Help! I'm New.

[poohbear1]

Hiya,welcome to your new hobby (or second life as my husband says)
Did you buy a test kit when you were at your loca fish shop (lfs)?
Miss wiggle will be along soon and she has a great link in her signature on fishless cycling where basically your building a colony of bacteria to keep the water clean enough for the fish to live in. You need to put ammonia in to grow tha bacteria to eat the ammonia then it changes to nitrite and more bacteria grow to produce nitrate which you remove with water changes.
It takes a few weeks but its much better for any fish and is a lot less stress than doing it with fish.
Anyaway good luck and just ask if you have any problems

 

[chesterscot]

hi again myra weve already told you about cycling and stocking in your other thread if you havnt seen it
scot

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there myra, firstly well done for taking the fish back to the store and not getting any more, definately the right decision to make and it'll make your whole fishkeeping experience much easier and more sucessful.

the tanks cycle isn't something that will just happen by itself, you need to kick start the process by adding ammonia. the link in my signature 'fishless cycling' explains the whole process so have a read through and let us know if you've got any questions.

it takes a few weeks to cycle a tank so you've plenty of time for research to make sure you get your set up right before adding fish, so there's two more links I think you should read, again both are in my sig. the first one is a step by step guide to setting up an aquarium, it's got details of all the different bits of equipment that you need, a shopping list of other bits and bobs you'll need to get and loads more useful info. Also have a read of the link 'guide to stocking lists' this tells you how to work out if fish are compatible and suitable for your tank size.

those 3 topics will get you started on the road to happy fishkeeping! good luck and let us know if you have any questions.