Hi, just registered, my name is Kevin and I'm from Newcastle (UK) I have up until recently been keeping coldwater Fancy goldfish, I had a chocolate Oranda that had been in there for a few months, doing fine, until I added a couple of pearlscale oranda's.

After around a week of them all being in the tank they all developed whitespot (I'm pretty sure it was the pearscales that brought it to the tank as the place I bought them from I've had problems in the past with) I bought the necessary treatment (Protozin) and began the treatment program but then they developed fungus disease (assuming because they were itching and rubbed against a rock to relieve themselves from the whitespot) I thought, that's ok I can keep treating them as the treatment I had was a combination for whitespot and fungus disease, then they developed fin rot assuming this was beacause they had already been weakend by fungus and just last night they all died

I have always wanted to keep freshwater tropical fish and thought I would take this oppourtunity to make the switch, so after finishing work today I brought my tank downstairs and cleaned the whole thing out.

Filters & plants went in the bin, I first cleaned the gravel with hot & cold water til the water ran off clean, then I boiled the gravel in a pan (Just to make sure ) then I boiled the ornaments in water (again just to make sure), cleaned out the filterand bio-filter channel, re assembled everyting, fitted new filter elements and filled with water, I have posted a pic of what it looks like at the moment.




I am going out soon to buy a heater & sticky thermometer to start preparing the tank for tropics

I remember with my coldwater fish that before I bought them I added some aquarium salt, do I do this for the tropical fish too?

I have many more questions but I know alot of them will be answered by a some local people I know who keep fish.

Anyway, that was my saga so far, thanks for reading

This post has been edited by Kev_A: Feb 13 2006, 05:52 PM

to the forum Kev !

You have a lovely looing tank there A shame things didn't work out with your goldfish, but hopefully you'll have more experience by now and better luck.

Do you have any ideas what you'd like to stock your tank with yet ?

Hey Kev,
I had coldwater about 6months ago and the same problem happened, like you i satrted again with tropical fish(Been an addict since)
Welcome to the forums
P.S you shouldnt need salt but depends what type of fish you want for e.g Brackish need salt
James

Ok I was just reading a thread in the another forum (beginners questions I think) about cycling, I know the tank looks a little plain but I intend to plant the back of the tank up a bit

Good luck with the tank Kev. Its looking good.
Welcome to the forum.

Hi Kev
Welcome
I switched to tropicals a year ago and have found them a lot easier to keep than goldfish.
And a lot more interesting

hi and welcome and great tank

Thanks for the comments on my tank, I've been ot tonight and bought a heater, a master test kit & some plants, it's looking pretty good now!

Hi Kev hope you have better luck this time. Try this linkfor info on Fishless cycle. Hope this helps Ivor