Hi. The name is Graeme, and I am just getting into tropicals thanks to my 6 year old boys school project. he set up the tank in the photo (with a lot of help) but we have a slight disagreement about which fish to stock as I like the colourful- neons, fancy guppies etc, and he likes the more weird and wonderful- kuhlis, Otos, peppered Corys etc

It is a slightly overstocked 97L tank right now- 8 Harlequin rasboras, 8 leopard Danios, 5 reed Tetras, 4 glass bloodfins, a few guppies, 2 otos, 4 peppered Corys, 1 loach 9the other has vanished) and as we are having real trouble with ammonia in a small holding tank it now has some guppies, with the one surviving fry.

I aim to set up an AR850 or similar in the lounge when budget permits, and I can run it from somewhere without an RCD that can occasionally cut out if our outdoor goldfish pond pump cuts out, but until then I might try some plant propogation as they are so expensive in the shops. As the tank came with a very old light unit that is almost useless they will have to be low light tolerant as I can't afford to replace the wiring set up:(

if I can manage it I'll get my retired mum to join too, as she has always been the fishkeeper, but having had to give up her fish on moving out here from the UK, as she has 11 tanks, but only 2 with fish.The school project has given her the fish bug again but it will take a long time to restock if we use Animates, or even Hollywood fishfarm or the Bird barn- our local options

I'll be interested to hear any tricks to getting an AR380 38L tank under control as nothing so far is stopping the ammonia spiking. I was hoping not to have to run for 2 months before being able to use

Other than the fish, my other hobby is older Volvos

Welcome

welcome

frequent water changes will help keep the ammonia levels under control until bacteria levels are high enough to absorb it

no lights at all or old bulbs?

Hi and welcome

As Mark said water changes - I would try 30% every day or two to keep the ammonia down, or ask on here is someone local to you can give you some filter washings ie they wash some of the bacteria off their media and you dump that into your aquarium...

welcome newbie

Welcome!

Welcome

Welcome to the fishroom 8)

Welcome. :thup:

Welcome

hellow and welcome

Welcome to the forum

The best way to get ammonia down is to either do lots of water changes or get some mature filter media from a friend (maybe your mum?) or someone on here.

Whenever the ammonia level is above 0.5-1.0ppm, you want to do a water change. Leaving fish in ammonia of this level (or higher) can affect the fish long term.

Doing a fish in cycle will take months, if you can get some mature filter media then the time will be a lot less.

thanks- after about a month I think I am finally there- the outdoor fishpond filter slime I added may have also helped. The platties in a different tank are producing more fry, so it may be just in time

Sounds good! Glad you're finally there

Do you plan on keeping the Platy fry?

Its always cool raising the fry and watching them grow up

hello