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greenmonster714

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Hello TFF, It's a story you've heard a million times but I gotta get my foot in the door...so.

I've not had a fish tank in say 30yrs but now I'm a new owner of a 55gal tank after the wife and I thought the 37gal bowfront tank was just a bit to small. Is it us or does the bowfront make for some weird visual effects? Well anyway, we returned that one and got a 55. We enjoy it much better.

We are sticking with the live-bearer fish for now and I think we'll stay with them for a long while. Seem to be the easiest to start with and we do enjoy the Molly, Plattys, Swordtails, and Guppies. Came here to learn and read. I've been around forums long enough to know NOT to flood the board with questions that are already addressed in the forum. Thanks for letting me in the door. I look forward to chatting and learning from ya'll.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

I don't care for tanks with curved glass but others do.

If you plan on keeping livebearers, you should find out what the GH (general hardness) and pH of your water supply is. Livebearers naturally occur in water with a pH above 7.0 and a GH around 200ppm for platies, swordtails and guppies, (GH around 250ppm for mollies).

If the water is soft (has less than 150ppm of GH), you will either have to add minerals to your water or give up livebearers and keep soft water fishes like tetras and barbs.

The pH and GH can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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You don't need this yet but the following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth a read when you have some spare time. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep. :)
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

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If you post a picture of your tank, we might be able to offer ideas on it :)
 
Thank you for the welcome and info. My temp is steady at 77-78. I have a pH meter on hand which has been calibrated and my pH out of the tap is 8+ on average. I've been using the api pH stabilizer and have had good luck with it staying 7.2. As for ppm I use a TDS meter which is giving me a 200-212 reading in the tank so there seems to be a pretty good mix of minerals. Today I added some api stress zyme and I have a freshwater master testing kit on the way. I have some decent strips but I don't trust them much. Ordered a gravel siphon as well. I should have came here first to learn more about cycling a tank prior to introducing fish but Ive been lucky so far and only lost 3 fish. Thankfully live bearers arnt that expensive and somewhat forgiving on us new guys. Ive been reading my ass off the past week. So much to learn.
 

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