Hi All - My Little (fish) Story

[HeroDave]

Hi one and all.
Ive signed up to this form this morning, found it through searching on Google!
Ok so my tale. Erm, awhile ago i bought a 220litre (5ft) tank from my local pet superstore. Basically its all gone wrong! Ive lost probably one hundered pounds worth of fish! Ive had ALOT going on in my life and fish have been the last thing on my mind! Anyways, Now i wanna get this tank looking superb, since ive probably spent hundereds of pounds in total. I went out the other day and bought myself a smaller 35litre tank (2ft)! My idea was to set this tank up to host my surving fish so that i can take my time with the bigger tank and get it spot on! Ive had this second tank running for afew days on, Im itching to start putting fish in the tank so i can start the task of emptying, and recreating my bigger tank!

My first tank, 220litres. Im looking to empty this tank and start all over!

My new tank, 35litres. I wanna get this going as quickly as possible so i can once again enjoy my fish!

So basically im here to get advice on how to best complete the taks involved in my situation, learn new things about the whole "fish" subject and to talk to people who also enjoy this!

 

[paul-discus]

Hi one and all.
Ive signed up to this form this morning, found it through searching on Google!
Ok so my tale. Erm, awhile ago i bought a 220litre (5ft) tank from my local pet superstore. Basically its all gone wrong! Ive lost probably one hundered pounds worth of fish! Ive had ALOT going on in my life and fish have been the last thing on my mind! Anyways, Now i wanna get this tank looking superb, since ive probably spent hundereds of pounds in total. I went out the other day and bought myself a smaller 35litre tank (2ft)! My idea was to set this tank up to host my surving fish so that i can take my time with the bigger tank and get it spot on! Ive had this second tank running for afew days on, Im itching to start putting fish in the tank so i can start the task of emptying, and recreating my bigger tank!

My first tank, 220litres. Im looking to empty this tank and start all over!

My new tank, 35litres. I wanna get this going as quickly as possible so i can once again enjoy my fish!

So basically im here to get advice on how to best complete the taks involved in my situation, learn new things about the whole "fish" subject and to talk to people who also enjoy this!

Hi mate.
The very first thing i will say to you is don't get despondent, the 5ft tank will be fantastic once up and running and the smaller tank will make a good hospital / quarantine tank.
You first need to look at the posts informing you how to cycle a new tank, i get the feeling that you set the tank up, put the fish in and thought that's it, well it doesn't quite work like that, it needs to run for quite sometime without fish for the water chemistry to right itself and crucial bacteria to build up in your filter. Because this hasn't been allowed to happen you have it seems been poisoning your fish, the smaller tank also hasn't been cycled, so at the moment i think you are in kind of a no win situation. I don't know what fish you have, and indeed if they are compatable, or what your tank water is i.e. pH, Kh, Gh, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia and so on. My suggestion would be to have a word with the person who sold you the fish and see if he could help out by taking the fish back while you are indeed ready for them, as i fear you will lose more as things stand at the moment.
So look at posts about how to cycle a new aquarium. Purchase some test kits and get used to taking the various water tests while getting informed about the various peaks in nitrite/nitrate e.t.c. Go to the library, check out all the various posts and ask questions on here, and people will guide you, and indeed help you to get what will be a great tank looking it's best.

 

[HeroDave]

The fish in the big tank that are left seem to have stoof the test of time! Its just ashame ive lost so many with not knowing what i am doing! I said straight away that i thought the water wasnt right and im not going to start on this second tank till i think its right! As ive said in another post, the tank seems to be dirty, its gonna need a clean, theres also afew bits floating in the surface of tank. Im guessing the water and the buckets ive used to fill the tank arent the best. Im gonna give cleaning the tank ago today, and then read up on cycling so i can get the tank underway asoon as possible!

I bought a testing kit but its abit hard to know what to make of it all. You can read the levels from the thing but how am i suppose to know what it should be for each thing? And how to alter if its not?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

here's another good topic for you to read

tells you about cycling, water parameters and that sort of thing.