hi im a newbie since xmas

First things first - you're very welcome to the Forum.

Could you please clear up a bit of confusion with your post - when you say your sand is making the pH 'basic', do you mean neutral?
Also if you have around 25 fish you really are either reaching, or have reached capacity for your tank - my suggestion would be to not buy any more fish until your Rio is up and running (fully cycled).
You will `be able to get info in - as you put it - layman's terms here as that's what we all are :o)

I know what you mean about each shop having bad things to say about their competitors - it used to happen a great deal with the shops in England when I lived there!!!

However, in the main over here I have found that if you stick to the better shops - like the ones in the Forum's Sponsor list - you shouldn't go far wrong...many of them know each other from way back and I haven't been to one yet which I wouldn't recommend to anyone (which isn't something I could say about every shop in Ireland, I'm afraid to say).

So, ask away!

John

Green Barbs, a common name for what were called Green Tiger Barbs.
These are a 'sort of' manufactured fish - gradually the Tiger Barbs were so inbred that the stripes they are recognised by were developed to cover almost the whole body area. I personally don't like them, but is is really down to personal choice, to me a Tiger Barb is a nice strikingly marked fish, the 'Green' variant isn't...let's leave it at that. But in no way would their 'manufacture' cause any ill-effect upon any other fish, they are inbred but that cannot cause harm to any other fish, only if you attempted to breed one with a 'Normal' Tiger Barb might you have trouble, you would probably mess up the genetics of them!

I will add that Tiger Barbs have a real bad 'press' - but I have always found that, just as long as they are kept away from longer-finned fish, such as Angel Fish, and in a reasonably large shoal in a larger tank (such as your Rio once it is set up) you'll be fine. They can be demons at eating the softer-type plants though so you might want to consider that...

John.
ps I don't use the test kit you mention, preferring a digital pH meter, but doubtless someone with experience of that will advise you.
I will just tell you that pH7 is neutral - a figure you will be hoping to achieve for most 'normal' fish...but obviously there are exceptions, especially most Livebearers and Rift Valley African fish which come from harder, more alkaline water, and many South American fish, especially Amazonian ones - which prefer much softer lower pH (acidic) water.

You needn't be bothering too much with a digital pH meter at the moment, especially as you have a test kit already.

I only have them because with quite a lot of tanks - and me being a bit of a lazy so-and-so - it's much quicker to test all the tanks. For me to test each one with reagent tests would take ages. As you only have one, soon to be two, tanks it would hardly be worth your while! But, for what it's worth I bought both of mine off ebay, one new and another s/h.

I vaguely remember Ian off the Forum was selling a brand new one last year - send him a PM, he might still have it...
John