Newbie

[Pepsilexi]

Hi guys need your advice that’s why I joined a group. Little about myself so you know who you are dealing with, I’m 71 years young and disabled as in can’t walk unaided and have to use a mobility scooter to get around. Not much energy but I’m still hanging in there lol. As I spend a lot of my time living in one room and got everything I need within reach I have been thinking for a long time about buying an aquarium. My Son took me to an under water sealife centre few months back and I was overwhelmed by the amount of different species of fish etc. My Son and I went to a aquatic Centre this morning intending to purchase a aquarium so I could start this new adventure but was soon felt stressed out by the number of different sizes, types, prices of the tanks that we saw as soon as we entered the shop. After looking around for a 1 1/2 hours and with no help from the shop keepers themselves we decided to leave and search more about my new buddies. My questions and help I’m looking for guys is WHERE DO I START.
I would like to purchase a tank around 60 litres in size so I can have around 20 tiny fish that would all live together happily, I also need to have a near as much as possible a maintenance free as possible due to my health issues. Can I purchase a filter that will keep the water condition down to the minimum so I don’t need to change more than once a month. I have a budget of around £600 just to buy the essentials, knowing that in a month time I will be spending around £200 for the little guys. Any advice from you guys would be greatly appreciated thanks x

 

[Aiken Drum]

I would look at a fluval flex 57. Its 57 litres, has an integral light and filtration system. If you want to keep tropical fish all you need to get extra would be a 50w heater.

Your budget would cover a much bigger tank though. I think i paid about £300 to 400 for my flex 57, heater, stand, aquascape, and fish.

I assume as your budget is in £s you are from the UK. So you can get these tanks from pets at home.

20 fish, even small ones, is a bit much for 60 litres. I would be looking at 10 to 15 small fish for that size tank. My flex 57 currently has 6 celestial pearl danios, 5 guppies, and 1 honey gourami and a bunch of shrimp. I feel this is pretty full. I need to update my thread a little, but if you want to take a look at what i did, have a read through my build thread and here is a photo of it currently.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f70/fluval-flex-57-a-379456.html

Here is a link to some useful articles for new fishkeepers. I would particularly urge you to research the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle a tank.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/foru...ou-get-started-with-your-aquarium-154837.html

 

[Pepsilexi]

Thank you so much for all this information its very helpful. Might pop over to pets at home over the next week.

 

[huma-huma]

Hi there Lexi and welcome to the forums here! Its gonna be overwhelming at first. As like anything else it'll seem like for every 1 question you find an answer for you have 3 new questions but ill try to give you some pointers/ tips below. Hopefully they help and most importantly, it helps you find the utmost enjoyment in your newfound hobby

1. Study/ memorize the nitrogen cycle
2. In this hobby less is more
3. Following up on 2... dont let an hourly employ upset you on a ton of chemicals/ snake oil stuff
4. For a simple setup like this (freshwater non planted) you really only need water conditioner/dechlorinator)
5. Study the fish you want. Learn their parameters
6. Always take a controlled measured approach to this tank hobby, never drastically react
Last but not least......ask ask ask ask and ask some more... genuinely one of the best ways to learn is to just ask questions hope this helps and good luck!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Just to follow up on your maintenance requirements, i absolutely understand how this would be important to you.

Unfortunately a maintenance free situation isnt going to happen. There will be a requirement to change water and maintain the filtration. Its not really the case that bigger filtration will reduce the need for maintenance, but more that increasing the number of fish will increase the amount of maintenance you need to do.

When we say a "fully stocked" aquarium what we really mean is that there are enough fish that you need a big (50%) water change every week to keep things stable. I would consider those 12 fish i have in my 57 litre aquarium to be fully stocked. Every week i change about half the water which takes me about 20 minutes. Every month i rinse out the sponge block (using dechlorinated water), and strip down the water pump and give it a bit of a clean, which takes about 40 minutes.

There are measures you can take to reduce the maintenance. Less fish means less waste, and less waste means you can get away with less maintenance. If you where to reduce the fish from the 10 to 15 i recommended down to 6 to 8, you could get away with changing water every 2 or 3 weeks, and doing filter maintenance every couple of months. Plants will help too because they will do some of the work your filter does.

Contrary to common sense a bigger tank is easier than a smaller tank. More water is more forgiving of mistakes because whatever you do wrong will get more diluted. Your £800 budget could run to a 120 litre set up, and those 10 to 15 fish in 120 litres will be less work than the same fish in 60 litres. So that's something to consider if you have room for a bigger tank. There is a Flex 123 that i think would just fit in with your budget. I dont think pets at home sell that one, but you can easily get it online, and there are cheaper options for similar sized aquariums. A fluval roma 125 is a little cheaper and is a very stylish aquarium IMO. I have the 200 litre version and its rock solid, no problems.

Im a big fan of fluval products. You can pick up their products quite easily, spare parts are readily available should you need them, and lots of people use their products so its a fairly easy to troubleshoot problems. You can get cheaper, but with fluval you are paying a little more for a lot better quality. You can go the other way too obviously, there is better quality at a premium price, but you get value for money with fluval.

You can set things up as maintenance free, one of our members is a big advocate of his no water change set up, but you have to do things a little differently to achieve this and its not something i would recommend for a novice.

 

[Pepsilexi]

Sand/gravel plants

Hi guys need your advice that’s why I joined a group. Little about myself so you know who you are dealing with, I’m 71 years young and disabled as in can’t walk unaided and have to use a mobility scooter to get around. Not much energy but I’m still hanging in there lol. As I spend a lot of my time living in one room and got everything I need within reach I have been thinking for a long time about buying an aquarium. My Son took me to an under water sealife centre few months back and I was overwhelmed by the amount of different species of fish etc. My Son and I went to a aquatic Centre this morning intending to purchase a aquarium so I could start this new adventure but was soon felt stressed out by the number of different sizes, types, prices of the tanks that we saw as soon as we entered the shop. After looking around for a 1 1/2 hours and with no help from the shop keepers themselves we decided to leave and search more about my new buddies. My questions and help I’m looking for guys is WHERE DO I START.
I would like to purchase a tank around 60 litres in size so I can have around 20 tiny fish that would all live together happily, I also need to have a near as much as possible a maintenance free as possible due to my health issues. Can I purchase a filter that will keep the water condition down to the minimum so I don’t need to change more than once a month. I have a budget of around £600 just to buy the essentials, knowing that in a month time I will be spending around £200 for the little guys. Any advice from you guys would be greatly appreciated thanks x

Hi guys I’m back
Took me month to finally settle on the size and buy the aquarium,Tetra starter line LED 80 litres.
Now I need the next step please, how much sand or gravel do I need plus few stones/rocks and I would like to have LIVE plant's.
——————————————
How much sand or gravel or both do I need.
How much and many rocks or stones.
How many LIVE plants and what sort.
Grateful for any help including the names of the items. Then about 2/3 weeks time I will need help with buying the long awaited for fish etc.
Thank you and looking forward to your replies x

 

[Aiken Drum]

For your size aquarium you are going to need about 10kg of sand or gravel for every 1 inch depth of substrate. (Sorry for the mixture of imperial and metric, its just how my brain works). If you are wanting plants 1.5 to 2 inches of substrate would be good. So get 15 to 20kg of substrate. Whichever you prefer the visual appearance of.

How many rocks? Its up to you. What kind of visual appearance are you after? Same with the plants. That tank of mine above has 1 rock, 1 piece of driftwood and 3 plants. If you go back to the link on my tank build thread there is an update, so you can see how much the plants have filled in everything.

Given you want to avoid unnecessary tank maintenance, i would advise taking things slowly and not adding a lot of fish in one go when you decide to get fish.

Here is a link to a video about some easy to keep plants that will do well in your aquarium.

https://youtu.be/DpOVZEhBQ2c?si=x-IBSne3B3UIS24h

 

[Pepsilexi]

Aiken Drum thank you once again for your fantastic advice over the next week my Son and I will be going to pets at home to buy the furniture lol then will buy fish etc just before Christmas.

 

[ADsnail]

Just to nip in here with a tiny piece of advice. Amidst all the choices and requirements, remember to get what you LIKE. So that every time you look in there you'll feel happiness and satisfaction.

As a general rule for plants, buy tall growers for the back, medium for the middle, and small for the front. Plenty of advice online about what grows how big - just look up "tall aquarium plants" etc.

And be advised of what's called "plant melt" - an adjustment period where some may appear to be dying but are actually divesting of the old in preparation to grow in the new environment, the one you have provided. Seems scary but requires only patience.

 

[Pepsilexi]

Adsnail thank you, read the plants advice from adkins so have sorted out my plants ordered some tweezers etc for planting. Will look at bedding rocks etc then have them delivered at same time. That gives me 2 weeks to prepare and week before my guests arrive.