Rendao
Aquarium Advice Activist
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2011
- Messages
- 118
P to yesterday I was convinced that the best way to go would be starting the tank with fish less cycling. Read up on everything and decided it was the best way to go. Visited the LFS and was told three worrying things
1) Don't do fishless cycling - waste of time - don't know anyone who has been successful?
2) Don't use tap water when setting up the tank. Explained I would dechlorinate it but he just shook his head. Reckons will still have a lot of negative stuff in it. He suggested buying demineralised water from him, told me that's what a lot of customers do ! £65 a pop, but you get £40 back when you return the containers. expensive if I do fishless cycling and all the water changing that's needed!
3) Throw away the API test kit, very inaccurate....heard this before but read it was because people were not shaking the bottles and breaking up solids before testing.
I mentioned what I had read here on the forum - "Ah", he said " Don't listen too much to the forums, they all think they are experts, and if they find a way of doing things that works, they think that's the only way. A lot of people on the forums believe they have the perfect aquarium, but they have fish dying on a monthly basis. It shows they don't really know what they are doing".
Whilst all this was going on people were coming in for buckets of water, and they seemed to think the chap knew what he was talking about!
Leaves me a bit confused to be honest.
Anyway my plan is to go the fishless cycle route, use dechlorinated tap water and my API test kit with all bottles well shaken to monitor events. Plants, sand and CO2 will be in the tank from day one, and I will add a bit of liquid plant nutrient as we go.
It's all a long way from knocking down coconuts at the fair and ending up putting goldfish in a glass pudding bowl to wild screams of delight from my daughter ( who by the way is now 24 years old ).
1) Don't do fishless cycling - waste of time - don't know anyone who has been successful?
2) Don't use tap water when setting up the tank. Explained I would dechlorinate it but he just shook his head. Reckons will still have a lot of negative stuff in it. He suggested buying demineralised water from him, told me that's what a lot of customers do ! £65 a pop, but you get £40 back when you return the containers. expensive if I do fishless cycling and all the water changing that's needed!
3) Throw away the API test kit, very inaccurate....heard this before but read it was because people were not shaking the bottles and breaking up solids before testing.
I mentioned what I had read here on the forum - "Ah", he said " Don't listen too much to the forums, they all think they are experts, and if they find a way of doing things that works, they think that's the only way. A lot of people on the forums believe they have the perfect aquarium, but they have fish dying on a monthly basis. It shows they don't really know what they are doing".
Whilst all this was going on people were coming in for buckets of water, and they seemed to think the chap knew what he was talking about!
Leaves me a bit confused to be honest.
Anyway my plan is to go the fishless cycle route, use dechlorinated tap water and my API test kit with all bottles well shaken to monitor events. Plants, sand and CO2 will be in the tank from day one, and I will add a bit of liquid plant nutrient as we go.
It's all a long way from knocking down coconuts at the fair and ending up putting goldfish in a glass pudding bowl to wild screams of delight from my daughter ( who by the way is now 24 years old ).