Hi all newbie with questions.

[andre]

... where are you all from? do you buy your fish or catch them from the wild? and what sort of setups do you all have

I live near Cape Town, ZA. It's illegal to keep native fish here and anyway there are not many interesting fresh water species in this area.

Thus I must also rely on what the LFS have got which is usually very little. At least compared to what I've seen in UK.

Due to space constraint (or rather wife constraint) I've never got into breeding. Some species regularly spawn in the community tanks but only to provide fresh caviar to the tank mates.

Please keep us posted on your river tank!

[jonboy8465]

that's a shame, could you not get your lfs to order what you want? mine will order special for me as long as its legal. I have just ordered 3 power heads for the hillstream tank so that should give me over 3000ltrs per hour or 20 water cycles per hour on a 4ft tank. over the next few days i need to wash and boil some sand as it second hand, and set up a manifold system. I also need to get hold of some nice round pebbles and rocks. We only have muddy rivers down here so I was thinking of getting some off the beach but they belong to the crown and that would be theft. That leaves me with one option, to buy, need to compare prices between lfs` and garden centre. when i say lfs I mean all 10 within a 30 min drive.

[helen nightingale]

you live in a very nice part of england, Jonboy. which fish shops do you go to? if i am visiting family in burgess hill, i get strangely drawn to the maidenhead aquatics round there

if you got your pebbles from the beach, they would probably be quite dirty too. buying must be safer.

when its all set up, please show us pictures

[jonboy8465]

That is quite a good shop, They have now removed the big Koi tank from the shop and installed a marine section and more shelves for dry goods. The others I use are at the garden centre in Ditchling. MA at the Wyvale GC in ferring and findon there sister shop at Haskins Rustington, they have 2 fantastic see through tanks in the shop wall. the others that i use are just tanks at pet shops but they still stock different fish and goods so are worth keeping an eye on.
Just been to BQ and they have 3inch pebbles at £6 per bag but they are quite dirty as well need to look around lfs` to see what they have I expect they all come from the same source and all will need to be cleaned to be on the safe side.

I will certainly post pics as i would like you all to give your opinions for improvements to make the fish happier as they all look so sad in the small slow tanks at the shops.