Regular visitors will have probably noticed something rather different about the Practical Fishkeeping site in the past couple of days.
After almost of year of hard work, we've finally launched our new website and it seems to be going down very well with readers.
The site, which now includes a massive 12,000 pages of articles, news, reviews and expert advice, is one of the world's biggest aquarium websites and regularly gets between 75,000-125,000 visitors every month.
The new site includes a massive number of additional features, including a new members' area which gives readers access to premium content, and provides the opportunity to take part in regular competitions and giveaways exclusive to this site.
What's new?Even more calculators
We've now got by far the world's largest selection of fishkeeping calculators. These have all been upgraded and can now deal with US gallons, as well as metric and Imperial, so users in every country should be able to understand the results.
New convertors
We've added a brand new section containing a dozen calculators designed for converting different units. If you need to work out how what 25 litres is in US gallons, or what a TDS reading of 344 means in dGH, this is the place to go.
Fish identification tools
We created a new electronic dichotomous key system to allow you to identify a range of popular aquarium fishes. We'll be adding to this over the next few months.
Your letters
Read the views of other fishkeepers about the hobby and find out what's happening in their tanks in this new readers' letters section.
Aquarium plants
Details on how to grow aquarium plants and how to aquascape your tank in our new section on aquarium plants.
Fishkeeping glossary
We've added hundreds more definitions to our Fishkeeping glossary so you can swot up on the lingo. It now includes over 500 pages of information.
Basic fishkeeping advice
New to fishkeeping? Check out our articles for newcomers so you avoid the pitfalls in this new section designed for beginners to the hobby.
Interesting Imports
Matt Clarke's regular look at the new, rare or unusual fish currently available in the UK's shops now has a special section to itself in our members' area.
Dyedfishometer
Find out how many shops we've got to sign our pledge not to sell fish injected with dye. We're nearly there! Can you help us get every shop in the UK to sign the pledge?
Live bookmarks
Download the excellent Firefox browser and get instant updates whenever we add anything to the site. You'll find this site looks better in Firefox than any other browser.
Affilliate programme
If you run a fishkeeping website you can now earn cash from it by advertising subscriptions to Practical Fishkeeping. You'll get a healthy commission each time someone takes out a subscription!
Fish Shop Finder
We've called over 1000 shops to get details on what fish they sell and asked them to sign our pledge not to stock dyed fish. Our Fish Shop Finder is by far the UK's largest and most accurate database of aquarium stores.
Fish Shop Finder
The UK's biggest fish shop directory now gives you driving directions from your door.
We're standards-compliant
The new site has been programmed in XHTML and CSS and we've ditched the old-fashioned tables-based design used by most of the other sites on the web. The pages are coded to World Wide Web Consortium standards. This means they're (largely) error free. If they look funny in your browser then it's the browser's fault, not ours.
Why register?The members' area on the site is a new addition and you'll now need to provide a few details in order to access certain bits of the website.
By registering you'll be able to take part in exclusive competitions and giveaways which we hope to run every month.
If you register now you'll have the opportunity to take part in a competition to win a Hagen aquarium, and stacks of extras, worth over 500!
If you're in the UK, we'd like to know your postcode. If you provide your postcode we can give you directions to any of the 1100+ shops listed in our Fish Shop Finder directly from your door. You'll also be able to find out about Shoptours, news and club events that are specific to your area.
We won't bombard you with spam, or sell your details on to anyone else. You can opt-in or opt-out of receiving any form of communications from us - but we're sure that you'll appreciate our regular e-newsletter, so we'd highly recommend signing up for it!
Sounds good, doesn't it? Why not register now, and let us know what you think of the site in the special survey we're running?