£256 pound to plasy with what can i do???

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

chrisfagan16

Fish Fanatic
Joined
May 22, 2004
Messages
135
Reaction score
0
Location
Liverpool
hi im 16 and saved up for a month and came up with £256 and im spending £80 n a 3ft tank, but im looking for some ideas in were i can svae moiney and still make my tank look class. I wanna have real plants some slate rock and drift wood any more ideas on were to save moeny and were not to invest will be appreciated thanks chris.
 
Right for the plants and drift wood try Jave, they are really cheap and will have your order out to you within a week. They advertise in most fish keeping mags.
Here is a pic of my tank with Java plants.
eba00430409f00000137.jpg

The best way to save money is make sure you do a full tank cycle before adding fish. Make sure your parameters (Ammonia, NitrIte, NitrAte etc) are ok before adding fish. If you add fish too soon then you will end up loosing them to stress etc.
If you are going to use gravel then it may be advisable to buy a large bag (this is normally cheaper than buying those little tubs that pets at home sell for £3+ a tub. I got a large bag of gravel from my lfs which cost me £8.99 and would probably equal about 10 of those piddaly tubs.
Make sure you clean the gravel fully as you really don't want manky water.
Buy a decent filter (this is where the cost will go, unless filter is included with your tank, don't forget hood and light too.)
£256 sounds like alot of money, especially a youngster like you and well done for saving so much. The problem with this hobby is it is very addictive and can cost in little things like water treatments (which are handy to have standing by just in case) and it is a really good idea to have a water test kit. You should be able to get one of these from pets at home for about £17, this is really a necessatiy in the long term, short term your lfs will test your water parameters.
Sorry for the long post.
Kaz
p.s. Before buying any fish, look around ALL your lfs's, look at the fish they have, do they all look healthy which seems to have the healthiest looking fish, this could be the one to get your fish from. This is where your money will go actually on the fish themselves if you buy from a poor place (it may not be advisable to buy your fish from large places like pets at home etc as they don't devote their time to the fish etc as they have other duties, look for smaller places which seem to specialise in fish.)
 
thanks very much, well the ank is a 3ft by something i dont have the full measurments yet. That is £80 comes with a filter, water treatments, hood and light. So i have that part checked off on my list so i have £176 pounds left. I want to go for a cave/jungle theme with real plants and slate rock.
 
Slate rock you should be able to get from your lfs if you look around.
Live plants and drift wood definatly from Java
I would still get some more treatments as you never get enough especially stress coat if nothing else.
I wish you the best of luck with your set up.
If you need any advice along the way don't hesitate to post on the board (in the correct section) or PM me.
Kaz
 
I'd get a bigger tank. A 3ft tank is not much to be honest.

You can get plants from Java (as kaz said) for as little as £10 for 65 (enough for a 30" tank). Here's the ones I got for £10 with a few others added:

tank_left_30.05.jpg


You can pic other things up not too expensively. I'd spend another £100 on the tank, maybe look at second hand (less than half retail with extras in my experience).

HTH
 
well i really wanna stick with the 3ft tank does JAVA have a website or a phone number or can someone reccommend how many plants i should get and for how much. thanks guys, chris.
 
http://www.java-plants.com/

What filter is it that comes with the tank you are looking at? I would look second hand you will get a lot better deal! I picked up a Juwel Rio 180L in more or less as new condition with stand and the Juwel lighting and filter for £75! Granted that was a bargain but just shows there out there, I often look in the local freeads paper and always see 4ft tanks with everything going dirt cheap! That would save you money to spend on fish/gravel/CO2/fish/ extra filteration if you want it. ;)
 
Get a fish keeping mag from your newsagents. Java will have a large advert in there with the different prices and make up of plants that they do.
Worth a look.
Cheese I have to agree that a bigger tank would be better, I know as I would like a bigger one myself but for the moment I am happy with my 3' one and I don't have anywhere to put a larger one. (I am not meaning to disagree here but I have to say a 3' tank isn't bad for a new learning set up.)
It might be worth looking in the free ads though, I got mine for half the cost of yours and got a load of extras too.
Kaz
 
do you know how many gal. or L. are in your tank? and maybe a few pictures (just so it sorta fits in this section?) -_-
 
lol i'll try and get some pics its just i went o my lfs today and it wsa there so havnt looked at it fully. I will get the magazins and look through the peper for some deals, also regards to the design of the tank any1 got any ideas on that front. thanks for your help so far guys. Chris.
 
chrisfagan16 said:
also cheese whats your hotmail address mine is [email protected] if you wanna add me thanks chris.
[email protected] - feel free to add me if you like. :)

I just want to say be careful buying plants from Java, although they are cheap and very good quality they more often than not have some sort of creature living on them. I know ChrisX had catepillarish things that ate all his plants and he had to buy more (nothing second time round) and I had at least 2 types of snail and some strange insecty looking thing that swam about.

As for how many for your tank, have a look at their plant collections. They do them for different sized tanks. What you saw above was for a 30" tank (the tank is actually a 24" cube) so you can choose less or more depending on what you want. I'd say probably less if you are going for rock/slate/etc as well.

If you are looking to spend all that money I really would have a look at bigger tanks. It's a mistake we all make, and many of us end up buying the bigger tank sooner or later. It will make it easier to maintain and give you more options as to kinds of fish etc.

What kinds of fish are you looking to keep?

Hmmmmm maybe this should be in the General Talk section after all. lol
 
thanks i'll add you later also i really dont know whther a bigger tank is practical for me, i would want it but i dont want to spend alot of money on the tank and the £80 for the 3ft tank seems brill. Also can any1 move this forum to the general chit chat. LOL im looking to keep about 7 bottome feeders, 7-8 middle feeders and about 5-6 top feeders. I want 2 plecs, 2 catfish, and maybe some other suggestions from you guys on which get on. I want to stick a siamese fishgter in there and maybe some chchlids and anyothers you can reccommend. thanks you guys for your help. Chris.
 
chrisfagan16 said:
thanks i'll add you later also i really dont know whther a bigger tank is practical for me, i would want it but i dont want to spend alot of money on the tank and the £80 for the 3ft tank seems brill. Also can any1 move this forum to the general chit chat. LOL im looking to keep about 7 bottome feeders, 7-8 middle feeders and about 5-6 top feeders. I want 2 plecs, 2 catfish, and maybe some other suggestions from you guys on which get on. I want to stick a siamese fishgter in there and maybe some chchlids and anyothers you can reccommend. thanks you guys for your help. Chris.
Well, it really depends what kind of 'bottom feeders' you want as well as whhat kinds of other fish.

Plecs can vary greatly in size so you might want to be careful of that as well as 'catfish' of which there are 100s if not 1000s.

If you are looking to get cichlids as well you are going to need a bigger than 3ft tank IMO.

I am not sure on the standard sizes for 3ft tanks but my 4ft is 1ft wide and 1 1/2 feet high so lets use that...

36 x 12 x 18 = 7776 / 276 = 28 UK gallons

91 x 30 x 46 = 125580 / 1000 = 125 litres

That's not an awful lot to be honest, but it does depend on what you want to keep and filtration. However, even the smallest plecs create an awful lot of waste and need a lot of water to account for that.

I am not sure that the price is that great either in all honesty. I got my 4ft (160l) tank for around £100 (for glass and hood) but then I got my 2ft cube (225l) for £40 second-hand including hood, filter, light, heater etc.

Big tanks are not right for everyone because of the space they take up and so on, so if that's the case fair enough. But if you are thinking on price then, think again.

Hope this helps :)
 
well im gonna get the paper tonight and check in there and keep on checking until next week, if there is no luck then im just gonna stick with the 3ft tank. im going the fish shop tommorrow so i will check the full size and maybe take a few pics lol. Also the tank i have at the moment my catfish seem to go from the bottom and try and swim to the top is there a reason for this? thanks chris.
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top