Absolute Beginner

Hi all,

Richie here, and as the title suggests, I'm an absolute beginner. I'm looking forward to starting what I'm hoping will be a great new hobby. I'm a long time admirer of aquariums and when I see them on display in all their glory I immediately want one. I'm fascinated with the layouts, colours and variety of fish and the way it captures your attention in a hypnotic kind of way. I've always thought they require a lot of work and attention and when I was working away from home during the week, this was something I didn't have. Now I'm back home full time, I reckon the time is right to give it a go.

I've just bought a second hand Juwel Rio 125 that came with lights, an internal filter and a cabinet. I've done a small bit of research on the internet and already my head is spinning. So the first plan is to get a list of the equipment and knowledge that I'll need so I can start my research - at the moment I know next to nothing - and take it slowly, step by step. Looking forward to reading through this site for ideas and information but no doubt I will be pestering you all with my questions along the way.

Cheers
Richie

Welcome along Richie

Welcome Richie!

To echo John's point.. most of us are still making mistakes on a daily basis!

Everyone starts somewhere and a 125l isnt a bad start at all

Dont be afraid to ask questions!!! The only stupid question (imo) is the one not asked!!!!
Noone can answer the question that isnt asked

Welcome to the forum.
You are an absolute beginner but you are a smart one, smarter than i was when i bought my son a 20 litre tank and 3 goldfish without doing my research first.
Needless to say they ended up in goldfish heaven pretty quickly !
120 l is a good size, you will have plenty of fishes to choose from.
Anyway in a few months time you will get another tank and another one ...

Anthony

Welcome Richie.
The best advice I can give is take your time....it seems you already are !
There is all sorts of conflicting info online so a forum like this is your best bet.
Best of luck with your venture into fishkeeping !

Welcome on board Richie........ask on here before checking online if you have any questions to be answered.....some good knowledgeable people on here that have saved me (and my wallet) on many occasion

Ger

Welcome along, I'm kind of a newbie too. I'm sure you will have multi tank syndrome like most of us! I've found so much helpful info on this forum.

Welcome along Richie, 125l tank is a realy nice size to start with. If I may suggest your first purchase is a good external filter to cope with 300l tanks and a 200watt heater both can be got second hand here. Keep chatting to us here with any questions you may have.

Thanks all for the warm welcome. I put the tank up on it's stand last night and discovered there was also a 100w heater inside - bonus!! It's just missing the attachment to hold it in place but hopefully I can pick one of those up quite easily. I'm just putting a shopping list together for the weekend to get some of the basics, replacement filters, light bulbs etc, My 'local' shop is about 40 minutes drive away so I reckon I'll be doing quite a bit of shopping online after this.

Thanks PaulV for the suggestion on upgrading the filter & heater. I hope to do this eventually but with the expense of getting the tank up and running, it might have to wait a little while longer. As you say, if I can pick them up here second hand, all the better.

This all leads me to my first question...my filter comes with replaceable filter wool & sponges and looking at the Juwel assembly instructions online, it suggests replacing the white wool pad weekly and the black carbon sponge every 4-6 weeks. Do these have to be replaced or can they be washed out and used again? I plan on buying new ones anyway coz I don't know how old the ones in the filter and I know they're not a huge expense but I'm thinking I might need to stock up with a couple of months supply.

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Cheers,
Richie

Lets start from the beginnning
2 questions to ask, what fish do you want to keep and how big a tank do you want ?
and we'll tell you the pros and cons

Welcome to the forum. Good to see you have joined before getting fish, wish I had done that

I would suggest putting in some ceramic media or a standard sponge instead of the carbon. You could buy a carbon pad also and keep it around as carbon is often used after using medication to clean up.

If you want to grow plants you wouldn't want carbon in your filter.

An external filter is a good idea. I have 90L cold and 180L tropical both with external filters that are rated for 600L both picked up second hand, I struggled with internal filters for a while but over filtering has been great.

I don't have experiences with the Rio125 filter setup, but I have a Rio300 and I use the internal filter. It has performed well for the last 8 years and I believe I can manage the tank well we low levels of amonia/nitrites. I'm actually adding nitrates for the plants. However, I have to say that I watch parameters carefully and I'm monitoring things regularly. I also do a 20-25% weekly water change including hovering across the top of sand so that any detritus is removed.

I never change the media as often as you they suggest to... it would cost a fortune. I'm very cynical about their maintenance schedule, as it drives more sales for them. The one that I replace more often is the white one... actually, I never clean that, as it's a pain, but I rinse out the others and I change them periodically. I say periodically, but I couldn't tell you how often. Perhaps it's when they look like they are not getting much cleaner by washing them out! I only ever replace one at a time, so that you're not throwing out too much bacteria.

Edit: Actually... just to say that my local LFS has a batch of filter media every now and again that I pick up. Generally it's when he sells a tank to someone who's going to remove the built-in filter. This doesn't happen too often, but they're cheaper than buying them all individually.

I'm relatively new to this forum, so interested to see other comments also.... I've always wondered about swapping to an external filter setup.

Big thanks again to all that have replied so far. I think I'll go ahead & get the replacement white media. I'll give it a go washing it out (in water from the tank) but if this doesn't work at least I'll have replacements on hand. Interesting to hear about the carbon filter. I hope to have natural plants eventually so I may ask this question again in the future.

To reply to Darkslice - I'm open to keeping most fish (of the small tropical fresh water variety) but to be honest I haven't even got to the stage where I can put much thought into it yet. Myself, the wife & kids are throwing some of our favourites forward but I'll have to see what's compatible and what's not. A job for another day I think! I know a lot of people say it's best to know what fish you want and build your aquarium around what suits them but since I'm not too fussy about my fish (yet), I think I'll build my aquarium first and add the fish that suit.

I'm thinking I better close off my initial post in the introductions section before the mods get me to move along. Next question in Beginners Haven, I promise.

Just a final thought before I sign of as an absolute beginner:
We've all seen the spectacular aquariums set up in the shops and even better ones online (some of them on this site) but even after only a few days of looking into this I realise the hobby of fish keeping is absolutely huge. There's a matrix of information on this site alone so if I was to research everything I'd never get my tank set up. Most experienced people would say 'I wish I knew that before I started' but in reality there's so much info and choices to make, it's impossible to know everything. My advice for newbies reading this at a later date (yes I'm giving advice after only 1 week!!) is to do a bit of research, ask the questions, take as much on board as you can and jump right in.

Thanks again,
Richie

advice:
1) Buy a test kit and learn to use it.
2) When in doubt about the above ask and eventually get the LFS to test your water for you a couple of times just to gain confidence that you do it right.
3) Test your tap water regularly to determine a) what the general parameters are and b) if they ever change
if you have steady parameters on your tap water try to get fish that will be more compatible with the water. If you chose fish that have very different water requirements you will drive yourself crazy: adding chemicals to raise/drop PH and other stuff like that is no good in the end.

any other questions just shoot