Pet Help

So you want to set up a fish tank, well the first thing that I will tell you is that you have to be patient and should not jump right into putting fish in your tank. In this article I will be explaining all of the steps to setting up a fish tank for tropical fish only.

When you are selecting an aquarium to buy you must know what kind of fish that are going to be living in it and how big the fish will get. As a simple rule, for every inch of fish that there is there should be 1 gallon of water.

The items that you will need to set up a fish tank are the aquarium, filter pump, heat pump. Optional items that you should get also are gravel, thermometer, lamp, decorations, and a back up filter pump in case the main one goes bad.

Find a space in your home that you want to set up the fish tank at. This should be somewhere that is not in the way and make sure you are happy with the spot because moving a tank can be a pain once you have fish in it.

Next fill the tank up with water to the top, do not worry about putting any conditioner in the water yet as we are only testing to see if the tank has any leaks. Let the water sit in the tank overnight, and in the morning check around the tank for any signs of water, once you are sure there are no leaks you can empty the tank.

When you are waiting to find out if your aquarium had any leaks or not you can start pre-treating gallons of tap water in jugs with water conditioner. One thing I do to speed up the process is add bacteria supplement to the water also, to get the perfect mixture ratio make sure to pay attention to the instructions on the bottle of water conditioner.

Next you can start adding gravel, make sure that you rinse the gravel very good. Since the tank is still empty you can start putting in the gravel and decorations. It is very important to make sure that everything that you put into your fish tank is washed well, as it only takes a little bit of dish soap to kill fish.

Now add the premixed water into the tank, and turn on your filter pump or pumps, heat pumps, and overhead light if you have one. Let the tank cycle for at least a week before adding any fish, as it takes a tank time to complete a full cycle.

After a week of the water cycling you can add a few starter fish, this will help the conditions for future fish a lot better. Once you select a couple of starter fish, keep a close eye on them. I would not recommend added any more fish into the tank for about 4 to 6 weeks.