Aquarium Care Guide – 20 Easy Tips
There are several hobbies one can have that turn in to real passion some day. One among
them is maintaining an aquarium. This hobby though is a serious one as there is no room for
mistakes else you shall land up harming or killing a living creature.
The first and foremost thing you must understand before deciding to take care of an aquarium
and its fishes is that prior to purchasing the fishes you must prepare the fish tank and make it
apt for the fish to live in. This process needs lot of patience and knowledge else you might land
up killing those beautiful creatures.
For preparing the fish tank you must first add the gravel and all other additives in the tank.
Make sure that all these decorations are rinsed well so that the water is free of all harmful
bacteria. The process of preparing the tank can take anywhere between 24 hours and 4 weeks.
Make sure that you do not use any soap while washing these substrates. Next, fill in the tank
with dechlorinated water. Attach the filters & lighting. Now, allow the tank to cycle until at least
once the water becomes clouded. Then allow the cloud to settle down. Make use of that test
kit to check for the optimal temperature of water and for the sufficient P.H.
Also, be sure that you do not add any new fish to the tank until and unless the water in there is
crystal clear.
Actually, when the aquarium is fully functional, some bacteria support the breakdown of
ammonia in to nitrates. These bacteria are generated from the existing fish hence they are not
there in a non-active fish tank. So, the crux of this explanation is that without any existing fish,
there would be no good bacteria in the tank water.
This is called as the nitrogen cycle. You must know that the nitrogen cycle would not initiate
until & unless you add fish to the tank. Hence, running the empty tank for quite a lot of days
would not do any help.
The nitrogen cycle that takes place in the fish tank clears away the toxic chemicals being
generated in there in to beneficial ones. This cycle generates foam that makes the water cloudy
for sometime. This is a natural process and you do not have to worry if this happens, rather it
proves that the tank is healthy enough for the fish.
Here are some simple points to understand what nitrogen exactly is:
1. Like all living beings the fishes eat food & generate waste or excreta.
2. This waste combines with the excess food that settles down at the base of the tank and
the plant debris forming ammonia in your aquarium.
3. Ammonia is quite toxic and hence pretty harmful for the fishes, therefore we need to
imply a mechanism to break it down.
4. This mechanism is the nitrifying of bacteria.
5. These bacteria turn the ammonia in the aquarium in to nitrites that are rather tolerable to
the fishes.
6. Next, the varied nitrifying bacteria would convert the nitrites in to nitrates that are further
less toxic for the fish & other aquarium life.
7. These nitrates are collected & minimized by filters. They would eventually accumulate in
your tank.
Know Your Fish
Here are some types of fish that we recommend you to place in your aquarium:
1. Hardy fishes like barb, danios, gouramis, and other live bearers are known for their
ability to withstand quite high nitrite levels & ammonia that are generated in a new
aquarium.
2. Check that the ideal way is to introduce only one fish at a time, and gradually increase
the number of fishes in the tank. You could also consider starting with 4 different types
of hardy fishes, one of each type.
3. The right way to add a fish in the tank is that you must afloat the fish in a bag in to the
aquarium for around 15 minutes prior to leaving them in the tank. This would help your
fish get acclimated to the temperature of the water in its new home.
4. Make sure that you do not add the water of the fish bag in to the aquarium as this water
might be contaminated, or would at times affect the temperature of the aquarium and the
P.H. level of the water in there.
5. Before giving the first ever feed to the fish, give it at least two hours to get acquainted
with its new house.
6. While purchasing the first fish of yours, be sure to purchase some food for it. Remember
that you should feed only small amounts of the food initially.
7. The food that remains settles down at the bottom and rots down finally. This rotten food
becomes debris and develops severely toxic chemicals that can kill your fish that is
ammonia. So, try to maintain the least amount of remaining food. This thing must be
taken are of in the newly set up aquariums especially those that lack the nitrifying
bacteria.
8. The trick to do it simply is to watch your fish while feeding them. Only put in the amount
of food it consumes in the first 2-3 minutes, that to only twice a day. In case of food,
