Newbee

[Sandyman1200]

I am a beginner, well started with a tiny tank with goldfish a few months ago, and killed loads of them. 4 weeks ago I bought a 30 gallon fish tank for tropical fish. I have built it up over the last month, lost quite a few fish. I use Tetra 6 in 1 water test kit, and at the moment, I'm getting bigger fish, the lagest is a 8" Snake head, who is sort of helping with the reduction of the smaller fish in the thank
All of the readings are fine apart from the KH test, but still in the safe zone, but water changes and aqua safe and aqua balance have no effect on this problem.

Right, I used TAP algae control, in fact over the last three days, it has made no change. My light is only on for 7-8 hours per day. I have few live plants in there. Any tips for a newbie as everone, shops etc keep telling me different things. I have learnt not to overfeed, and doing all i can, so would someone who really knows about setting up and keeing a good tank.

Regards and a happy 2012 to all.

Dean

 

[fluttermoth]

The very first thing you need to do is purchase yourself a good, liquid reagent based test kit. Not only are the strips inaccurate, but they don't test for ammonia, which is the biggest killer of fish in new, uncycled set-ups, like yours.

The KH is a measure of hardness, and won't be able to be changed, unless you start using reverse osmosis water, but tampering with with pH and hardness is not something I'd recommend for beginners to the hobby.

Snakeheads are not suitable for a tank your size; you sohuld either look at returning it or buying a much larger tank, as it's health will start to suffer very soon.

Can I suggest you have a good read of some of the articles in the beginner's resouce centre (the link is in my sig) as they're full of useful information for newcomers.

 

[Blubble37]

The very first thing you need to do is purchase yourself a good, liquid reagent based test kit. Not only are the strips inaccurate, but they don't test for ammonia, which is the biggest killer of fish in new, uncycled set-ups, like yours.

The KH is a measure of hardness, and won't be able to be changed, unless you start using reverse osmosis water, but tampering with with pH and hardness is not something I'd recommend for beginners to the hobby.

Snakeheads are not suitable for a tank your size; you sohuld either look at returning it or buying a much larger tank, as it's health will start to suffer very soon.

Can I suggest you have a good read of some of the articles in the beginner's resouce centre (the link is in my sig) as they're full of useful information for newcomers.

+1, very well said...