Hello, I'm a newbie to the forum and to aquariums

**bmtoups** · 11-27-2012, 08:08 PM

Hello, I'm Brian and live in the Portland, OR area. About 6 months ago I was given an established aquarium from my father in law. It's a 30g FW. It has a power filter and I do have an air pump with a stone. He's had the tank for about 10 years and had about 20 red tailed guppies and a 6 inch long algae eater. He told me to feed them daily, change the filer monthly, and every six months siphon out 2/3's of the water, cleaning the gravel at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago I brought all 40 or so guppies (they reproduce a lot!), except for 4 males to the LFS to adopt out. I got 3 angel fish that day. A couple of days ago I did a water change for the first time since I got it, and I did use a water conditioner to treat the tap. Yesterday I noticed one of the angel fish acting really weird so I returned it to the LFS and had them sample the water. Everything was fine with the exception of the PH was a little low. So I bought PH up and used the recommended dose last night. I will be bringing a new sample to them tonight to retest (and yes, I know I need to get myself a kit and start my own testing).

All day today I've pretty much read everything I could possibly read about aquariums and I know that I've certainly been doing things wrong up until now. Thank you all for your informative threads and questions.

I'm not seeking advice in this post because I know this is the introduction area. But, I wanted to give you some background on where I'm at right now. I'm sure I'll be turning to you all with questions soon.