Fishkeeping is a fun and rewarding hobby. It can also be challenging to set up, but once it's up and running it's simple to maintain. This website documents how to set up a tropical freshwater aquarium based on information collected from various books and the internet.
Equipment and Accessories
Fish Tank: The tank you get should be the biggest you can afford because the larger the tank the easier it is to maintain. It also will drive the strength of the other equipment.
Hood with a Light and Timer: The good light source is fluorescent light because it does not generate as much heat as incandescent light. The strength can be 1.5 watts per gallon and give the fish a healthy day/night cycle by using a timer to give them about 10 hours of artificial light per day.
Water: Use spring water for the original tank fill up and spring water for water changes. For evaporation fills spring or distilled water is fine. However, if you would like to use local tap water you can after it's been treated. Treating it means to de-chlorinate it. The chlorine in the water will kill the fish, by putting a few drops per gallon of a water treatment liquid in your tap water you can prevent this. Some people simply age their water by leaving it in a bucket with a large surface area for 48 hours. This does cause the chlorine do dissipate, however some cities are using chloramine in the water which needs to be treated rather than aged. Your local tap water may also contain phosphate, nitrate and other chemicals. You can call your City's Water Department and get the specifics of your water's chemicals to help you decide if tap water will be okay to use.
Automatic Heater: An automatic heater is needed in any tropical tank. The fish have temperature requirements that must be met for them to survive. Choose a submersible one and place it relatively near moving water. Most houses are kept warm enough to only require heater strength of 5 watts per gallon, but this heater strength chart and temperature information is very useful.
Aquarium Thermometer: A thermometer is needed to verify the accuracy of the automatic heater and to know if the temperature gets to be too high or too low.
Power Filter: The function of power filters is to pull in water from the aquarium and force it through media to filter out floating debris and certain chemicals and send the water through biological filtration devices such as a bio-wheel. By doing so they keep the temperature constant throughout the tank and due to the surface agitation caused they help oxygenate the water. The filters are rated in the number of gallons per hour that they can process, get one strong enough to filter 6 times the tank capacity per hour.
Gravel: If you use a power filter gravel is mostly for decoration and can be about 1 inch deep. For pounds needed to get 1 inch multiply your tank's length times width then divide that by 20.
Plants: Most tanks have live plants rather than plastic ones. They give the aquarium a realistic look, they're good for the fish, and help maintain the water quality.
Rock/Cave: In addition to plants fish like rocks and caves. A hollowed out rock can double as both. These provide hiding places for the fish which helps in stress relief. It's by using the tank decorations that the fish stake out territories.
Background Wallpaper: The back of the aquarium will have all the wires from the heater, hood, power filter and the power filter itself hanging out. This looks unsightly so you should get a background wallpaper or a poster cut to fit the tanks back dimensions.
Maintenance Items: A fish net, water siphoning tube, algae scrubber, and filter cleaning brush are needed to keep the tank clean.
Water Testing Kits: These kits will be crucial as you start your tank. There is a process all new tanks go through to make them suitable homes for aquatic life that require water testing. You'll also need them to measure water quality and parameters on an ongoing bases. The top tests are to measure pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels.
Setting Up the Aquarium
First, put all the equipment and accessories together and read all of the instructions on the electrical equipment. The tank should be placed on a sturdy surface or a stand made for the size of your tank. Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon so after it's set up you can't just move it like furniture. Keep it away from sunlight or the quantity of algae that you will inevitably have will be increased. Then fill the tank with gravel and add the water. It's a good idea to put a plate on top of the gravel and then pour water on to the plate, that will prevent the gravel from scattering.
Then start aquascaping by adding the plants, rocks, caves, and leave a large portion of the tank's bottom free as a swimming area. The heater and power filter should be added next and the background wallpaper is usually last.
Only turn the heater on after it has been submerged for 15 to 20 minutes and set it to 78°F, and if you need to remove it you should turn it off for 15 minutes first. Hook the timer up to the lights and set it for 10 hours a day and the power filter will need some water poured into it so it starts pumping once plugged in.
Required Types of Filtration and Cycling
Chemical - Activated carbon should be used to give your water that crystal clear look. It's stored in a filter media that can be placed in the power filter and acts upon the water sent through it. Activated carbon adsorbs dissolved organic compounds from your water such as arsenic, bleach, chloramine, chlorine, chromium, colors, dyes, insecticide, odors, monochloramine, and tin.
Mechanical - This will filter out the larger floating debris. A power filter is an excellent way to provide mechanical filtration and supply the tank with a water current. Furthermore, the surface agitation caused be the pump results in increased oxygenation for the aquarium.
Biological - This is the most crucial. Biological filtration means having beneficial bacteria colonies establish themselves in your tank to process the fish waste. This is called cycling the tank to establish a nitrogen cycle. Putting your tank through this cycling ordeal is also known as going through new tank syndrome and most of it is automated by nature, you simply add fish and monitor the progress by using water test kits. Try not to do any water changes durring the cycling period or it will extend the time needed for completion.
After the tank is set up add enough hardy fish for 3 to 4 inches per 10 gallons.
There will be ammonia produced by the fish immediately and it will keep increasing. It's very toxic to the fish. After a few days the ammonia will reach such high levels that oxygen using bacteria will develop on aquarium surfaces with a good flow of oxygen rich water like the glass, bio-wheel, filter media, gravel and begin to transform ammonia into nitrite, which is also toxic to fish but to a slightly lesser degree.
After a few more days another type of oxygen-using bacteria will develop in the same places that will transform the nitrite into nitrate. This nitrate is only toxic to fish in very high quantities.
Nitrate levels must be controlled by periodic partial water changes. The only things that takes away the nitrate naturally are plants.
During this period check the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH levels every day. The average cycle time is about 30 days and there will be a point when the water becomes very cloudy. This cloudiness is a normal bacterial bloom and only lasts a couple of days.
Note: Zeolite removes toxic ammonia from the water. Avoid using it during the cycling period since it will make the stages take longer. Later, once you start using zeolite in the filter media (along with the activated carbon), be sure to keep it fresh. As a precaution, place an ammonia reader in the tank so that you'll notice if ever the zeolite is full since you'll need to replace it immediately before the ammonia spike harms the fish.
Nitrate is the cycle's end product and plants including algae uses nitrate as a food source. Algae will develop in all tanks. The task will be to keep it under control. It actually consumes harmful chemicals (ammonia, nitrate) as plants do and is a food source for grazing fish. You can encourage algae growth in certain parts of the aquarium, if it's growing on rocks, decorations, and the glass, then by periodically cleaning the glass the on-going growth should be focused on the rocks and decorations because the places with established algae will absorb the nutients before they can be used by other areas.
Once the tank is cycled then the bacteria will be able to process newly produced ammonia immediately and you should not see spikes in ammonia or nitrite. You just need to ensure the bacteria have enough waste to process and that the quantity of fish is not increased to quickly. Every time a new fish is added there is a mini-cycle. However, since at that point both kinds of bacteria are in the tank it will not be noticeable. You can then add one or two fish every 3 days and tank should absorb the increased waste production level well.
Power Filter: The function of power filters is to pull in water from the aquarium and force it through media to filter out floating debris and certain chemicals and send the water through biological filtration devices such as a bio-wheel. By doing so they keep the temperature constant throughout the tank and due to the surface agitation caused they help oxygenate the water. The filters are rated in the number of gallons per hour that they can process, get one strong enough to filter 6 times the tank capacity per hour.
