newtofishs said:
As I am only 13, I am in top set for science and i understand the pH scale but i dont fully understand the fish less cycle thing
Okay, let me try and explain it simply for you
Fish produce ammonia, in their wastes (like pee and poo). Ammonia is toxic to fish and will make them very sick, or even kill them, if it's allowed to build up in the water.
However, there are bacteria that live by by eating ammonia and turning it into nitrIte. Nitrite is also toxic to fish, but luckily for us fishkeepers there is another family of bacteria that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrAte, which is only dangerous to fish at very high levels. Keeping the nitrate down is one of the reasons we do weekly partial water changes.
Cycling is the process of growing those helpful bacteria inside your filter.
Fairly obviously, you can't get any bacteria to grow unless there is some ammonia in the water for them to eat.
In a
fish-in cycle, you add the fish to the tank before any bacteria are there and let the fish's wastes produce the ammonia. The trouble with this is that, while you're waiting for the bacterial colony to grow, your fish are in danger of being poisoned, so you have to do lots of water changes (usually every day, or even twice a day in smaller tanks) and, even with lots of water changes, there is still a risk that your fish will get sick, or even die.
In a
fishless cycle, you use a small amount of household cleaning ammonia added to the tank as food for the bacteria. You don't need to change the water often, or worry about any fish being hurt. The bacteria don't care where the ammonia comes from so they will grow away, inside your filter.
Eventually (it does take a few weeks) you be able to add ammonia to the tank and when you test the water a few hours later, it will all have been eaten. Then it's safe to add your fish, as you know you have enough bacteria to eat all the ammonia the fish will be excreting and they won't get sick at all
There is a little bit more to it than I've said, but that should give you a rough idea of how it works.
Apart from keeping your new fish safe, doing a fishless cycle means you can learn all about water testing and how to do water changes (you usually need to do one or two water changes during a fishless cycle, but not every day!) without having to worry if you get it wrong.
Microrasboras are a group, not a species. Actually some of the fish we talk about have recently been moved, from a biologists point of view, to the danio family but we still look after them the same
Some of the most popular ones are; celestial pearl danios (lovely looking, but quite expensive), dwarf emerald danios (a close relation of the celestials and often nearly as expensive; lovely fish though, I have some and I love them to bits, even though they're very shy), chili rasboras (which are a bright red/purple colour), neon green rasboras (silver, with a lime green stripe along the side.
And, of course, there are all the other lovely fish on that list; guppies or Endler's are great if your water is hard (you should know if your water is hard, because you'll get a lot of 'limescale' in your kettle, or on your showerhead) and ember tetras never look much in the shop tanks, but once you get them into a nice planted tank, they glow a beautiful bright copper colour.
There are loads of plants you can grow in your tank and fish do like live plants; they also help a little bit with keeping your water good as well.
Hope that helps some. I know there is a lot to take in when you're new to the hobby, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it
i dont really want a betta fish as my friends have had 3 between them and they have all died of fin rot 
