Home aquarium keeping can be a wonderful hobby. There is nothing better than to see a beautiful thriving aquarium full of healthy, lively, colourful fish accompanied by thriving live plants. Aquariums provide stress relief and have a calming effect on people this is why they are commonly seen in doctors and dentist waiting rooms..

Altenatively, if you don’t do things right from the start you will have a nightmare on your hands – cloudy water, dead fish, straggly plants etc. By making certain that you take note of the items listed below this will not happen to you.

So Called ‘Beginners Tanks’ Are Not For You

Small tanks, generally 12 to 18 inches across, are often sold as so called ‘beginners tanks’ presumably because they are easy to carry out of the shop! However it is true to say that a home aquarium which is well maintained is a delicately balanced ecological system and it can easily become unstable. The smaller the aquarium the more difficult it is to maintain balance because they are more unstable than larger aquariums and when they go out of balance the deterioration is very swift. I won’t go into the details here, sufficient to say that your first tank should be somewhere around 36″ x 12″ x 18″.

Do not buy your tank and your fish on the same day

This is a big big mistake. Your aquarium has to achieve some kind of equilibrium before you should consider adding any fish, this equilibrium normally takes up to a week to establish. Ideally you should set up your aquarium with everything, including plants but no fish. Leave it like that for a week. During that week you should monitor the temperature and the clarity and condition of the water using test strips. Provided everything has stabilised then introduce a couple of cheap fish and keep an eye on them for a few days. Add more fish only after they appear to be ok.

Choose Your Fish With Care

Do not expect all varieties of fish to live in complete harmony in your communtiy tank. You should not just take a chance on this. Unfortunately it is generally true to say that if a fish’s mouth is large enough for another fish to enter it then that will happen i.e. it is going to be a meal! Some species of fish have males that will fight to the death. The females of some species are chased all the time by the male so there should always be 2 or 3 females to each male in these cases. Fish vary in their preferences some are surface swimmers while others prefer to stay near the bottom. Different fish require different conditions (temperature, water ph etc), although this is not normally a major issue it should be considered. You should not buy any fish that look sickly or have split fins, always go for the lively ones that are difficult to catch. Finding a really helpful fish supplier who is willing to share his knowledge is probably the best way to go.

Do not Overfill your Tank with Fish

There are various ‘rules of thumb’ for calculating the fish capacity of your tank. Here are some of them:

• 3 cm of adult fish length per 4 litres of water (i.e., a 6 cm-long fish would need about 8 litres of water).
• 1 cm of adult fish length per 30 square centimetres of surface area.
• 1 inch of adult fish length per gallon of water.
• 1 inch of adult fish length per 12 square inches of surface area.

It is a mistake to apply any of these rules too strictly. It is important that you realise the young fish you buy now will grow considerably and will inevitably require more room. You must take this into account. Establishing maximum capacity is often a matter of slowly adding fish and monitoring water quality over time, following a trial and error approach.

Monitor the Water and Change it Regularly

It is important to monitor the water condition regularly as your aquarium can rapidly go out of balance and become poisonous to your fish. You may have heard of aquarium ‘cycling’. This is the name given to the process whereby fish waste turns to ammonia, bacteria turn the ammonia into nitrite and other bacteria turn the nitrite into nitrate. In the lakes and streams of the natural world ‘cycling’ works without any need for intervention from outside. In your aquarium however you need to help it along by changing at least 25% of the tank water every week. It is also important that you monitor nitrite and nitrate levels because high levels, particularly of nitrites will kill your fish.

So there it is. By not falling into these traps you will make a good start with your aquarium and end up with a stunningly beautiful addition your home.

John Thomson is an aquarium expert. For more great freshwater aquarium information, visit http://www.freshwateraquariumsecretsonline.com.