Should me and my house mates buy an aquarium..?
26 February 2009
8 Comments
Home Aquarium
My roomates and I are deciding to buy an aquarium with a few small fishes...Would this be a lot to take care of on our heads...what all should we keep in mind..
I have moved into a new house and me and my house mates are looking to buy an aquarium with a few small fish.
Would we be taking to much on trying to keep an aquarium? What should we keep in mind?
£12.59
No u just have to feed them every day.
and with a new tank u want to keep it running a few days without no fish and then put like a cheap fish in it like a goldfish and if it stays alive than your good to put the fish that u want in it.
Once the tank is set up all that has to be done each day is feed the fish and check the equipment is working, And you have to syphon the gravel whilst doing a 20% water change, Also keep in mind that you would have 2-3 electical pieces of equpiment on 24-7 so it would put your electicity up a little,
Good luck
~ GG
The main things for you to read and learn
1. Set up your tank with and use a water treatment, a filter, heater, bit of gravel, artificial plants and an ancient ruin decoration (optional) and a couple of zebra danios (they are pretty hardcore fish), get yourself an ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kit, as soon as your readings of ammonia and nitrites are at 0, and your nitrates start to raise, you can start adding other fish,
Here is a site that explains it in detail
2. Do regular waterchanges after you have finished the cycle and you have more fish, the recommendation is a partial waterchange of 25% weekly with a gravelsiphon
3. Dont overfeed your fish, only twice a day what they will eat in a period of 3-5 min at each feeding
4. Dont put your tank near a window where sun gets to eat, that causes algae growth
5. Leave your light ONLY 10-12 hours on during the day and turn it off at night for 12-14 hours (a timer would certainly help)
6. when you buy fish, always check what you get, they are categorized into tropicals, semi-aggressive, aggressive, coldwater fish, always get fish from only one category
7. Good starter fish are for a 10 gallon tank:
6 neon tetras (they are schooling fish)
2 cory doras, like a pepper cory (bottom feeder)
1 male betta OR 3 female bettas (never put 2 males together or male&female)
8. these fish are all tropical and require a temperature of 76-82 degrees, so you will need a thermometer as well to check your temperature
9. A good thing to do is buying an complete aqarium kit, which comes with the tank itself, filter, heater, hood and light bulbs
10. Also after you added fish you have to replace your carbon cartridge every 4-6 weeks
Hope all that info helps
Good luck
An aquarium is a brilliant idea! All it needs is for the fish to be fed daily and the fish tank cleaned every once in a while, its not hard to take care of. Just make sure that you put the right fish together and in the right climate of water; the fish could eat each other!
The main thing to keep in mind when you are setting up a tank with roomates is to designate a feeder. If every one feeds the fish without realising the other may have fed them you could run into allsorts of problems!
Other things you need to keep in mind:
Bigger tanks are always better.
Bigger filters are always better.
More expensive fish are not always better.
Learn about the nitrogen cycle. Here is a brief overview on reducing nitrate levels in aquariums
As long as you are careful with the fish you choose it will be ok. Big fish like Arowana, Oscar etc are pretty hard to maintain. This doesnt mean you cant have nice fish though, check out Bettas, different types of goldfish and tetras. Filtration and diet is key for these types of fish
If you buy exotic fish that often live in warm tropical waters, the tanks are much more difficult to maintain.
However, big supply shops often have state of the art tanks that have greatly reduced the burden.
The only other issue is where you get the water, cause it often must be treated to remove town added chlorine and flouride……there are products that work for that but you must follow the instructions EXACTLY….
If its for fish like goldfish…Hell, you can just drop those little bad boys in there and fill the thing with toilet water and the fish will probably outlive you!
Fish are actually quite easy to look after as pets go!
Keep it out of Sunlight or Algae will grow very quickly! Dont overcrowd it with fish.. a 10g is OK for 10 fish and so on.. Fill it with water and add a chemical to get out the chlorine, but wait a few days to a week before you put any fish in. If you are just starting out, buy the cheap fish first..(goldfish, feeder fish and the like) so you dont spend a large amount, only to have them die on you. Also.. a couple of (Catfish) are funny to watch.. and there tough Lil guys.. mine have survived a few moves, water changes, etc.. and they still have outlived all of my expensive purchases over the years! Avoid Snails.. as they will multiply quickly.. and never put in live plants from a pond or lake, as you will be inundated with snails quickly! I made that mistake, left the aqurium outside all winter.. and they came back again! Only when I scrubbed it with an SOS pad.. did I finally get rid of them! Stick to artificial aquarium plants, they still look great! Once you have it established after a few months.. then try some of the more expensive fish! Six or 8 Tetras look very smart.. as they swim in a school and look more natural! Gud Luck and Have Fun!
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