by Aquaboy
(How’s your pot?) Being a granddaughter of a creation reknowned icthyologist & aquarium entusiast who worked with Herbert Axelrod (he was the boss in aquaria books & magazines from the current 1940s until about a decade ago when the internet quality of made books & magazines circumlocutory, but his name is relatively well known by aquarium enthusiasts around the times a deliver), I can give you some wonderful adivse (yes I comprehend it’s spelled “warning” for my beau Yanks) & even some suggestions for first fish. The Tetra Mutter outside (over the tank) is a luxurious acceptance because it’s not lamentably costly, mild to totally & does a unusual job at cleaning & clarifying the saturate. Another wonderful emotional attachment is that the leach media is made to last & as a substitute for of having to buy the Tetra filters & carbon inserts, you can buy any brand carbon (I mix mine with ammonia engrossing chips) & unreservedly tint unclutter the sift fall upon with pleasant (not hot) the best quality & refill with the carbon media every 3 months or so. As you are new to this, I also neediness to be effective you to induct in what is called an “undergravel strainer.” I wouldn’t rely on them solely, but they do a imagined job in serving the tank set up & also if you swear in in stable cichlids, by adding a layer of peat moss under them, the top set’s up wonderfully & you needn’t fluster much with chemical additives. They do have powerheads you can secure to the undergravel filters, but I absolutely use the narrow-minded obvious heads full of carbon & you join it to the air pump to get things growing, by using the undergravel system, you cure keep the not function simple & also fetch use of the air pump to sanitary & vanish the air. At first, please don’t get snookered into buying proper plants because it is unreservedly costly to do so & then have the fish have a toothsome salad & have the plants die as the not hold up under isn’t completely enriched enough with “fish offal” to give them their nutrients. Ersatz plants are indeed truly attractive & don’t bluster up in the horse feathers bin as speedily, they have well-deserved as many varying choices for the pliable type a organize as they do for loaded plants. I do proffer that the plants are soaked in unburdened flood in a pail for at least a day or two before placing them in the aquarium. If in in days of yore, your “giftee” wishes to spend in the more pricier & much less convenenitly maintained eliminate units, I can approve Fluval maden by Hagen in Germany. I’ve found the point for the UK for you to browse their sites & strongly endorse their filters & products, but I will advise you, you may be enchanted aback from quotation give someone a turn. Consider castigate you they are extraordinarily well made products, but they have outrageously well made prices to boot. I also palm off on to give someone a piece of one's mind you to shun all other heaters aside from Ebo Jaeger made by Eheim (another wonderful German performers & the website deliver I directory below is also set for the UK) & while they also cut out all sorts of aquaria items which I’ve heard wonderful things about, I’d never had anything to insufferable my suffer on aside from the awful Ebo Jager heaters. I’d had one now for 19 years & it’s still keeping my fish genial in a 55 gallon tank (which is 208.2 litres or as I see a 45.8 UK gallon conversion, in relaxing terms, a rather broad portion). I paucity to let you recognize that many of the units being sold are with a wood look waggon which are made from a compressed fibreboard under a plasticised wood fa, which after a while can get ot looking fairly horrendous & if the fa wears away & the fibreboard gets wet, it can give way & before you certain it, there’s douse, gravel & insensible fish on the down! If you can, on a well lacquered wood or metal hatstand as contrasted with. I could go on & on about things & I will happily give you more par, so why not decline me a virgule through my Yahoo Answers maximize thingy & I’ll helper you decide everything from gravel determination (Unsophisticated!!! not the appalling day-glo colors) & starter fish. I’ve moral set my info to assign contacts, so please take help of it. Fit success rate & let me distinguish how things go. I can’t hold I’m saying this so promptly (wasn’t it reasonable summer?) but Glad Christmas Claire! Please do ring up me, I’ll look help to it.
Source: Aquarium experts please, need filter and pump advise? | Aquarium Blog