Setting up your new Aquarium

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OK so you followed our first part of this small guide to setting up your aquariums pet home, check below for the link to the first part in case you haven't. With the first tage complete, you aquarium is now ready for some fish to populate it. We recommend, especially if this is your first tank, that you buy some hardy variety of fish. These include danios, which are usually silver in color, barbs, gouramis (these can sometimes be aggressive), and other forms of live bearing fish, which means they do not lay eggs. This is because all of these will be able to survive higher levels of ammonia and nitrates in your tank, which is good because it could take some time to regulate these chemical levels.

All of this in mind, we also recommend that you add only about 4 fish at a time, this will cut down on fish loss. Your aquarium's pet will also not like a lot of competition to begin with. To integrate a fish into your aquarium, you need to float the bag, almost all pet stores will send a fish home in a bag, for at least fifteen minutes and no longer than thirty minutes, this will allow the fish to acclimate to the temperature of your aquarium. Now then, when transferring the fish from these bags into your aquariums water, try to allow as little as possible the water from the bag to enter your new fresh environment. This is because the water may have some contaminates or at the least it may disrupt your pH and nitrate levels.

Many people with a new aquarium will also want to feed their fish straight away. Please refrain from this. For the first part, the aquarium's pet will be a bit overwhelmed from the whole experience, and well they most likely will not eat too much anyways. Wait at least two to four hours, and then only feed as much as they will consume in about two to at most five minutes. This is important because with any new aquarium environment, your do not have the proper beneficial bacteria in place to help remove any left over food particles efficiently.

With all of this done, you are well on your way to a happy life with you aquarium's pet. That is not to say you are done yet though. For the first month, you will want to check you water pH level regularly to make sure there are no sudden spikes or fluctuations in the toxicity levels of your aquarium. Your local pet shop or supply store will usually test your water for you. You will also want to change about ten percent of the water after the first week, then begn regular water changes and maintenance as we outlined in our previous article. Good luck and we hope you have happy fish.

p.s. Fish have about a ten second memory, so if you can make them happy every ten seconds....OK but it is a fact.