Choosing your first fish
Peaceful, hardy and happy in a group: six fish we suggest for a first tank, and three we ask you to wait for.
Why your new tank needs four weeks before fish
The nitrogen cycle in plain words, and why waiting a month saves the fish you have not bought yet.
Every week someone comes into the shop with a tank they set up the day before and asks for fish. We say no, and we explain why. A new tank has clean water but no life in it. Fish produce ammonia from the moment they arrive, and ammonia burns their gills within days.
In an established tank, two kinds of bacteria live in the filter and the soil. The first turns ammonia into nitrite, the second turns nitrite into nitrate, which is far less harmful and which plants use as food. These bacteria grow slowly. In Nashik’s water, at room temperature, it takes about four weeks for enough of them to build up.
During those weeks you add a pinch of fish food every two days, or a few drops of ammonia we give you, to feed the bacteria. You test the water every few days with a simple kit. First ammonia rises, then nitrite rises as ammonia falls, and finally both read zero. That is the day the tank is ready.
Plants help a great deal. A heavily planted tank cycles faster and stays steadier. That is why we plant every tank on the day we set it up and add fish only on our second visit. It feels slow, but a cycled tank rarely loses fish, and most of the tanks we built in 2015 are still running.
