Cold water Aquarium?

[merc_man]

If it's your first tank I'd start with a bi-orb. Easy to clean and maintain. Start off with 4 or 5 zebra minnows and a couple of fantail goldfish. Once they've settled in and created a decent eco-system (i.e. shat a lot) then you can add a few more minnows and 1 or 2 more fantails.

Just make sure you clean the tank and change the filter once every one or two months.

[7 Sevens]

I've bought a bio orb with heater last month and am very pleased with it. I've got 4 Zebra and Leopard Danios at the moment. All seem to be healthy at present.

However what I don't understand is you run it for a week to establish the tank/filter. However what do you do when you change the filter? surely putting a new filter in whilst you have fish in there means the new filter isn't established? I'm confused by that.

[merc_man]

7 Sevens said:

However what I don't understand is you run it for a week to establish the tank/filter. However what do you do when you change the filter? surely putting a new filter in whilst you have fish in there means the new filter isn't established? I'm confused by that.

Changing the filter is easy peesy. Just twist the air tube conected to the filter, remove from tank, twist the filter section off and replace with the new one. Generally when I do this I also clean the inside of the tank with the cleaning pads supplied with the new filter. Then remove 10 litres of water and replace with another ten litres of treated tap water (sachets come with the filter). Buy a decent siphon for this, it'll save you a whole world of pain!

Changing the filter is essential as this is the thing that removes all the crap. The nitrogen cycle is not disturbed by this process.

[Tyrant]

7 Sevens said:

I've bought a bio orb with heater last month and am very pleased with it. I've got 4 Zebra and Leopard Danios at the moment. All seem to be healthy at present.

However what I don't understand is you run it for a week to establish the tank/filter. However what do you do when you change the filter? surely putting a new filter in whilst you have fish in there means the new filter isn't established? I'm confused by that.

Most internal filters have separate filtration parts so that you can clean half at a time without removing all of the beneficial bacteria. It's also better to gently clean the filter in water from the tank rather than using the tap.

[7 Sevens]

Thanks for the useful suggestions. I was concerned that by putting a new filter in the benefits of the cycle and bacteria would be disrupted/lost.

[GreenDog]

We started keeping fish a few months ago, firstly with a small coldwater tank then we bought a 60l tank and all the paraphernalia from eBay for £48 and keep tropicals in that.
We had all sorts of problems with coldwater fish (Orandas) - bacterial infections, fish lice etc and they've all died now. The tropical tank has been much much easier to maintain despite being bigger, although perhaps this is due to our increasing experience.

[Guffy]

I've kept coldwater and tropical fish over the years, one thing i would say is, it's very much a hobby activity, you really need to get into it otherwise you'll get fed up with the cleaning/water change and at some point watching them all die.

[mightymouse]

Reidy10_0 said:

G0ldfysh said:

Some of the more commonly kept coldwater fish are more effort to keep than tropical.

Decent shoal of neons or cardinal with a heater will need less tank cleaning than hmm goldfish

I second that.
Gold fish etc are dirty buggers.

I agree with this having tried both.
Tropical fish also seem much more relaxing to watch