Setting up your First
Tank
The next thing to decide is which fish you want to keep. Start off with
hardy fish that are easily available. They tend to be easy on the pocket
and the other advantage is that they are very forgiving once it comes to
fishkeepers mistakes. Let’s be honest about this, most people starting
off in the hobby will kill some fish on the way due to beginner’s
mistakes. We all did kill fish due to overfeeding, bad husbandry,
degraded water parameters, keeping the wrong species together, etc. It
is excusable once you learn the lessons from it.
Once you have the list of fish you want to keep (if you do not know if
certain species are suitable for your set-up, contact us through the
website or come along to our next meeting). Here are just some general
guidelines of which fish to avoid:
-
any species that grows too big for your tank. The usual culprits sold by petshops are Oscar cichlids, red tailed shovelnose catfish
-
any dyed fish. You will see these from time to time. Fluorescent pink and green are not natural colours….First of all it is morally deplorable since the fish are made to suffer unnecessarily and the death rate amongst dyed fish is quiet high before the actually arrive in your local shop and the ones that make it tend to be fairly short lived. Moreover the dyed colours will fade. A lot of seasoned fishkeepers boycott shops that sell dyed fish and with good reason. As a club we will not accept any sponsorship from shops that sell dyed fish. Both Petstop and Fins and Things do not sell them and can be recommended.
-
diseased fish. Any responsible shop will not sell these to you anyway but have a look at the fish you want to buy anyway. Nobody is perfect and some diseases go unnoticed for a while. Just keep an eye out for anything that looks out of place. There is a link on this website to the
Do not be too shy to ask the staff of any petshop if certain species
will get along with each other. Remember a good petshop is not out for
the quick buck but wants to keep your custom in the long run.
Fish are the last
things to go into your tank.