Very First Shopping List

Hi all,

Recently purchased my first aquarium - a Juwel Rio 125 with internal filter, heater & matching stand. The nearest fish shop to me is 40 minutes drive so I'm heading off today to have a good look around and hopefully stock up on what I need to get the tank up and running. I do have a local hardware/garden centre that stocks a small selection of fish, food & other bits & bobs so if I forget anything , hopefully I can pick it up there. As I'm brand new at this I was hoping to get some advice on anything missing from the list..

1. Subtrate: Aquabasis and small gravel/manado to fill to a height of around 7cm
2. A few fake plants - will eventually get real ones but that's for another day (EasyCarbo & Ferropol to feed the real ones)
3. A couple of large rocks / piece of wood to get started.
4. Couple of packs of replacement white filter wool
5. Thermometer
6. Replacement bulbs
7. De-chlorinator / water conditioner
8. Water Test kit
9. Nets , Scrapers & Gravel cleaner.
(PS. it'll be a freshwater tank)

I haven't done my research on cycling the tank yet but do I need anything else to start it off? Not sure if I'll cycle it with or without fish yet but the local shop should be able to supply whatever I need. What about air pumps, are these a necessity to get things up and running?

Cheers
Richie

Thanks John, I managed to get a cleaning kit which included the syphon tube, scrapers & vacuum cleaners. The staff in the shop were great so with their help I managed to get everything on the list plus a background and glue, as well as some live bacteria (Fluval cycle biological enhancer).

So when I got home I started to put everything together. I cleaned the tank with a vinegar & warm water solution, and rinsed again with warm water before drying with kitchen towel. Looked like a nice shiny new tank by then. I added a background with some glue and took out the bubbles with a credit card (not the first time today that came in handy I have to say )

Next, I washed the gravel, then washed the gravel and then washed it some more. Hard work but I reckon I'm better off doing it now than overworking the filter. I added a layer of gravel around the edges of the tank and filled the back and middle with Complete Substrate in such a way that the soil didn't touch the edges of the tank. Topped it all off with another layer of gravel, sloping from back to front and added the fake plants & rocks.

Then I added the water and treated it with the conditioner. It came in a 30ml bottle with instructions to add 15ml to my tank of 120l. I accidently put too much in but hopefully no harm done. Next on the shopping list is a bigger bottle of conditioner for water changes, and a plastic syringe from the chemist to measure 5ml !! So with the tank set up I switched on the filter & heater and added the thermometer to the tank, currently running at 25 degrees. Couple of pics attached, as you can see I'm still not sure about the right layout.

I plan to do a water test later today. If all is well I will add the liver bacteria tomorrow and pick up a few starter fish from the local shop. I was thinking a few neon tetras so start. They're small, cheap and ones I'd like to keep in the tank long term. Are they hardy enough to keep while I get the tank cycling? How many can I start with - I was thinking 3 or 4 and building up to 6?

I switched to manado and aquabasis 11 weeks ago. Helpful tip don't turn your filter on for a day. Put it in (some floats) leave over night some might sink if not net it out to avoid damaging your equipment. Other than that it's a good combination. Plants seem to grow/root well and it looks nice as well.

I had one grain of manado get caught in my circulation pump and it jammed stopping working. I unplugged it an used a knife to pop it out just letting you no so you don't make the same mistakes that I have.

Thanks Joe. They didn't have manado so I went with 5 ml pea gravel instead. Turned out quite nice but not sure it will suit fish that like to dig around the bottom of the tank. Filter running 24 hours now and no issues yet.

Great, I was looking at the zebra danios yesterday and mentally added those too my list too. Have to wait and see what they have in the local shop so all suggestions welcome. Roughly how many fish to start?

Richie
Have you any young kids??? Calpol still being used in your place?
Keep the calpol syringes and just be sure to give them a darn good clean before using them on the fishy stuff!!!
Thats what I use the whole time, 5ml syringes for nearly every thing that I could possibly want at this stage lol

Neil

I used mando substrate for about a year, wasn't able to grow anything in it without eazy carb,.

Then I switched to ADA soil about 6 months ago, after about a month everything started growing without any additives. (but it took some tuneing on light levels)

Neon's are best kept in groups (6+) I'd recommend. If that's your fish size then I'd say you're tank could handle about 20 tetras max.

Dark slice,
As far as I know manado has no nutritional value to plants. That's why it's recommended to use an under layer of aquabasis. Aqua basis on its own is a mess but capped with manado it's fairly effective (for me anyways).
Edit: I use easy carbo and pressurised so I can't comment my experience without them as I have nun .
I considered ada amazonia but I couldn't warrant the price for the gravel at the time 60 - 70 was my budget for my gravel and bulb.

Did you give up on your planted tank? Noticed your donating your co2. Any updates with that I've followed your thread for a while.

Richie,
Look into cardinals as far as I no they live longer than neons and have a full red stripe instead of it cutting off at the belly

my 750 liter planted tank is doing very well Was giving a spare co2 canister away. But this is slightly off topic. - ill update my thread.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. It's giving me great peace of mind that no-one has shouted 'Woah....don't do that!!!' I took a water sample from the tank last night and all the readings are within the 'good' parameters on the pack and I added some biological enhancer today in preparation for the new fish.

I went to the local shop today and their stock really is limited. Picked up some more water conditioner (a bigger bottle this time), some Nutrafin Max Tropical Flakes and 6 zebra danios. Had a look for the cardinal tetras but they had none. The fish are still sitting in their bag acclimatising to the tank water. I'm adding a bit of tank water to them every ten minutes until I double the size of the water in the bag. I'll then carefully take them out fith the net and add them to the tank, discarding the water in the bag. I probably should have asked these questions before I did it but I think I'm on the right track. Fingers crossed I'm not adding the fish too soon but I reckon that since the water test went ok, then I should be fine....right??

I'll continue to test the water every day until the first water change on Saturday ad maybe twice a week after that. Is this enough or should I test more often until conditions stabilise?

I was just thinking about feeding them John, you pre-empted one of my questions. Am I better off waiting until tomorrow then, and is once a day enough? They're in the tank now milling around, swimming against the filter current and they look great. Thanks for recommending the zebras. They won't pose for a photo though!!

The kids are already asking me when we can get more. I'm probably better off waiting until the water readings stabilise but is there a set time period to start introducing other fish? I'll spend a bit of time researching before I choose other compatible ones but again, all suggestions welcome.

thanks
Richie

Hi

JohnH has covered most of it but as a rough guide it will probably take about 6 weeks for nitrite spike to appear and reduce.

Regular water changes are your best bet to keep ammonia/nitrites down while the filter gets up to speed.

I would test for ammonia daily until you see it start to drop and then do nitrite daily until you see that drop. Go back to daily checks in both when you add fish until you are sure things are stable.

Welcome and enjoy.

Well I've been checking my water for 2 weeks now and all seems to be well - no spikes at all in the nitrate levels - so I'm either testing it wrong or the Biological Enhancer is helping out with the water quality. I'm using the Tetra 6 in 1 testing strips. Is there a better test kit to use? Is it worth spending the money on the more expensive ones?

Since the water seems fine, I went out and bought a few more fish yesterday. I got 4 guppies - 1 male & 3 females (I think). One of the zebra danios also died yesterday and I have to say I was a bit gutted. I'm not sure why it happened but I'm going to put it down to the water changes. I got 2 x 35l storage boxes to help with the changes so I'm replacing 35l out of 125l, just over 25% once a week. I'm treating it the day before and letting it sit overnight to raise to room temperature. Judging by the dirt of the filter today, I reckon that's not enough so I'll do it twice a week from now on.

Just a couple of questions on the feeding. The first one is regarding the amount - I've been literally only feeding the 7 danios a pinch of food once a day for 2 weeks now. Is this enough or should I be feeding more than once a day, especially now I've added more fish? Second question is in regards to the variety of the food. I've been feeding them tropical flakes every day. What's best to give danios and guppys to vary their diet?

Thanks
Richie

I've no experience with test strips just API master test kit I'd recommend the api I've bought 2 and received one recently so have multiple bottles of everything and from what I can see it gives a good enough reading after 5 mins.

I've no experience of the kind johns talking about I'm assuming that's the powder kit or the lab set I'll google that in a moment.

Avoid clearing the filter and I assume there should have been some nitrate if there's been ammonia and nitrite. If your passing through anywhere that has an aquatic shop you could try bring some water to get them to test it most places should do it. I no most the shops in dublin do it and the chain shops in navan do it aswell.

Personally I would change the water changes to 15% twice a week but that's just me I have been known to excessive water changes 50% daily when I started for close to six months (over did it) if 25 was recommended by a forum member don't change it's just my input I just see it as it takes some toxic water out every three four days instead of a big amount once.

Edit: could give brine shrimp or mini bloodworms aswell as flakes.

JohnH wrote:

Richie, am I reading this right? - you've had no Nitrate spike - but what about Ammonia and Nitrite?
Could you just clear up this for us?

John

That's right John. Nitrate tests have been consistently @ 10 mg/l. Nitrite @ 0 or 1 mg/l. In the first week I tested daily since the day after I set the tank up. In the second week I tested every 2nd day. Just tested it there now & same results again. There aren't any tests for ammonia on the strips - do I need to get something to test the ammonia? I would have thought that I would still see spikes even though I'm using the bottled bacteria.

Just to clarify - I didn't clean out the filter, just changed the white sponge at the top. I've done this twice now.

Thanks,
Richie

Thanks John, I thought I understood the basics of the cycling process but obviously hadn't a clue about how long it takes. I'll add a proper test kit (including ammonia) to my next shopping list and take it from there.

The API master kit is usually in all the shops at about €40.

I would suggest you not add any more fish until you are sure the ammonia and nitrite are 0 nitrate at 10 is ok

When you do add fish the bioload that the filter has to handle increases so you need to keep an eye on the tests in case of spikes.

Hi all, just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the advice and give a quick update on the tank. It's been up and running almost 3 months now and after three of my four guppies died, I bit the bullet and bought the Master Test Kit. The results varied a little bit from the test strips but the colours are far easier to distinguish from each other, which of course helps to give more accurate readings. More importantly it allows me to test for ammonia. I would definitely recommend a beginner to get the kit rather than the strips if it's within their budget. It probably would have saved me money and heartache had I got it from the start!

Anyway, my readings are back on track now and to celebrate I went out and bought 3 new plants last week - real ones this time. And today, I restocked my Guppy population with 3 more females and 1 more male as well as a little assassin snail. I'm starting to realise that my one surviving Guppy Male is a bit of a bully but that's a worry for another day!! I've attached a pic of the tank as it is now, sorry it's not a great one. I know, I need to sort out that background next (...there's always something to do )

Anyway, thanks again for all the comments and suggestions. I'm sure I'll have loads of other questions along the way.
Cheers
Richie

well done buddy

I am a great believer in the power of real plants in the tank as they become a great aid to ur filter in removing waste so don't hesitate get some hardy plants and the added benifit is they look great

Cool looking tank. Expect a few guppy babies in the near future

Eric

Nice one.
Hope you really love guppies because like Eric said you can expect a lot more in the near future

Anthony