biorb life or rio 125 which one?

andykent

Hello all, I was lucky enough to get some money for christmas and have always wanted a fish tank, my wife really likes the biorb life in black to go with her
iphone most probably lol but from reading other threads i would be able to keep more fish in something like a rio 125 which seems really well priced.
Please please please give me some advice as i dont know anyone with a fish tank, has anyone got either of these tanks or would you recommend something else,
please remember im a newbie

Angel079

Hello & welcome to the forum.

When buying a new tank, rule no 1 - The bigger the better. With small tanks you're VERY limited to what/ how many you can put in there. Additionally smaller tanks are far harder, specially for beginners to maintain properly.
For both these reasons, I'd suggest you a larger tank, that will be easy for you to maintain and open up to many more fish options for you.

Possibly you may want to look into buying a tank used, safe money on the tank will allow you to buy a bigger one. Check Cragslist or aquabit.com for your area (or whatever other local paper you have).

Next step after the tank: Determine what kind of water you have at home. This can/ should be done with a simple liquid test kit (available by API for example). For choosing fish you'll need to know your pH & hardness (some fish need soft water others hard water), don't wanna see you starting your first tank and buy fish that will not thrive in your water. Also for the day to day life with your tank then, you'll need to measure (with the kit) your NO2, NO3 and Ammonia, that will tell you about your cycling in the tank and later on help you figure out what's wrong if fish 'act strange'. So all in all: a liquid test kit is a must have right there with your tank.

Then you wanna think if you like live plants in the tank? I pers love it cause it looks more natural Under my name to the left you'll see a tap called 'aquariums' you will find almost all my tanks uploaded there (for planting ideas).

Apart from all that: Just ask any & all questions you may possibly have here, there's a ton of very knowledgeable people here

Have fun!!!

andykent

thanks angel

i ordered a rio 125 yesterday for £208.95 and i had a budget of £300 (excluding fish) so i had a bit of a result. i was hoping to have 50/50 live and plastic plants but have heard that the fish like to eat the plants, and that you need to have soil at the bottom of the tank for them to grow well, but i was going to just have a slopped natural gravel and push the plants in while in there pots, can anyone recommed some hardy plants for a beginner, when you say test your water is this to test the ammonia/nitrite nitrate and ph if so can i use a pond test kit as these seem to be cheaper with more test tablets? is there any benifit over liquid tests to tablet as the liquid is a lot more expensive?
i think after a few plants and gravel i should have about £50 left over what should i be thinking of adding, an air pump? stronger lighting. any advise would be great also is there anywhere online to buy plants? they didnt do the where i got the tank from. thanks

Angel079

Hey congratulations!!!!
SOME fish nibble on plants yes, but the greater majority of fish won't do that (check out my aquariums to the left, I even had plants in the Yellow Lab tank).
And no need for special soil, gravel or sand (which ever you pref) will do just fine. And Pers I'd not mix live & plastic plants, I like things natural lol
The plants, when you buy them, you need to remove these lil plastic pots/ baskets AND the foam around the roots and then plant them in your gravel, otherwise you're doomed to get root rot and kill the plants, not good.
Buy a liquid test kit, anything else is not only inaccurate meaning it'll really only then show NO's & Ammonia when its too late. But also the liquid test kit lasts much longer and won't need replacement (so pretty much you get more use of it for your $)
No air pump in a planted tank. Plants need CO2, with a air pump you're driving that right out, so do not buy one, safe the bucks and get more plants
You wanna have a light over your tank that fulfills 2 things: ~1 watt per gallon and the light should be something called Daylight (rated at around 6500K) that's ideal to grow most plants.

I honestly have no idea about a webpage for UK plants shipment - Had you googeled it?
Plants that're nice & easy and grow fast are: Hygrophilia, Pennywort, Ludwigia, Vallisneria, Rotala.....If you like just cruise through my tanks on the left here and see what plants you may like better then others.
To see the plants I named here's 2 pages (but I don't think neither 1 ships to the UK)
Sweet Aquatics
AquariumPlants.com Largest online sales / service site for the live aquarium plants & aquarium products community.