Aquarium

norrie rugger

Hi Guys,

Hope this is the right Forum

I have moved into a new apartment (loads of spare space) and have always wanted an aquairum

Obviously I do not want to start with something top of the line

I want the goldilocks tank: not to big/small, not too expensive/cheap but just right

also, other than the tank/stand, what else do I need, in the way of lights, filters etc.

Last question (for now), what is better looking/easier to care for. Salt or Fresh water?

Our man in Havana

Marine ie salt are for experts they cost thousands to get set up etc.

Really you need to know if you want tropical or cold water.

What is your budget?

Where abouts are you based?

You need a really good filter, a heater if you want tropical - & what ever cage decorations you want.

norrie rugger

based in tallaght.
Budget? Not really thought about it much, just getting a feel at the moment.
Couple hundred for the tank anyway

ValerieR

Hi Norrie Rugger,

One of the most important things in fish keeping is the research you do before getting the tank and the fish.
I personally would recommend to start with a tropical set up before moving to a marine one.
Get the biggest tank you can afford as it is easier to maintain stable water parameters.
Go to shops like Aquatic Village, Wackers, Fintastic Aquatics, etc ... and find out what type of tank and fish you want and talk to the guys there, they'll be more than happy to help.
The www.irishfishkeepers.com forum is Irish based and might have some of the information you require.
Happy Fish Keeping !

norrie rugger

thanks a million guys.
Last thing i want to do is kill the fish. Am a complete newb to this hence the questions

SCI

You might find to mate buying your tank second hand or in the north would save you a fortune. For example a Jewel rio 240 in my local shop is €389.

paddylonglegs

just to jump in here, i'm looking to get a fish tank pump. its not actually for a tank but i want to recreate bubbles underwater, in a space the size of a bath tub. I also only need to use it for one day so the cheapest option is best.

Where would you guys recommend going to get this fairly cheap apparatus?

norrie rugger

SCI wrote: »

You might find to mate buying your tank second hand or in the north would save you a fortune. For example a Jewel rio 240 in my local shop is €389.

I have been looking at tanks in the north, todays exchange rate is not as good as it once was.

One of the cheapest prices for a Juwel 180, is costing £279.95. That is before I factor in delivery charges or taking a day to go North.

On today's rate that £279.95 is €329.85 Asked what I would get in a shop here and got told for €385 I would get the Tank and Stand and €50 fish.
This is a local shop, if anyone can do better I would love to know (save me money people)

On terms of second hand etc. As I am new to this, I would not know if someone has made modifications or damaged parts, so I will go with new.

The Juwel Rio 180 looks to be the tank, that I am going to go with. It looks a nice size and would fit perfectly into the area that I have put aside for a tank. Any opinions on this tank, as the only negatives that I seem to see are about the hood shape.

I hope that you guys dont mind if I start asking about fish/plants also, soon

norrie rugger

Thank you for the link to www.irishfishkeepers.com
I would not have had a clue about "Cycling" a tank.
I think that I am going to have to do a lot of research, this is a lot more work than I imagined!

I am not one to let a bit of work to put me off, though.;)

teetotaller

Norrie Rugger

I bought my aquarium in Northern Ireland in Lisburn

http://www.grosvenor-tropicals.co.uk/

They have best prices on this Island ( I did very long research as I take care of every single cent in my pocket) - you can call them and ask for price. Add to the price 20 - 25 euro for petrol , and you wil see if it is worth your time.

At the moment thay have an extra 30% off on all Juwel tanks.

I bought rio125 some time ago and at this time I paid 190 euro for tank and stand, while the cheapest rio125 in Republic was nearly 300 euro.

Also in this shop you can get 4 plants dor 11 pounds, while one single cost in republic between 4 -7 euro.
panda corry cost - 7-10 euro here and 3 euro there.



I have fish tank(s) since I remember ( with few short breaks), I know quite a lot about fish environment, so If you want I can help you to setup a tank where your fish will be happy.

Juwel gives an internal filter which is not great, - takes a lot space inside, and doesn't work well. When you will have to clean this internal filter half of wastes will go again to the water.

I can reccomend or eheim external filters, or my favourite brand ( I have these filters in my tank) - Tetratec. I have tetratec ex400 and 700.

It is not easy to get Tetratec in Ireland, as Fluval took the market, but go to the www.zooplus.co.uk and order them online.
you can try as well www.zooplus.ie but as almost always it is an Irish rip off - they charge you 20 - 25% more cos of ".ie"


Of course it is up to you how you want to take care about your fish and tank, but my advice is not to buy anti algae, or any other chemicals that keeps fish healthy, and water clear. - less chemicals - better for fish.

Don't buy all the plants you like - check what are they light requirements ( fluval light is not enough for many plants) many plants are for experienced tank keepers - read the leaflet before you get the plant.

after you setup your tank wait 3 - 4 weeks before you put there any fish - there needs to be some bacteria in the filter that will eat ammionia. - you won't have any diseases or problems or ammonia poisoned fish ( dead fish) . Don't put all the fish to the aquarium the same day - buy few and week later all the rest.


ahhh there are too many things to point - not enough room here.

If you or anybody else need an advice, or help with tank setup - post it here and send me a pm.


Thanks
Teetotaller

ps
sorry for my English - Unfortunatelly only Polish is fluent :D


Edit

never trust to the sales person in the fish shop - in most cases - the only thing they take care of is money in your pocket, so they will tell you everything to get your money.

Wolfsberg

teetotaller wrote: »

never trust to the sales person in the fish shop - in most cases - the only thing they take care of is money in your pocket, so they will tell you everything to get your money.

... Terrible piece of advice! Find a shop that you can trust and that gives sound advice. Most people that work in LFS are enthusiasts themselves and aren't completely worried about profits, especially when it comes to livestock.

teetotaller

Probably it is not a place to write bad reviews, but I was already in few shops in Dublin, where new tanks were sold to people with no experience - these tanks were sold as full sets including fish......... some of these shops got very good reviews on irishfishkeepers website.

But there is one place that I discovered two weeks ago, I was there only 3 times but i think that they take care about livestock. - Aquatic Village 1 in Brittas, on Blessington Road, btw largest shop in Republic.

Wolfsberg

What is wrong with inexperienced people buying fish tanks? I have been in many aquatic stores and pet shops up and down the country and I have yet to come across one that will sell anything more than a goldfish and bowl on the same day. Shops just don't sell tanks and fish together!

teetotaller

Wolfsberg wrote: »

What is wrong with inexperienced people buying fish tanks? I have been in many aquatic stores and pet shops up and down the country and I have yet to come across one that will sell anything more than a goldfish and bowl on the same day. Shops just don't sell tanks and fish together!

Nothing wrong with inexperienced people - they just don't know that fish can't live in fresh aquarium.

goldfish is a live being, I don't understand why you wrote anything more than a goldfish....

Unfortunatelly I saw new tanks and fish sold together, I also saw sales persons selling Ancistrus dolichopterus to people who said that have 30 litres aquariums, or few angel fish to 50l tank.

Anyway

I didn't name bad shops, so there is no point to argue. Just want to let know to fishkeepers that they shouldn't believe every single word said by sales person in the aquaristic shop.

http://yfrog.com/5j61433398j

above link to my tank

norrie rugger

teetotaller wrote: »

Probably it is not a place to write bad reviews, but I was already in few shops in Dublin, where new tanks were sold to people with no experience - these tanks were sold as full sets including fish......... some of these shops got very good reviews on irishfishkeepers website.

But there is one place that I discovered two weeks ago, I was there only 3 times but i think that they take care about livestock. - Aquatic Village 1 in Brittas, on Blessington Road, btw largest shop in Republic.

I got my tank there

Wolfsberg

teetotaller wrote: »

goldfish is a live being, I don't understand why you wrote anything more than a goldfish....

I was sharing an observation, not giving my opinion!
...My opinion is that goldfish bowls should be outlawed!

TouchingVirus

Just a consideration that you mightn't have thought of - how often do you lose power in the house and usually for how long? I know you're in Tallaght but it may apply to you and most likely applies to folks living outside Dublin.

I was considering a tropical aquarium but when I thought about how we lose power at least twice a winter during storms and usually it's down for about 5 hours when that happens (always night) it'd be too unsafe to put hours of effort into keeping them and have the water go cold and the fish die on me. Unfortunately my budget at the time didn't strech to a UPS.

So if you do indeed go tropical or seawater, get yourself a UPS to run the heater & pump so your fish don't cool down too much or run out of oxygen if there is a power cut

norrie rugger

only ever lived in cork or dublin and can honestly not remember the last time i lost power

TouchingVirus

Are you willing to take that chance though?

hadook

I've had one 6 hour overnight power cut and one 12 hour session with the electricity turned off so as not to kill the sparky rerunning cables and my fish (small community fish - guppies, mollies, tetras, corys etc) survived both with no problems. We hadn't realised that the fish tank socket was on the same ring as the ones we'd turned off until about an hour before the work was finished.

I have a Rio 180 and I've found that this tank is far more forgiving of blips in temp etc than the smaller ones I had before.

norrie rugger

hadook wrote: »

I've had one 6 hour overnight power cut and one 12 hour session with the electricity turned off so as not to kill the sparky rerunning cables and my fish (small community fish - guppies, mollies, tetras, corys etc) survived both with no problems. We hadn't realised that the fish tank socket was on the same ring as the ones we'd turned off until about an hour before the work was finished.

I have a Rio 180 and I've found that this tank is far more forgiving of blips in temp etc than the smaller ones I had before.

it takes a hell of a lot of energy either way to change the temp, of a large body of water
Saying that, you have made me conscious of the issue
kettle and fire

dbrock

maybe the shop you seeing selling the fish and tank in the one day , were also selling organic aqua with the tank?, just a taught because with organic aqua you can set the tank up in the one day,,,
ive done it and it worked perfectly,
and here is my tank 6 months later

norrie rugger

dbrock wrote: »

maybe the shop you seeing selling the fish and tank in the one day , were also selling organic aqua with the tank?, just a taught because with organic aqua you can set the tank up in the one day,,,
ive done it and it worked perfectly,
and here is my tank 6 months later

Mine is very much spartan, at the moment.
I need to add a background and a few more plants, I might move the larger plant to the right, to obscure the in tank filter

hadook

Looking good so far If you know anyone with an established tank nab a bit of their filter and it'll help speed up the process.

Also, someone told me aaages ago that if you turn the outlet pipe thingy from the filter upwards instead of down it creates a disturbance on the surface and helps oxygenate the water.

norrie rugger

hadook wrote: »

Looking good so far If you know anyone with an established tank nab a bit of their filter and it'll help speed up the process.

Also, someone told me aaages ago that if you turn the outlet pipe thingy from the filter upwards instead of down it creates a disturbance on the surface and helps oxygenate the water.

I tried that but the noise was too great, might see if I can tilt it to lesser angles, to get a ripple effect

Wolfsberg

norrie rugger wrote: »

Mine is very much spartan, at the moment.
I need to add a background and a few more plants, I might move the larger plant to the right, to obscure the in tank filter

Is the Echinordorus still in it's pot? If so, you should remove it and gently pick away the mineral wool. It will just rot away if the roots aren't free to spread. Also the Microsorum pterpus on the left must not be planted in the substrate. It can be trained onto the rock with some loose fishing line or ideally some black thread!

Tank has plenty of potential! For inspiration I recommend a book called Aquarium Displays Inspired By Nature written by Peter Hiscock. You might pickit up cheap online.

norrie rugger

Wolfsberg wrote: »

Is the Echinordorus still in it's pot? If so, you should remove it and gently pick away the mineral wool. It will just rot away if the roots aren't free to spread. Also the Microsorum pterpus on the left must not be planted in the substrate. It can be trained onto the rock with some loose fishing line or ideally some black thread!

Tank has plenty of potential! For inspiration I recommend a book called Aquarium Displays Inspired By Nature written by Peter Hiscock. You might pickit up cheap online.

It is out of its pot indeed, I still think tha tI should move it right though. Feel that it is taking up the entire tank, at them moment and it could be used to obscure the filter unit
And, to the left, it is being trained into the rock

I have 7 Neon Tetras in there.
Took readings again this morning and got
pH: 6.5-7
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1 mg/l
Nitrate: 10 mg/l