Freshwater Aquarium Information – Don’t Fall Into These Traps

Home aquarium keeping can be a wonderful hobby. There is nothing better than to see a beautiful thriving aquarium full of healthy, lively, colourful fish accompanied by thriving live plants. Aquariums are a common sight in doctors and dentists waiting rooms, this is because they are well known to provide stress relief and to have a calming effect on people.

On the other side of the coin, cloudy water, diseased and dying fish and straggly plants are the consequence of not starting out right. Make sure you do what’s described below and this will not 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 it is true to say that a home aquarium which is well maintained is a delicately balanced ecological system and it can easily become unstable. 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. 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. 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. During that week you should monitor the temperature and the clarity and condition of the water using test strips. Introduce a few cheap fish after everything has stabilised and monitor them for a few days. Only after they look fine should you go out and buy any more fish.

Choose Your Fish Carefully

Do not expect all varieties of fish to live in complete harmony in your communtiy tank. You should not leave this 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’ll be eaten! Some species of fish have males that will 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. Something to think about, although probably not of great concern, is that different fish require different water conditions such as temperature and pH. You should not buy any fish that look sickly or have split fins, always go for the lively ones that are difficult to catch. Finding a really helpful fish supplier who is willing to share his knowledge is probably the best way to go.

Do not Overfill your Tank with Fish

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. It is important that you realise the young fish you buy now will grow considerably and will inevitably require more room. It is very important to 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

It is important to monitor the water condition regularly as your aquarium can rapidly go out of balance and become poisonous to your fish. 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 much larger natural environment this ‘cycle’ does not need any outside intervention. It is necessary to change at least 25% of the aquarium water to help it along. Levels of nitrate and nitrite in the water need to be checked regularly because high levels of these, particularly nitrites, will kill your fish.

So there it is. By not falling into these traps you will make a good start with your aquarium and end up with a stunningly beautiful addition your home.

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