: Buy equipment
Heaters, filtration equipment, gravel, plants, litmus paper, a thermometer, powerheads, hoses, flake food, frozen/live/dried/cube supplimentary treats, lights, ornaments and backing paper, air pumps, fishing net, gravel vacuum siphon, magnetic glass scrubbers etc.

Step 3: Chemicals
dolomite or crushed coral, peat moss (for modifying harness of tapwater) filtering through dolomite or coral increases hardness, peat moss reduces it.

bicarbonate of soda and phosphate (for modifying PH, adding bicarbonate increases PH and adding phosphate decreases PH) PH should idealy be a neutral 7 unless your setting up a speices tank with particular conditions.
Phosphate has the nasty side effect of promoting algae so watch out.

Water conditioners from the pet store will generaly handle a simple setup but if you specialise you'll need to learn the chemistry.

CYCLE this is just bacteria in a bottle, it helps kickstart the nitrogen cycle and makes cycling a tank more strightforward.

antibiotics, and medicines as required. ish will wind up with common ailments that are generaly easily treated (you will learn about diseases pretty rapidly)

Step 4: Cycle
NH3 -----------------> NO2 -----------------> NO3
Set up your tank, fill it with water and tweak the chemistry to have a nice balance of hardness and PH id start with slightly acidic slightly hard water. because amonia is less toxic in acidic water and hardness acts as a buffer for rapid PH changes.
Set up your airbubble brick too to oxegenate the water (powerheads also airate via a venturi)
Get everything up to temperature and then go out and buy your first Rambo fish (goldfish, guppies, zebra danios) are all fairly hardy and will survive a cycle.
Feed heavily initialy, waste food breaks down as does shit, the water will become toxic but rambo fish can hack it.

Cycling the tank is essential and cant be rushed, its a natural proces of growing bacteria in fish excrement in the gravel and filter system. some people speed things up by using old filter medium or borrowing gravel from somone elses tank. id advise against this. of the other tank had a disease it will cultivate in yor new tank and cause complications down tthe line.

The process is straightforward.
fish shite, excess food and dead stuff break down to form AMMONIA which is toxic.
Levels will increase to dangerous toxicity, however theres bacteria in our air that feed on it, and anywhere theres excess food theres room for growth. Bacteria (amoniabacters) will colonise your tank and convert all that Amonia into NITRITE which is less toxic but still pretty dangerous. with no abundance of Ammonia the bacteria will begin to die off, the levels will spike again and fall spike and fall till eventualy they level out to a constant safe level. All the while your just making more and more Nitrite

Another bacteria (nitrosbacters) will begin to capitalise on excess Nitrite and form another symbiotic colony to convert the Nitrite into NITRATE, which is essentialy plant food. this will cause live plants to grow heavily in your gravel (which will regulate your O2 and CO2 levels) this colony wont stabilise till the amoniabacters are stable.

once this process is self suficient you can introduce some real fish and cut back on excess food.

WASTE > AMONIA > NITRITE > NITRATE

Then it just falls down to combating algae, disease and some water changing when required.

[forntida]

Freshwater Saltwater Aquarium Fish Tank Forum

Hope it is of some help.

[cM iPro v3]

thanks guys

[Mr Pumpy]

i will probably sound like i am obssessed with fish tanks now but

i have been trying too look into getting a freshwater fish tank which leads well on too my next question does anybody know any descent forums that will teach me things about those tanks

Aye up, fish boy's back again, quick hide.

[BazT]

What a cracking post chroma, well laid out m8.

I use to keep tropical and marine fish 10 years ago and of course I new all that science stuff well maybe not. But your right about the tank size,

I finally gave up when 5 of my cichlids reached 7" long and really needed re tanking plus my marine tank got leprosy and I just couldn't afford to re stock it, or maybe it was the wife threatening to leave if I put one more tank in the dining room

BazT

[melloned]

i will probably sound like i am obssessed with fish tanks now but

i have been trying too look into getting a freshwater fish tank which leads well on too my next question does anybody know any descent forums that will teach me things about those tanks

Hi Mate ,
i don't know much about the subject , but my daughter
has worked for Universal Waterlife for 10yrs and her bosses are experts in both tropical + marine , if you've any specific questions , they'd be glad to help .

[cM iPro v3]

thanks mate its just general stuff about freshwater things like what type of water and the salinity and Ph and temp all things like that

thanks mate

[chroma]

Environmental facteors like Spacific Gravity, PH, Hardness levels, Temperature, Light etc all depend on the spieces of fish.

Pick a fish initialy and do some research and then figure things from there. i was in the local petshop today and went off on one at the assistant. They have dyed fish
Completely apparent by the crazy fluorescent patterns.
Essentialy farmers breed fish then inject their bodies all over with fluorescent dyes to create patterns like lovehearts (the irony, nothing says i love you like a mutilated fish) spot patterns, lightning bolts etc.

Fish have a nervous system so they can definately feel themselves being injected, its not like fish can opt for cosmetic surgery either.
And its not as if crazy asian farmers working for next to nowt are even remotely concerned with hygene either, i mean fresh needles cost money so why not use the same one over and over and over till its blunt?

The managers response was that they where perfectly legal, i said so is shagging your cousin but that dont make it right, then walked away seething.

[forntida]

I agree I think it should illegal to sell 'animals' that are not in their natural state, including plants. Who thinks these things up?

Humans are doing it to themselves. You don't know what you are marrying nowadays until the kids are born.

[paleface]

a very good explanation m8.. nice one

[chroma]

I agree I think it should illegal to sell 'animals' that are not in their natural state, including plants. Who thinks these things up?

Humans are doing it to themselves. You don't know what you are marrying nowadays until the kids are born.

ive just had a mental image of Forntida standing over some naked woman screaming WAIT? YOUR MY SISTER? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
just like darth teling luke he was his father

I never saw the ponint of cosmeticly altering myself, sure i grew up with parts of my body i wasnt hapy with, but hell, theyre the real me so why worry? if people dont like you for you then theyre too shallow to get your time anyway.