I was out with my daughter today and I made an impulse buy of a Biorb 30L aquarium. I the thing home, set it up and now i have to wait a week while it filters the water before i introduce the first fish.
Anyhoos, I have never kept fish before and dont really know where to begin - does anyone here have fish and if so can you give me any advice?
Cheers
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We used to have fish. Last one died last year after about 10 years or so. One fish which we had died at about 15 years of age, which at the time, was older than me!

I can tell you that you will need to feed them every day. We used to put some pellets and flakes in. The tank will also need cleaning regulaly. Also, I wouldn;t have too many fish, as you wouldn't want it to be crowded.
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Another good idea is a smaller spare tank for placing the fish in when you are cleaning the main tank. Cheapest way of getting one is look for your local freecycle group and put a wanted post on. get some spare pvc tubing for draining the tank. As for filters it depends on the size of tank and type of fish. I used to use filter wool and charcol. Also after cleaning make sure that the fresh water is left for at least 24 hours before reintroducing the fish so as to get the water to room temperature. Most of all try to enjoy the fish and get try to get your daughter interested. It's damn hard to keep kids interested in something they cannot cuddle.
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When feeding them, make sure you put in the barest amount needed, as fish have a tendancy to overfeed and give themselves constipation.

On a similar vain, if your fish do start to float on their side, don't panic, and most of all DO NOT FLUSH them down the toilet, they are only suffering from constipation. If you do not feed them for about 3-4 days (recommended) then they should get much better themselves.

The thing to watch, especially with kids in the house, is the tendancy to overfeed (usually when they have friends around).

Other than that, the internet is always available if you have problems.

Hope you have fun with them (and haven't already flushed them)
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When we changed the water, my dad used to prepare it in a big bucket, then siphen someof the old water out and then carefully put the new prepared water into the tank, without removing the fish.

The filter which we had had some sponges in it, which we had to clean occaisionally.
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thanks for the advice guys, i will keep that in mind. the tank is pretty advanced so you only need to change the filter every 4 months thank god. My biggest worry now is that ihave put it on my bookcase which is filled with heavy volumes and the tank weighs 32 kilos when full...lucky that we have concrete floors!
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I have a 200L aquarian for 3 years.

my advice to you:

There are internal and external filters, external are better and more powerfull, but for 30L and internal is enough.

- you should change 20% water every week, this is the most important rule
if 20% is to much work, try to do this:
- grab 2 water botles of 5 liters each, fill with water (normal water from your own
house pipes) and let it be in those 2 botles for 10 hours. dont close the botles, let
a litle of air get in contact with the water, after those 10 hours, put the water in
the aquarium slowly. If you do these every week, it should be ok.

- you should wash/clean the filter 1 time a month, at least. Clean the glass from time to
time, dont let it get to much green.
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Am I right in thinking that these days with modern filters, if everything is monitored and done correctly that you shouldn't need to ever empty the tank completely to clean it?

We've always had fish at home, but only external ponds, not aquariums. Dad still has two ponds. One is a large gold fish pond, and the other is a deeper one with Koa Carp. That takes quite a lot of work to keep as he is constantly removing any weed build up from the sides of the pond, and cleaning the filters out and checking the UV filters are working.

The two ponds are also connected by a stream which he damns up in the winter, and in the summer a large pump takes the water from the bottom Koa pond and pumps it into the big filter at the top of the waterfall of the gold fish pond, so during the summer months the water gets constantly circulated from the top pond, down the stream and into the bottom, and also gets passed through two really big bacteria based filters, as well as UV filters and other filters he has in series.
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that sounds very complicated!
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Aquariums generally do not have the means to break down all the fecal matterexcreted by the fish so all though the water may look clean theres a lot of poop in the gravel which is why cleaning is important. Outside ponds/pools should have the right ecosystem to break down these deposits so need less maintainance.
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