Starting an Aquarium

Considering your luck with computers, I feel bad for the fish....

 

lol. He beat me to it.

Dammit, Pun... READ!!!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+"set+up+an+aquarium"

 

My first hint to you... if you set up an aquarium "properly", you won't be able to put fish into it for at least 2-4 weeks, so you have time. If you do it improperly, you can just throw them in...

How big's the tank?

 

Congrats on the Aquarium. Here are a few things to get you started...

If the aquarium is new, just rinse it with water from the hose. You can use a new sponge or paper towels if you want. Make sure you rinse the gravel out first. Put the gravel in a pot (spaghetti pot?) and fill it up with water from a hose shoved to the bottom till the pot starts overflowing (do this outdoors). Keep stirring the gravel until the water running through it is (more or less) clear. You should have enough gravel for a depth of at least two or three inches over the bottom or under gravel filter plates.

A spot without much sun is good... Make sure the tank is level before you fill it with water. I can't emphasize that enough! As for what to put in first...if you have an under-gravel filter, assemble it and put that in first. Then take your rinsed-out gravel (see above) and put it in over the under gravel filter plates. If you have an outside filter (canister or over-the-side), just put the gravel on the bottom.

Next, decorate the tank with whatever plastic plants and ornaments (driftwood, rocks, etc...) that you want. Since you are new to aquariums, stick with plastic plants. If you put wood in your tank, it’s probably best to stick to the kind you buy at a fish store. Same with rocks. If you are going to put rocks in from your garden, make sure they are VERY clean and it would be a real good idea to ask your fish store if they think its okay first (i.e. you don't want to put anything that will dissolve or change the water chemistry). DO NOT put seashells in your freshwater tank. Now is a good time to put the heater in the tank but DO NOT TURN IT ON YET. If you are using an external filter, put that together and add it. Also, add your thermometer now as well (if it's a floating one, you can wait till you get some water in the tank).

When you fill your tank (a hose is fine), it’s not a bad idea to put a small saucer (tea saucer?) on the gravel and let the hose hit that first otherwise the force of the water will totally mess up all your decorations. When the tank is about half full, check out your decorations to make sure they are where you want them to be and that they look okay. Move your rocks and plants if necessary. BTW, the water will be a cloudy despite the fact that you rinsed your gravel out. This is okay. You can never seem to completely rinse your gravel out ahead of time and the water will clear in a little bit (overnight?). Also, if you try to do terraces with the gravel, make sure they are supported with rocks, slate or whatever. If you make the gravel slope without support it will slowly but surely level out over time.

Once your tank is full, turn everything on (filter, light, heater). BTW, don't run your heater unless it is submerged according to its directions. See what temperature the water is and adjust your heater accordingly. If your heater has degrees on it, don't trust them. If the water is below, say, 78 degrees F adjust the knob on the heater until the light comes on. Keep doing that until the temperature is about 78 degrees. If it goes over and the light is still on, turn the heater down. You will have to play with it until you get it right. It's not that big of a deal.

Now's a good time to add chlorine remover. You can get it at most any pet store. I use cheap ZIP drops. They work perfectly fine for me. Add them according to the instructions whenever you add new water to your tank.

As for cycling the tank, I always put a few (three or four) Zebra Danios. They are cheap and tough fish and should last the cycle. Let them live in the tank for a month before you add any new fish. Really, to do cycling "right" you would test your water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (see below) until you knew the cycle was complete but if you let those fish live in the tank for a month you're probably okay. After a month, you can add more fish but add them gradually. Find a good fish store (Village Tropical Fish is my favorite) and get advice from them on what fish would be good for a beginner with a new tank.

This is kind of complicated. Okay. Fish piss and poop in the water. The main constituent of this is ammonia which is poisonous to the fish. The "cycle" (or nitrogen cycle) is what you do to prepare your tank (really your filter) to deal with this ammonia. Bacteria in your filter (or your gravel if you use an under gravel filter) convert the ammonia from fish waste into Nitrite (which is also poisonous to fish). Other bacteria convert the Nitrite into Nitrate. Nitrate isn't nearly as poisonous to fish as ammonia and nitrite are and it's this bacterium that keeps your fish from polluting the tank with their wastes. The "cycle" is what you do to a new tank to build up these bacteria in the filter so it can handle the wastes. The reason you only add a few fish for the first month is to allow sufficient bacteria to build up to handle a larger fish load. If you were to add a bunch of fish right away you would have an ammonia spike without sufficient bacteria to deal with it and the fish could possibly die from ammonia poisoning. People get away with not cycling their tank properly sometimes and, other times, they lose all their fish. If you want to be safe and do it right, wait a month before adding more fish.

Here is a link with more info....

You don't need to add any chemicals once your tank is going. The only think is to add more de-chlorinator when you add new water. You should probably do a partial water change at least once a month (some people do them weekly! I do them every other week). You do a partial water change by draining out some of the tank's water (about 20%) and the re-filling the tank. You do this to remove the nitrate from the water that builds up over time. I use a rubber filter hose to siphon water into a five-gallon bucket (which I then use to water my plants with) then fill up with a hose. Water changes are always a good thing to do. Some people never do them and their tanks seem to work all right but it's really better to do them at least occasionally. I should point out that if you get your tank set up properly with an appropriate fish load for its size the only regular mainenance you will have to do is this partial water change (you can "vacuum" the gravel while you are siphoning water out). If your tanks not getting too much light you shouldn't have algae problems and the water changes should prevent any serious water chemestry problems from developing.

You can add more fish as soon as cycling is complete. Just don't add too many at one time!

Also, be patient and don't get frustrated. It's not really that much work once everything gets going. Be prepared to lose fish occasionally as well.

These are general instructions. If you let me know the size of your tank and the kind of filter you have, I can get more specific. Also, my tank has been established for about four or five years now so if I've forgotten anything about <i>setting up</i> a new tank anyone feel free to contribute!

One more thing! Make friends with some guys at a local fish store and use them for advice! That's what they are paid to do!

 

A cool idea is to buy a poster of a city like houston at night and put it behind your tank. Run some bubbles along the back wall. Looks very cool with the light on.

As for your fish, I usually let the tank settle for one day after dechlorinating.

Don't ever buy a snail to put in there. You will have a Cat and the Hat situation very quickly. Snails multiply like bad passes and you will never ever get rid of them.

I like to turn my filter off during feeding to keep the food from getting pushed into the water. Or you can buy my invention called fish food on a string. Nobody has bought the copyrights from me Sucker fish help clean the tank too.

But some hardy fish to start. Don't buy any fish that are soft and wussies.

 

111chase111 just told you the whole deal, stick with that for now...and go chase some of the links from google.

If you have any questions past that...put em here and Im sure one of us can handle it.


good job chase..

 

One tip: Don't overfeed your fish. They will die.

(mine did)

RIP Brightsteel & Soulreaver. +++++

 

MURDERER!!!

 

Note -- the chlorine evaporates out of the water in a day or two, if left open to the air. Fill a clean, designated bucket, and let it sit for 48 hours in the room. This avoids any stress on the fish from the chlorine & declorinator. It also allows the water to reach room temperature, allowing you to avoid any shock from the difference in temperature of the water coming out of the tap.

 

FYI -- start with cheap, pretty fish, until you get the hang of it. Also, talk to the pet store owner about the agressiveness of the fish -- mix angel fish with, well, just about anything else, and you'll have some very full angel fish.

 

This is true, but dangerous.

There are 2 main chemicals water treatment plants add to water for killing bacteria. One is chlorine which does does "evaporate out of the water" as you stated. The second is chloramine - this does not "evaporate out of the water". To my knowledge, the only way you can find out (short of chemical analysis) which are being used is by calling your local water plant.

Better adivce : use a dechlorinator.

 

fish need water...so don't take them out and lay them down on the couch to watch football with you. 'cause you might fall asleep or something...and then like roll over on them. and fish aren't good at sustaining a lot of weight either. oh, yeah...and don't feed them rum. good luck!

 

Future Lil Pun thread

MY FISH IS SWIMMING SLOW!!!
I tried cleaning and that didnt work, any suggestions?
Poor fish.

 

Use Amquel. It gets rid of chlorine, chloramine, and breaks down other crap in the water. Buy online... it can be cheaper by the gallon.

So now tell me how many gallons is your tank, dang it!

 

It really depends on the size of your fish. I seem to remember some rule about one inch of fish per gallon of water as a good rule of thumb. So, if you get small fish, you could keep ten of them.

Also, smaller tanks are harder to maintain, IMO, than larger tanks. More water means it takes longer for something to go wrong (water changes go faster in smaller tanks, though).

Set your tank up like I mentined and let it run for a couple of days so you can make sure it looks the way you want (that way you don't re-arrange the tank too much after you put fish in). Amquel is good stuff but you don't need it by the gallon. One bottle will last a LONG time as you generally put one drop in per gallon to deal with the chlorine. Also, buying online is cheaper but since you're new, I'd suggest buying from a store in order to reward the shop for the good advice they will give you.

When you add fish, float the bag in the water for at least 20 minutes so the water in the bag adjusts to the same temperature as the water in the tank. Personally, I float a bag of new fish for about 20 minutes, then I open it up and add a few cups of water from the tank to the bag and let if keep floating. Over an hour I'll keep adding water from the tank to the bag in order to acclimate the new fish to my tank's water (which has a lower pH then Houston tap water). Then I'll catch the fish in a net and put them in my tank. I never add the water from the pet store into my tank.

Some people have a spare tank set up and will actually put new fish in the spare tank and observe them for a week before putting them in their main tank. This is to avoid introducing a diseased fish into an otherwise healthy aquarium. I've never done this and have so far been lucky.

One thing you've noticed is that for every ten aquariests, there are ten opinions on how to do something. Pick the advice that seems most logical to you and over time you'll get experience and figure it all out. It's really not that hard. Feed your fish twice a day, do a partial water change occasionally and don't let the temperature fluctuate too much.