Hi all, need some help for my first aquarium

[sparkyweasel]

Test kits must be a multi million pound industry, testing your tank or pond water has always been part of the hobby!

Not always, when I started no-one I knew tested. Then various kits appeared in the shops, and people started testing for things. Nobody seemed to realise that their fish and plants had been perfectly healthy for years without all that.

 

[foxfish]

It's a shame they didn't make a pond version of the Twinstar back then as well or you would have been rolling in it.....

Ha no but there were lots of Koi pond gadgets like ozone generators, auto back flush filters and pressurised trickle towers.....
I have told this story before but ... the lowest maintenance, healthiest and cleanest ponds that I built all used a basic under gravel filter system.
A few years back I joined a few koi forums and got shot to pieces when I made that claim, even though I showed detailed pictures of the ponds and their 30 year old residents swimming in crystal clear water!

 

[Parablennius]

Not always, when I started no-one I knew tested. Then various kits appeared in the shops, and people started testing for things. Nobody seemed to realise that their fish and plants had been perfectly healthy for years without all that.

Agreed, back in the Early 70,s all I can rember was Nitrite and pH test kits from WaterlifeResearch, was that Graham Cox's company?

 

[foxfish]

Not always, when I started no-one I knew tested. Then various kits appeared in the shops, and people started testing for things. Nobody seemed to realise that their fish and plants had been perfectly healthy for years without all that.

I guess I must of been gullible then as I was waisting money on test kits 45 year ago!
I also bought PH correction powders as it was preached in the magazines and shops at the time, that plants only grew in soft water with a PH of 6-6.5.
I did work it out in the end that rain water was the way to go but not until I had killed numerous fish by overdosing those powders....

 

[Tim Harrison]

Ha no but there were lots of Koi pond gadgets like ozone generators, auto back flush filters and pressurised trickle towers.....
I have told this story before but ... the lowest maintenance, healthiest and cleanest ponds that I built all used a basic under gravel filter system.
A few years back I joined a few koi forums and got shot to pieces when I made that claim, even though I showed detailed pictures of the ponds and their 30 year old residents swimming in crystal clear water!

Haha, that reminds me of a story I might have told before too, when I was keeping a reef tank way back when. Nowadays it's not uncommon to spend £000 on just a small basic set up. I think I'd be crucified, and then hung drawn and quartered if I confessed on facebook or a reefing forum, how I did it back then...
I Heath Robinson'ed my set up for less than a few hundred quid. Not a single test kit in sight, other than a hydrometer. All inhabitants, anemones, soft corals and assorted critters etc more than happy. Like I've said before, it's amazing what we didn't need before it was invented...