Tropical Fish Aquarium The Beginning

However, before you go jumping the gun and spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on this expensive hobby; it would be prudent to learn the basics of how to take care of your fish and provide them the environment that they need to stay healthy.

• Equipment you will need:
• Aquarium – wash with water only, (do not use any soaps), before filling it!
• Aquarium gravel - to 1.5 pounds of gravel per gallon of water. Also, be sure to wash your gravel in a strainer or something before putting it in your tank.
• Aquarium filter
• Heater – make sure that the heater you use is capable of heating the size of your aqaurium
• Decorations – (like a sunken Spanish treasure ship!)
• Testing kit – for testing the water's ph balance and nitrogen content
• Fish Food
• Vacuum
• Fish net
• Glass scrubber

That's quite a list and it's only the beginners list! As you grow your aquarium and learn more about your new hobby, you'll want to add “extras”.

In order to have a successful freshwater tropical fish tank you will have to work at it. Once a week, or at most once every two weeks, you will need to perform some kind of maintenance on the tank. Most of the time you will be performing water changes.

Try to have in mind what kind of fish you're going to want to have in your aquarium because that will determine the size of the tank you'll need. Some fish only grow to be an inch or two, whereas other types of tropical fish can grow 12 or 13 inches or more in length! If this is your first time purchasing an aquarium, it may be a good idea to start with a 10 or 20 gallon aquarium and stock it with some of the smaller and hardier species.

Consider where you are going to place your aquarium. If you put it in front of a window or near a drafty door, you'll have problems maintaining the temperature of your tank. Try to find a place away from these problem areas.

Once you have everything set up, decorations, water filtrations system, heater and your tank filled; wait. You need to wait several days for your aquarium to have completely filtered and processed the water in the tank. Once that occurs – you're ready to add some life to your tank.

Add only 1-2 fish to your tank at a time. Allow the bag of fish to float in the tank for about 15 minutes to the fish can get acclimated to the temperature of their new home. Then add a little of the tank water to the bag in order for your fish to get used to the ph of the aquarium. Afer another 10 minutes or so, you can release your fish into their new home. Don't feed them on this first day as they will most likely be stressed and they just need to get used to the new environment.

You now have a live working aquarium and it only needs regular maintenance for you to be able to enjoy it year round.