Freshwater Aquarium Information – Don’t Fall Into These Traps

Home aquarium keeping 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. Aquariums provide stress relief and have a calming effect on people this is why they are commonly seen in doctors and dentist waiting rooms..

On the other side of the coin, cloudy water, diseased and dying fish and straggly plants are the consequence of not starting out right. This will not happen to you if you follow the guidelines described below.

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 it is important for you to realise that a home freshwater aquarium is basically in unstable equilibrium so you need to keep an eye on it constantly. Small aquariums are well known to be more dificult to maintain because they are not easy to achieve balance in and they go out of balasnce very rapidly. An ideal aqaurium size for a beginner should be in the region of 36″ x 12″ x 18″.

Do Not Buy Tank And Fish On the Same Day

This is probably the biggest mistake that you can make. Equilibrium needs to be established in your aquarium before adding any fish, this normally takes up a week to happen. Ideally you should set up your aquarium with everything, including plants but no fish. Leave it like that for a week. Use test strips to check the water condition and monitor its temperature and clarity during that week. Introduce a few cheap fish after everything has stabilised and monitor them for a few days. Having checked that they appear to be fine you can then introduce more fish.

Choose Your Fish With Care

Do not expect all varieties of fish to live in complete harmony in your communtiy tank. You should not leave this to chance. Unfortunately it is generally true to say that if a fish’s mouth is large enough for another fish to enter it then that will happen i.e. it will be eaten! Males of some species fight to the death. Males of certain species hound the females endlessly so it is a good idea to have 2 or 3 females to each male. Some fish are surface swimmers while others prefer to stay near the gravel. Different fish require different conditions (temperature, water ph etc), although this is not normally a major issue it should be considered. Buy fish that are full of life, do not accept any fish that look sickly or have split fins. The best approach is to find a really knowledgeable fish supplier who can advise you about these things.

Do not Overfill your Tank with Fish

Various ‘rules of thumb’ exist for working out the capacity of your tank:

• 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.

Don’t take any of these rules too seriously. It is important that you realise the young fish you buy now will grow considerably and will inevitably require more room. You must take this into account. The best approach to establish maximum fish capacity is to slowly add a few fish over a period of time and monitor water quality.

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 may have heard of aquarium ‘cycling’. This is what the transistion of fish waste to ammonia then nitrite by bacteria then nitrate by other bacteria is called. No outside intervention is necessary for ‘cycling’ in the larger natural environment of lakes and streams. 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 that’s 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.

John Thomson is an aquarium expert. For more great freshwater aquarium information, visit http://www.freshwateraquariumsecretsonline.com.