Taking this seriously finally...

Howzit everyone

I have always kept fish throughout my childhood and adulthood but never gone into too much depth. Just did what I thought was necessary to keep the fish alive, rather than healthy.

So, finally found this forum and starting to take this wonderful hobby much more seriously and wanting to absorb as much info as possible.

Can anyone point me in the right direction on a complete idiots guide to setting up and keeping a tropical aquarium?

The fish I have now:

1 discus
2 plecos
1 talking catfish
1 upside down catfish

I have a bit of a penchant for bottom feeders and have been through many different species.

What I need is a complete guide on how to set up a tank properly, what are the ideal conditions for it, what fish will go with a large discus and bottom feeders, what is the best lighting, gravel etc

Sorry for the vagueness of the question, but I really want to get my tank in tip-top condition and to the point of really being able to enjoy it.

One thing, need to paint the back of the tank as not keen on these stick on backgrounds. What do people suggest in the way of paints, colours and whether the fish need to be relocated while I paint it. Thank you!

 

Welcome to TASA grunjhed

A book, which in my opinion, is absolutely fantastic and extremely comprehensive is Tropical Fishlopaedia (A complete Guide to Fish Care) by Mary Bailey and Peter Burgess. It covers everything you can imagine, and then some, regarding fishkeeping. The only thing it does not cover is the actual fish species but everything else from setting up your aquarium to diseases and treatment is covered.

Discus should ideally be kept in groups as a single discus will not do well alone generally. What size is your tank???

Paintwise you can paint the back outside pane of glass with your everyday PVA paint. The most common colours used are all shades of blue, black and I've seen brown as well. I wouldn't suggest doing it with your fish still in the tank because of the fumes involved but who knows, perhaps someone here as done it that way before and had no problems.

 

Hi Grunjhed.. (difficult name LOL), you would have to tell us a bit more of the fishy house/s.
Size of tank?
Substrate?
Filter capacity?
Planted?
etc, etc,
Oh and let me the first one to ask for pics!!!!!

 

Thanks for the advice veegal. Will go and have a look at that book.

My discus must be a real surviver as seems to break every mold they have for discuses. He is quite large, so will it be an issue to introduce smaller discuses? I want to get a school of them going but he can be an agressive eater and dont want to fork out several hundreds on a few baby discuses and have them eaten!

My tanks is a 3 footer IIRC.

 

Aren't you usually the first one Carping LoL.....yeah, we have a saying here on TASA - without pics it just doesn't exist

 

Hahaha its not a usual name at all, but believe it or not I have found forums where it has been used locally :0

When I first delved into the world of IRC (best part of 10 years ago) I was into Nirvana and loved a good headbang (now called moshing!), put the 2 together...

Bear in mind my complete ignorance here are my tank specs:

Size of tank? 3 foot
Substrate? white and black gravel (no idea what kind/make)
Filter capacity? Enough according to the LPS person (will try to find out make and model)
Planted? (A few scattered plastic plants and 2 rocks for the catfish to live in
Obviously heater but one that seems to do the job
1 x 20W white flourescent light

Pics will happen when the tank has settled down from a gravel change and general clean out!

 

Yeah, I'm nosey LOL... Always love looking at full pics of other tanks.. Gives me ideas>>>

 

Hi and welcome to TASA

 

welcome to TASA. Nice to see someone new from the homeland. lol.

 

LOL, thanks everyone

 

Welcome to TASA

 

welcome hey, why not post a pic of your setup

 

It's a real mess at the moment. Just busy letting it settle down again and for the water to clear and maybe get one or two more. At the moment all you can really see is my discus and the 2 plecos. The other catfish much perfer hiding

 

Welcome. Taking this finally serious? You can't be too bad if you have a discus.

 

Well, we did have 1 scare with 'diskie' where he went all dark and fins curled in. Got him into a seperate heated bucket and fed him lots of blood worms and he seemed to perk up again. But apart from that he has been a real trooper!

Looking at introducing some juvenile discus fish into the tank in the near future to bolster the numbers and then maybe some other smaller schooling fish. No idea yet what though

 

Welcome Grunjhed
I'm glad someone else finally brought up the stick-on backgrounds - is there a trick to sticking these on nicely?

 

Welcome!

Please don't add more Discus, your tank is already pretty full as it is. Rule of thumb is around 40l per Discus, and if you do have a 3 foot, its ~100 litres

Talking catfish will hide, its nocturnal

 

Cooking oil - seriously I'm not joking :bigsmile: Smeer a little cooking oil, position it (what's nice is you can easily slide it around) and then remove any air bubbles with a ruler or something.

I've heard some people say that after a few years cooking oil tends to give off a slight smell (mine hasn't yet) in which case you can use vaseline instead

 

Thank you Veegal!!!! I have been battling for soooo long!

 

No problem Madam - it is actually SOOOO easy once you've learnt the oil/vaseline trick! No more nasty cellotape or double-sided tape etc.