well i have joined the site and am now slowly going to set up a new tank right from stratch and start keeping a oscar fish in it.
so as i do this i will put it on here step by step that i go through. and hopfully with the help and advice i get from members i will get a great set up.

well this is day 3 of my start ( days 1 and 2 are on the hello page)
well day 3 has arrived and i have put in my gravel base ( i was looking at sand for this but a quote of £45 from my local store was what put me off.so for £9 i have coverd it with 8 kg tri colour blend roman gravel. now i have just finished putting in 350 litres of water. and got my new fluval 405 filter on one end and the very cheap second hand ( what a bargin £10) fluval 205 at the other end.
what i must say is the 405 was a dream to get going it worked first time.
just going to put the 300 w heater on and thats it for today.

question

shall i drop some stress coat in it to help neutralizes the chlorine ?

yes, put the stress coat in

well day 4 and the heater is now starting to show that it is working as it now has got a reading.(20 c / 68 f)
so thats ok, 24 more hours and it should be where i want it.
stress coat is in and we now have had water in it for 24 hrs so we are moving along.

Have you thought how you are going to cycle the tank yet? Getting some seachem stability might kickstart your tank. Make sure you have got some test kits as well

well day 5 and the water is now at a steady 26 c 78 f.
going to go to the tropical fish shop tomorrow and start the next stage.
at the moment i am looking into putting the new start up stuff in and then a day or two later putting in some sort of little fish just to get it going.(the shop says put this stuff in and you can put your fish in, but no way will i try that with an oscar)
but i will sort that out tomorrow as i say i am in no hurry to put in an oscar until i know that my test results are ok.
it may be a bit cruel but fish that are around the £1 mark each are just going to be used just to get the tank right.
if they survive then i suppose they will be released into the small tank with the other little fish.

i have test kits that i brought for the other tank so i dont need to get anymore of them.the last kit i brought was only 8 weeks ago so that one will be ok to use.

Excellent! I'd be very interested to hear how you get on. Is it stability you are using, or are you using another product? Good thinking about the Oscar, it's best not to even use them for cycling tanks, even if the water isn't going to be too bad (if this stuff really does work) you may want to consider some tetras, also guppies are quite good as these two fish are very hardy and will be okay if they are exposed to a little ammonia or nitrite. Oscars would be okay but you don't want to take any risks because they can develop problems in the future. You should be okay, get yourself a very small baby Oscar once your readings are showing zero. If you suddenly put a large fishing, you could get some kind of Spike so better safe than sorry.

Anyway, look forward to the next instalment

In a few minutes, we are going to be doing the water change so have a look at the live Oscar Cam

day six.

well i got the seachem stability i got 2 bottles and stuck that in so we will see how it goes.i paid £9 a bottle for this so not cheap but i got 250m a bottle.
also to test the seachem stability out i got 6 neons and 4 guppies and 2 sword tails so i will see how they get on.
they look lost in the big tank (93 gallon)but there in there for a start up only, any (i hope all) that make it for seven days will be rewarded with a home in the (18 gallon)small take.

in hind sight i think i should have got more sword tails instead of the neons as i think the neons might get pulled out up the filters.

i got a good deal on them from the shop 12 fish for £6.

You'll have to let us know how you get on. Have you got some water tests yet? I am very intrigued to know how well the stability works. It will be interesting to see how high the ammonia readings get, if you get any readings. I don't think it's an absolute miracle substance. I think it probably works best with just a few fish so you should be okay. I think if somebody tried to put a large fish in a tank, it wouldn't work, too much waste for it to cope with straight away. Tests for ammonia first and if that is quite low, test for nitrite. If you get a reading of nitrite, you will know that everything is starting to work okay. I reckon after a week of using stability, try testing for nitrates and see if you have any. If you have got a nitrate reading, you know that the whole process is working.

well day seven and all the fish made it through the night.so,so far its so good.
i did a test 1 hour ago and the readings are
ammonia 0.1 nitrite 0 and nitrate 25
i will test it every day to see how we get on for the first few days.

well day 8 and the fish have made it. all are alive.
just finished test no. 2 and the results are slightly different from yesterday.
ammonia 0.1 nitrite 0.1 and nitrate is 50
i see that the nitrite has raised and the nitrate has doubled.

I should do a 25% water change if I was you