New And Confused

[J-J]

hi all, I'm new to this, but have wanted to get some Tropical fish for a long time, I've kept cold water before when I was younger so would now like to move on and get tropical.

Basically I'm not sure what fish will live with what. As of yet I'm looking for a tank and all the accessories and would like to have it as a community tank of many small colourful fish. Do any of you have any combinations that work really well? I've just seen in another newbie thread about cycling so will look up on that first.

Thanks in advance.

 

[helterskelter]

Hi J-J welcome to the forums here.

Cycleing a tank is the best thing you can do.
Fish produce nasty stuff in their wast which is toxic to fish. Mainly ammonia which is toxic to fish in very low levels.
Cycleing gives the system to settle and allow good bacteria to grow and remove these toxins before they affect any fish.

Basically it take 4 weeks with no fish, to allow these bacteria to culture naturally.
you should have a few test kits too, these allow you to test the water every 2-3 days so u know how it's going.
Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate test kits.

Once you have no ammonia and no nitrites (3-4 weeks) it's safe to add fish.
Nitrates cant be removed by bacteria, only water changes or plants will remove this.

Course people do add fish much sooner but it's not the best thing unless you want to risk loosing fish. Test kits are good things and it's the first thing we ask here to see whats your water quality like.
If you do add fish to soon you should do water changes daily to remove the toxins.

Sorry but don't want to scare you to much as it's not that difficult, be here were thinking of the fish first.

Any questions then just ask away and we'll do our best to help.