New Tank

[tam0904]

Hi, newbie here

I've been reading here just now and I am totally gobsmacked at the lack of info given to me by my local fish shops!!!!!

There are 3 locally. Pets-at-home, who was only interested in selling us a massive tank when we wanted to start small, so they lost our custom straight away.

Went to another place which is locally owned and got a got reputation. They advised us on the tank etc and told us to fill it up with water, leave it for a week and come back for some fish after 7 days. They didnt even tell us about putting in the stuff to take the chlorine out of tap water!!! Luckily my husband remembered from when his little bro had a tank. We ended up in the 3rd local shop, desperate for some guidance. They advised us to get a thermometer, told us a little bit more about what we needed etc so we decided we'd go with that shop from now on.

Went back after the tank had been stood a week and they sold us 6 platys. Told us to take them home and leave the bag floating in the water for 10 mins, then open the bag and let the aquarium water in slowly so we thought we'd found a fab place with great advise.

I didn't know ANYTHING about fishless cycling and I would def have gone for that rather than have what we have now, which is basically new tank syndrome! High levels of ammonia and nitrite, PH is OK but everything else is going bonkers. We had been advised to come back a week later to get some more fish...of course the sample of water brought up all kinds of nasties and we were told we werent taking fish home that day. We have been told to feed them less as we had been overfeeding them, do one partial water change, add biological booster every day, and wait til the levels come right. We bought a home testing kit and tbh no change has happened since.

I don't want the fishys to die, I can't believe I wasn't advised abou fishless cycling! I will so be doing that when we upgrade. So now I am going to be reading some of the fab advise on here and seeing if we can resolve our problems without my fish dying....

Tammy (who is now looking for her 4th local shop, hopefully they'll have a clue about what they are doing....!)

 

[@ombomb]

Sounds like the fish shops are doing exactly what they are they to do: sell things

People seem to feel that a fish shops have some sort of moral obligation to offer best practice advise on the current preferred method of responsible keeping fish, which frankly baffles me a little bit, they're selling £3 fish, which probably makes at best 50p profit, yet people expect a full blow by blow account of how to set up and maintain their aquarium. There's always some outraged thread on here about how "i bought X and the shop didn't tell me X", but very few that read "i bought X without doing any research in advance and realise what a mistake that was".

Given the freedom and wealth of information available to people via the internet these days, relying on the advice of a shop to teach you the way to care for fish is inexcusable in my opinion.

Don't mean this as a personal attack, but it irks me that people are happy to go out and buy animals without any consideration of how they should be kept in advance, but seem happy to put the blame completely on a shop. I doubt there is anyone who hasn't made a mistake or two in their time in the hobby, but hold your hands up to poor preparation rather than trying to pass the buck.

Main thing is you're on the right track now, you know that you need to take the time to investigate things before buying them and that's probably the most important lesson to learn in fish keeping.

In terms of sorting out the current tank, can you give any more info on water stats / tank size?

Your best bet at the moment is to throw away the bio-boost (99.9% of those sort of products are complete junk) and water change water change water change. Big changes daily / twice a day of 50% or more. Until you get ammonia / nitrite to 0.

As a general rule if you're feeding and any hits the bottom of the tank, you're feeding too much.



Also, post where you live, there may be someone who can recommend another shop in your area.

 

[tam0904]

Sounds like the fish shops are doing exactly what they are they to do: sell things

People seem to feel that a fish shops have some sort of moral obligation to offer best practice advise on the current preferred method of responsible keeping fish, which frankly baffles me a little bit, they're selling £3 fish, which probably makes at best 50p profit, yet people expect a full blow by blow account of how to set up and maintain their aquarium. There's always some outraged thread on here about how "i bought X and the shop didn't tell me X", but very few that read "i bought X without doing any research in advance and realise what a mistake that was".

Given the freedom and wealth of information available to people via the internet these days, relying on the advice of a shop to teach you the way to care for fish is inexcusable in my opinion.

Don't mean this as a personal attack, but it irks me that people are happy to go out and buy animals without any consideration of how they should be kept in advance, but seem happy to put the blame completely on a shop. I doubt there is anyone who hasn't made a mistake or two in their time in the hobby, but hold your hands up to poor preparation rather than trying to pass the buck.

Main thing is you're on the right track now, you know that you need to take the time to investigate things before buying them and that's probably the most important lesson to learn in fish keeping.

In terms of sorting out the current tank, can you give any more info on water stats / tank size?

Your best bet at the moment is to throw away the bio-boost (99.9% of those sort of products are complete junk) and water change water change water change. Big changes daily / twice a day of 50% or more. Until you get ammonia / nitrite to 0.

As a general rule if you're feeding and any hits the bottom of the tank, you're feeding too much.



Also, post where you live, there may be someone who can recommend another shop in your area.

Thanks for the advice, I havent been online for a while, still waiting on my powercable and Ive borrowed my mother in laws lappy! I do research on the net when I have it at my disposal.

I was told by the local fish shop that they wouldnt advise on changing the water, just to leave it level the levels out! Will def be getting onto regular changes now though. Am about to test the water and do a change now.

Think I'll be posting a few more times before we're established here

Sounds like the fish shops are doing exactly what they are they to do: sell things

People seem to feel that a fish shops have some sort of moral obligation to offer best practice advise on the current preferred method of responsible keeping fish, which frankly baffles me a little bit, they're selling £3 fish, which probably makes at best 50p profit, yet people expect a full blow by blow account of how to set up and maintain their aquarium. There's always some outraged thread on here about how "i bought X and the shop didn't tell me X", but very few that read "i bought X without doing any research in advance and realise what a mistake that was".

Given the freedom and wealth of information available to people via the internet these days, relying on the advice of a shop to teach you the way to care for fish is inexcusable in my opinion.

Don't mean this as a personal attack, but it irks me that people are happy to go out and buy animals without any consideration of how they should be kept in advance, but seem happy to put the blame completely on a shop. I doubt there is anyone who hasn't made a mistake or two in their time in the hobby, but hold your hands up to poor preparation rather than trying to pass the buck.

Main thing is you're on the right track now, you know that you need to take the time to investigate things before buying them and that's probably the most important lesson to learn in fish keeping.

In terms of sorting out the current tank, can you give any more info on water stats / tank size?

Your best bet at the moment is to throw away the bio-boost (99.9% of those sort of products are complete junk) and water change water change water change. Big changes daily / twice a day of 50% or more. Until you get ammonia / nitrite to 0.

As a general rule if you're feeding and any hits the bottom of the tank, you're feeding too much.



Also, post where you live, there may be someone who can recommend another shop in your area.

Thanks for the advice, I havent been online for a while, still waiting on my powercable and Ive borrowed my mother in laws lappy! I do research on the net when I have it at my disposal.

I was told by the local fish shop that they wouldnt advise on changing the water, just to leave it level the levels out! Will def be getting onto regular changes now though. Am about to test the water and do a change now.

Think I'll be posting a few more times before we're established here

Ohhh and I live in wrexham