Freshwater Aquarium Information - 5 Things You Should Know When Setting Up

Freshwater Aquarium Information - 5 Things You Should Know When Setting Up

Aquarium keeping at home can be a wonderful hobby. A well maintained aquarium properly lit can look stunning with crystal clear water, colourful, healthy fish going about their business moving between thriving exotic plants. It's no wonder that aquariums are common place in dentists and doctors waiting rooms because they are well known to provide stress relief, in general they have a calming effect on people. On the other hand, if you haven't started out on the right foot then you could have a nightmare on your hands; cloudy water, diseased and dying fish, straggly plants etc. So make sure you follow the guidelines outlined below and this won't happen to you.

Do Not Buy A So Called Beginners Tank

Small tanks, generally 12 to 18 inches across, are often sold as so called 'beginners tanks' presumably because they are easy to carry out of the shop! However you need to know that a well maintained home aquarium is a delicately balanced ecological system which can easily become unstable. It is a fact that the smaller the aquarium is, the less stable is the balance and the more quickly it can go out of balance. I won't go into the details here, sufficient to say that your first tank should be somewhere around 36" x 12" x 18".

Do not buy your tank and your fish on the same day

This is probably the biggest mistake that you can make. Before any fish enter your aquarium it needs to have been established for at least a few days, preferable a week to achieve some kind of equilibrium. Ideally you should set up your aquarium with everything, including plants but no fish. Leave it like that for a week. During that week you should monitor the temperature and the clarity and condition of the water using test strips. Provided everything has stabilised then introduce a couple of cheap fish and keep an eye on them for a few days. If they appear to be ok then buy and introduce the rest of your fish.

Choose your fish carefully

Do not assume that all of the fish you buy for your community tank will live happily together. This should not be left to chance. Sad to say that generally speaking if a fish is small enough to enter the mouth of another fish then that is what will happen i.e. it will be eaten! Males of some species fight to the death. Females of some varieties can be pestered to despair by the males so it can be good to have a ratio of females to males of certain species of around 2 or 3 to 1. Some fish prefer to stay near the gravel while others prefer to swim near the surface. Different fish require different conditions (temperature, water ph etc), although this is not normally a major issue it should be considered. You should not buy any fish that look sickly or have split fins, always go for the lively ones that are difficult to catch. The best approach is to find a really knowledgeable fish supplier who can advise you about these things.

Do not overstock you tank

There are various 'rules of thumb' for calculating the fish capacity of your tank. Here are some of them:

3 cm of adult fish length per 4 litres of water (i.e., a 6 cm-long fish would need about 8 litres of water)

1 cm of adult fish length per 30 square centimetres of surface area

1 inch of adult fish length per gallon of water

1 inch of adult fish length per 12 square inches of surface area

Do not apply any of these rules too rigorously. Remember that any fish you buy will usually be juveniles that will grow in size and will need more room. You must take this into account. Establishing maximum capacity is often a matter of slowly adding fish and monitoring water quality over time, following a trial and error approach. Monitor the water and change it regularly As I said before, your aquarium is delicately balanced so it is important to check the water condition regularly. You have probably heard of aquarium 'cycling'. This is the name given to the process whereby fish waste turns to ammonia, bacteria turn the ammonia into nitrite and other bacteria turn the nitrite into nitrate. In the natural world this cycle generally works faultlessly without any intervention. In your aquarium however you need to help it along by changing at least 25% of the tank water every week. It is also important that you monitor nitrite and nitrate levels because high levels, particularly of nitrites will kill your fish.

So there you have it. Follow this advice and you should make a good start and have an aquarium that you can be proud of and that will be a joy to look at.

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