Hi Everyone!

I am totally new to fish keeping (well, I did keep a couple of goldfish as a child like you do, but the cat soon took care of them ).

I caught the bug when my boss showed me their beautiful marine tank and I thought hey - I want one of those!!! I've done my research and I'm starting out with tropical fish - marine sounds more advanced and I like to start slow and learn how to do it right so that everyone is happy and healthy

I've had one moggie for 16 years now and she won't LET me have any other pets, so fish seem like a good option (not sure why I've not thought of it before!?)

So, I decided to start relatively small at 48 Litres (10g). So far I have started a fishless tank cycle, I added some live plants and added filter boosts etc. and after about a week I decided to add some cherry barbs (it started out at 3 but is now 6 as the store gave me 2 males and 1 female and she was getting harassed, so I got another male and 2 females to balance it out, now they're much happier and so fun to watch!)

A week later (which was a couple of days ago) I added two new members to the tank - a male and female dwarf gourami. They are SO pretty and so great with the barbs, they all swim together and all seem to get along so far - and they love the live plants - I'm not one for plastics.

I do my water tests more or less every day at the moment because I know to expect some sort of ammonia/nitrIte spike during the nitrogen cycle, and I have been doing water changes more or less every day (about 30%), although the LFS told me to do this once a week, so I've cut it down a bit to let the good bacteria grow...

Eventually when the tank is a bit more mature I would like to add some amano shrimps (maybe 3 or 4), 1-2 ottos, and possibly something else but undecided as I don't want to fill to capacity - I like them to have plenty of room. LFS keeps trying to persuade me to get BN catfish, but I think they're too big to put in my tank from the research I've done...

So that's me! I've been constantly reading about what to do and different people's experiences on here as I want so much to have a lovely tank with a happy bunch of fish, so thought I'd join up! (I'm sure I'll end up with more, bigger aquariums in the future hehe)