Your current Fish tank Setups!

King4aDay said:
Wait til you start talking to water scientists with access to £100,000 lab equipment who still can't get reliable nitrate readings. All test kits are going to be hit and miss. Trust what your fish and plants are telling you over any of them. The only thing I regularly measure is conductivity, because it's the only thing you can reliably measure. It isn't terribly useful but it will give you a rough idea if there's a build up of 'stuff' which means you should be doing more water changes. I occasionally check pH if I've just calibrated my probe to check it's roughly where I expect it to be, but otherwise basing your fish keeping regime on test kits isn't a great idea as they're just as likely to be feeding you misinformation as helping. Disclaimer: I'm refering to freshwater stuff here, I have no experience with marine.



Personally I'd avoid Trimar. They have a massively over-hyped reputation because they give away copies of PFK to anyone who'll vote for them in the annual reader awards. They're local to me so I have a pretty good idea about their ethics and quality of stock and I no longer buy any fish from them if I can possibly help it.

If you want good mail order fish then try Wildwoods, Pier, Rare, Kesgrave or Sweet Knowle.
Click to expand...

Care to elaborate? Because I got good mail order fish, and they were from Trimar. ; )
 
BigBruiserAl said:
Cant stress how much to stay away from ready made marine tanks they are a nighmare built on the cheapest junk sold at max profit. I looked after a £4000 ready made tank for a friend and he had no end of problem my tank came to £1800 and was no where near the bother. Take a look at ND aqatics there good value IMO:)
Click to expand...

iamtheoneneo said:
As above dont bother. I know a few peps that went and got the Fluval Marine tanks - utter waste of cash as you end up replacing everything in it anyway.
The only good thing is that they have a sump section but really for the cash you might as well get a Jewel Rio or Lido and convert it to marine (which is easy) and have a much better setup as a result even with no sump.
Click to expand...

OK, thanks for the advice. Still very much at the research stage so I will keep that in mind. I'm thinking early in the new year to start. Part of me is tempted to do another fresh water tank first, just to get back in the swing, but not sure if it's necessary really. I'd only want to do one with a firm plan in terms of an ecosystem to replicate.
 
adam98150 said:
Care to elaborate? Because I got good mail order fish, and they were from Trimar. ; )
Click to expand...

Glad you got decent fish, and obviously I'm not saying that all their stock is always crap. It's just that on balance, with the sometimes iffy health of their stock, the types of fish they're willing to sell (tank busters, hybrids, balloon strains etc), the poor advice they'll give to make a sale, their rather terse customer service and the way they 'cheat' in the PFK awards, I'd rather take my money elsewhere.

That said I got some really healthy otos off them a few months back when I couldn't find any elsewhere.
 
My little green sword tale was dead this morning.... I had 2, a big orange one and a little green one.

Mrs did say she seen the Gourami going for the smaller Swordtale yesterday morning. Really annoyed me, bloody thing. Will go out in a minute and get a female, if he is still being a nasty bugger, he is getting getting flus.....I joke, ill give him away.
 
Bought this little lady:

eTMGiDV.jpg


He's happy (rape face):

KwjpgIZ.jpg


It is amazing to see him, he literally hasn't moved more than a inch away from the bag since i put her in there.
 
arc@css said:
Sorry to hear about your little green swordtail. :/
Click to expand...

Yeah, sucks. My fault for not reading into Gourami's properly and knowing they should be bought in pairs (male/female).

Though saying that, i would have thought PAH would have told me this when i purchased the Gourami.

robfosters said:
So you gave into his "get me a ho or I'll carry on tearing **** up" demands.
Click to expand...

Well, when you like to look at a bit of eye candy but end up at a sausage fest, it ain't nice is it? :p
 
Despite some of the employees clearly knowing something about what they are doing (in a variety of stores I've been to), I like to consider the advice they give and then compare it to other sources to see if there is a pattern / consistency. :)
 
Had a massive clean out of my tank today. It's been due a sort out for so long, but the amount of hair algae that had covered everything had made me keep putting it off. It was so bad, I've had to throw ornaments away as the hair algae was like 20mm thick and scrubbing it off just pulled the paint off things.

Took me around 4 hours, 80% water change too as that was well overdue. Fish seem a lot more active now. Excuse the poor phone picture but you'll get the idea.

IMG_20141024_235552.jpg


I'll order some new ornaments next week, I've had to dig out some old ones but they're not really big enough for the bigger fish to hide in.

One of my Zebra Loach with a couple of Tiger Barbs in the background.

IMG_20141024_235512.jpg


And my Red-Finned Shark. He's getting pretty hench now :o
IMG_20141024_235446.jpg
 
If my water chemistry is suitable, I like to add some zebra loaches to my tank at some point. I've always been a big fan of catfish and loaches.

That shark is looking a little meaty. I had one of those many, many years ago. :)
 
Last edited:
My Zebra Loach are the oldest fish in my tank now I believe, they're funny little things!

I had a pair of Pim Pictus Catfish too, they're pretty cool and also getting rather large!

Just done a water test now everything has settled down, everything looks spot on, just the PH is a tad high, but not by a lot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom