Hello everyone

Some of the basics:
Before adding the fish you want, you have to cycle your tank.
I boil anything that will go in my tank except the fish of course. Gravel, fake plants, etc.
You need a filter and a heater.
Research the fish you're going to buy before you buy them.
Ask lots of questions on the forum.
Take advise from the lfs with a grain of salt.
You will also need a syphon which you can buy or make, for water changes.
Also, crucial!!! Water conditioner to add to tap water so you don't kill you fish.
If you plan on having live plants, you need lights.
A thermometer to keep track of your water temp.
A net.
Oh yeah, and food.
There is a good sticky about cycling your tank. Basically you can do a fishy or fishless cycle, or the best is if you know someone with an established tank you could put there filter media in your tank and it will be cycled instantly. Just make sure you add fish with the filter media or the bacteria will die and your back to square one. Once your tank is cycled ( 0ppm amonia, 0ppm nitrites) you need to do a water change to get your nitrates (different from nirites) down to less than 20 ppm. You will be needing to do 30% water changes once to twice a week to keep your nitrates down for the rest of the time you have the tank. You can buy a test kit (liquid is better than stripps) or your lfs should test youre water for free.
When you do water changes use the syphon to suck the junk out of the gravel.
Like I said before, make sure you really research your fish before you get them. find out what water peramiters they prefer and what are good tank mates for them. There are also invertabrates like snails and shrimp that some people like.
Most likely you're going to want to get some kind of catfish for clean up duty and some suckers for algea. 3 or 4 cory cats and 3or 4 oto's should be good. Just my opinion. Next, you need to decide what type of fish you want to have, for compatibility reasons. Do you want to have a comunity tank, or do you want to keep cichlids. There is a link to some pics of my fish in my 29 gallon community tank in my sig if you want to take a look. A good site that has pics and info on a lot of fish is www.liveaquaria.com
Hope this gets you started, and good luck!
Remember to ask lots of questions on the forum, there's no such thing as a stupid question.
P.S. IT huh. Can you fix my computer. I'm studying to be an electrical engineering technician btw.

LiveAquaria.com is a good site for basic research, however -- and if you are an IT guy I shouldn't have to tell you this -- find sources to back the data. Just emailed them today about 3 major faux pas on their site I think they're starting to hate me, but there are a lot of people here that use that site as gospel and its easier to have them fix their info than to tell people here that its wrong.

That being said, this is the sticky that stingray was referring to:
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26051

On to your fish of choice: is your tank tall? Angels really need height and I'm not sure of the standard UK dimensions.

PS
I was a Network Analyst in another life, a Help Desk Technician, VP of Web Design and various other IT related stuffs. Glad to meet another geek Oh, my husband is also a geek

LilveAquaria.com

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Liveaquaria.com

Like roan said, you should never use one source exclusively, always research your research.

I know you're probrably anxious to put fish in but you REALLY REALLY must cycle it first. Have patience. If you put any rocks in make sure they are non-reactive to the water and won't change the PH. One way to test if it will or not is drip some vinegar on it and if it sizzles then its not safe. Generally any metal or other objects that you want to put in if they are not designed for aquariums they may leech things into the water that may be harmful for your fish.

Oh and when you eventually clean your filter media DO NOT USE TAP WATER use tank water to rinse it out or all your good bacteria will die.

Don't cheap out on a heater. A crappy heater may be a fire hazard or make you fish soup. If you plan to keep bottom dwelling fish such as catfish i'd advise against gravel that has sharp edges. if its not sharp then its okay.

Oh and stock slowly. dont put in a lot of fish at once.

FreddytheFish said:

Liveaquaria.com

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Yer fired

Roan

Onikun said:

. . .If you plan to keep bottom dwelling fish such as catfish i'd advise against gravel that has sharp edges. if its not sharp then its okay. . .

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Ah, the ubran legend arises.

There is no concrete evidence to support that hypothesis at all. I've done some research on this subject and I've yet to find even ONE reference where someone with no water quality issues and with animals with "perfect" barbels had any damage whatsoever. Everything I've read suggests:

1. The animals' barbels were damaged prior to purchase and deteriorated in the tank
2. The water was not acceptable and the animal's barbels were infected with bacterial rot. Cory barbels are a great indication that water quality is an issue

I've had my entire school of cories on flourite for 2 months and there is no evidence at all that any of them have damaged barbels. My peppered cory has has REALLY long barbels and he's been on flourite for 3 months. He was my first purchase. Nothing wrong with my Fu Manchu.

I check them regularily because of that stupid myth.

Roan

if your using a Rio 125 form Juwel you can fit an angel in as a tall tank. I got two in my Rio 125 and 5 in my Vision 450. The ones in my rio have just bread for the first time so they must be comfortable. They ate the eggs though :-(