Hi all, newbie from London.

[Carl1]

Hi all, bought my son a 54L aquarium back in feb. for his birthday and got hooked on the hobby straight away. We have a cycled tank with 13 fish, 4 x Zebra Danio( unfortunately we lost one), 5 x glowlight tetra, 3 x Harlequin Rasboras & 1 x Guppy. Having a problem with high nitrates at the moment, tap water is 40ppm tested using the ipa nitrate test.I am using prime to condition the water,Tank seems somewhere between 50/80ppm so im contemplating using 50/50 bottled & tap water to lower this reading, i have 5 live plants & all fish seem happy.will be adding 2 more harlequins in the next week or so if nitrates come down a bit, any advice would be welcome thankyou.

 

[Andrew McFadden]

:welcome to AA
It sounds like your on the right track

 

[Perryuk]

Welcome im east London always good to here from a fellow Londoner

 

[Carl1]

Hi Andrew/perry, thanks for the welcome, never been on a forum before in my life but having browsed through some of the threads it seems like a place to get some good advise.trying to talk the better half into getting a 200L aquarium since the one we have is technically my sons & I think he's getting fed up with me taking it over lol.Im also in the east side of London & have been down to wholesale tropicals in bethnal green it seems like a good shop,great variety of fish & aquariums' it's where we got the first one from so I'll probably go back there, there helpful & dont mind you just browsing,anyway I'm sure I'll be posting on here again soon if I can get me mits on the 200L , i was looking at the fluval Roma with the cabinet,maybe I'll catch her in a good mood it's gotta happen one day in the year lol.

 

[jondamon]

Hi Carl.

Welcome to AA.

I have the aquarium you want.

You may want to look for a REVERSE OSMOSIS FILTRATION (RO) system for your tap. Or you could buy your water from your local fish shop. This way you could mix a proportion of your tap water into the RO water and drastically reduce your nitrate levels. You could also get yourself some live plants that love Nitrates. Google is your friend for that one.

Anyways hope the other half lets you have your Roma 200.

Here is a quick pic of mine to get you hot under the collar. Lol.



Jon

 

[Carl1]

Hi jondamon, your aquarium looks great that's the kind of setup I'm looking for, the plants you have look really good ,thanks for the advice about the ro kit, if I get the bigger aquarium I think I'll have to go that way, have you ever used them? Are they a pain to setup?

 

[jondamon]

No RO systems attach similarly to a hosepipe system. You have an attachment on your tap which connects to your RO unit. You turn your tap on and your RO system and it starts producing mineral free water.

Depending upon the amount you pay for the RO will depend upon how much wasted water there is while it removes any pollutants etc.


Jon

 

[jondamon]

As for my tank. The tank, substrate and filter upgrade along with Co2 system set me back £500. My fish stock cost £71. That nice little cave system you see was £72.
Get this my plants cost me £250. Lol.

It can be a little expensive lol. My wife nearly fainted when I bought my plants lol.


Jon

 

[Carl1]

£250 for plants! They do look good though, I never realised how expensive they could be.you have a great setup, its given me some inspiration.the RO system seems straight forward I'll probably invest in one of those straight away.Thanks for the advice.

 

[jondamon]

I use a specialist place, their business is aquatic plants with a secondary business of fish and tank sales.

Glad I could help.


Jon