paul-discus
Fish Fanatic
Hi all,
Years back people still kept tropical fish and there wasn't the amount of potions and lotions on the shelves in the pet shops as there is today and people still managed, so i want to pose a challenge, what can we buy elsewhere other than a pet shop that doesn't cost us an arm and a leg, or what can we do differently and achieve the same outcome. For instance i remember an old boy in Norfolk once told me that the best way to start a new tank off was to dribble a bit of pee on your hand when you go to the toilet, then dip your hand in the new tank water and add just a very small amount of fish food and this will start the cycle.
Sand gets me, £1 per small 1k bag in the shop and you can buy a big 25k bag of playsand from a builders yard or Early Learning Centre and it will cost you less than £4 for a 25k bag, it's the same stuff (silver sand), or silicate sand is another one.
We can make some of our own foods like beefheart and liver and add vitamins, egg yolk, spirulina, spinach, parsley and so on blitz it all, add agar agar and gelatine and freeze it down, we can buy earthworms from a tackle shop or dig them up from non polluted land and blitz them, add vitamins and agar agar then freeze them down and break off bits to feed to the fish. We can culture white worms and brine shrimp. Instead of paying a fortune for Blackwater extract we can buy Ketang leaves from Singapore, a tenners worth will last a year for a discus tank and give you blackwater at a fraction of the cost, half a gallon of blackwater extract is nearly £50 to buy from the shop. So things like that is what i'm after, lets keep more money in our pockets for buying fish. What could we use for backgrounds and decor, insulation anything you can think of please add to this post
Years back people still kept tropical fish and there wasn't the amount of potions and lotions on the shelves in the pet shops as there is today and people still managed, so i want to pose a challenge, what can we buy elsewhere other than a pet shop that doesn't cost us an arm and a leg, or what can we do differently and achieve the same outcome. For instance i remember an old boy in Norfolk once told me that the best way to start a new tank off was to dribble a bit of pee on your hand when you go to the toilet, then dip your hand in the new tank water and add just a very small amount of fish food and this will start the cycle.
Sand gets me, £1 per small 1k bag in the shop and you can buy a big 25k bag of playsand from a builders yard or Early Learning Centre and it will cost you less than £4 for a 25k bag, it's the same stuff (silver sand), or silicate sand is another one.
We can make some of our own foods like beefheart and liver and add vitamins, egg yolk, spirulina, spinach, parsley and so on blitz it all, add agar agar and gelatine and freeze it down, we can buy earthworms from a tackle shop or dig them up from non polluted land and blitz them, add vitamins and agar agar then freeze them down and break off bits to feed to the fish. We can culture white worms and brine shrimp. Instead of paying a fortune for Blackwater extract we can buy Ketang leaves from Singapore, a tenners worth will last a year for a discus tank and give you blackwater at a fraction of the cost, half a gallon of blackwater extract is nearly £50 to buy from the shop. So things like that is what i'm after, lets keep more money in our pockets for buying fish. What could we use for backgrounds and decor, insulation anything you can think of please add to this post
Most stuff is aimed at inexperienced fishkeepers- a lot will have had experiences of 'fish die very easily', mainly brought on by uncycled tanks- it's easy for them to think or be told that it was because their pH was too high (buys a bottle of pH adjuster), their nitrates were too high (nitrate absorbing media), they used playsand instead of sand from the shop (lots of expensive bags of sand).
