In This Post:
– Set up a fish aquarium
– Maintenance of an aquarium
Keeping fish in an aquarium is a great hobby for children and adults alike. Watching fish through the glass walls of the aquarium delights children and is a great learning activity for them. For adults, looking at the swimming fish in an aquarium can reduce stress levels. However, just like any other pet, keeping fish as a pet is a great responsibility. That is why, before you purchase a fish tank, you should consider all aspects – from setting up an aquarium at home to its routine maintenance – in order to keep the underwater community happy. Let us take a look at some of the best tips to maintain a fish aquarium.
Tips to Maintain Your Fish Aquarium
As a general rule of thumb, you should invest in a larger fish tank, as more space means the fish can enjoy a natural habitat. In this blog, we will discuss ways to set up a home aquarium and your fish tank cleaning routine. Before we explore the various tips to maintain a fish aquarium, let us first take a look at the items needed for a fish aquarium at home.
General Items Required for a Fish Aquarium
- Glass fish tank
- Suitable stand, if necessary
- Gravel (washed thoroughly)
- Three-stage filtration mechanism
- Lighting
- Siphon cleaning device and a fish net
- Decorative plants
- Heater, if you have tropical fish
- Water conditioner that dechlorinated tap water to make it safe for fish
- Fish Food
When you have the above items ready, it is time to set up the fish tank.
Setting up a Home Aquarium
It is important to choose the location where you will set up a home aquarium. Place it on a flat surface, where there is no direct sunlight, or there will be excessive algae growth. It should be near an electric socket, but don’t keep it near an air conditioner. Make sure to keep the aquarium in a stable place.
Add around 2 pounds of gravel to your aquarium. Clean the gravel before putting it in. The gravel should form a slope towards the front of the aquarium. Now, start filling the aquarium with water at room temperature. Keep a clean dish on top of the gravel so that it doesn’t get displaced when you start filling up the fish tank.
Keynote: Don’t fill the aquarium with untreated tap water. Make sure the water you are adding has been treated with a dechlorinator or else it can kill your fish.
When the fish tank is half full, you can now add aquatic plants to decorate it. Locate large plants towards the back of the aquarium and the smaller plants towards the front. This way, the fish will have a greater area for swimming. Continue filling the aquarium until it is full.
Filtration Mechanism in an Aquarium
Some of the best tips to maintain a fish aquarium includes installing a three-stage filter to the fish tank. It is crucial to maintain clean, debris-free water for your pets. That is why a 3-stage filter is an ideal filtration system for your fish tank. Here are the details of the aquarium:
Mechanical
This filter helps clean out big particles and debris from water, making it cleaner and safer for the fish inside the aquarium. This is the physical filtration stage and it acts like the filter for the coffee machine. This traps the particles inside the mechanical filter, allowing only clean water to pass through. These mechanical filters usually have many layers. The outer layer can trap large particles and the succeeding layers can filter out smaller particles.
Biological
The biological filter is an essential component of a home aquarium as it helps the growth of beneficial bacteria and works best with a mechanical filter. One of the most common enemies of fish in an aquarium is ammonia, which can kill fish. It is generated from uneaten food or fecal matter present in the water. If this is not cleaned the fish can be killed.
Through biological filtration, a culture of beneficial oxygen-loving bacteria eliminates the toxic ammonia and nitrite that are present in aquarium water. The bacteria changes ammonia and nitrite to nitrate, which is removed once a month with partial changes.
Chemical
If you are thinking of removing odour, dissolved pollutants and discolouration from water, then a chemical filtration mechanism works best. It uses a cartridge that is packed with activated carbon that can remove pollutants from water, keeping the aquarium clean and well-maintained.
How to Choose the Fish for Your Aquarium
Whether you should have a heater and a thermometer in the aquarium or not depends upon the kind of fish you want to keep in the fish tank. Ask the dealer as to what kind of environment would be ideal for the fish you intend to buy. For tropical fish, you need to maintain a constant temperature between 75° and 80° F. If you plan to have goldfish, then they can live comfortably without a heater.
Use a lighting fixture inside your aquarium to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria and algae growth. In order to limit the excessive growth of algae in the fish tank, only use lighting for about 7-8 hours per day.
Before adding any fish to your aquarium, operate the system and keep it running for at least 24 hours. Fish become less stressed out this way. Also, add only a few fish in the beginning just to check if the environment is safe for them or not.
This is an aquarium guide for beginners and so we will tell you how to transport the fish from its container into the fish tank without causing it any stress. Ensure that the water you are transporting the fish into is of the same temperature as that of the water in the aquarium.
For this, you should float the container (usually a plastic bag) in the aquarium and then after 10 minutes add some of the water from the aquarium into the plastic bag containing fish. Keep repeating this for 5 minutes and then transfer the fish slowly into the aquarium. Don’t add the water from the plastic bag into the aquarium. This will help the fish transport easily into new surroundings without causing it any stress.
Don’t overburden the aquarium. Add only a few fish in the beginning and then gradually add more fish. Only choose and select the most active and healthy ones into the fish habitat. Once your fish has successfully been added to the aquarium, remember to feed the fish twice every day. You can get fish food from the place where you got the aquarium.
Maintaining a Fish Tank at Home
Your new pet family depends only on you for its survival. If you want to maintain a fish aquarium at home, then you should follow these tips to the tee. It is not a difficult task to maintain a healthy environment for your fish, but it will require some efforts from you.
Ever wondered how the fish survive in large oceans, rivers and lakes? The water in rivers and lakes is filtered out and cleansed through a natural process. For an aquarium, you must install a good filtration mechanism as the one mentioned above.
You should also take care not to overfeed your fish. The routine maintenance of a fish aquarium involves changing some of the water regularly. You should also keep the gravel and aquatic plants clean. Keep the walls of the fish tank free from algae by cleaning it often with an algae scrubber.
Clean and Replace the filter cartridge
One of the best tips to maintain a fish aquarium is changing the filter cartridge when needed. However, remember not to change the filter cartridge all at once. It is important to clean the filter biweekly. For this you would need a siphon and a water bucket.
Take some of the water from the aquarium using the siphon into a water bucket, where you will clean the filter. Now, remove any visible debris from the aquarium using the fish net.
To carry out routine cleaning tasks for your fish tank, place the filter into the bucket of water that you have collected using the siphon. Gradually, remove the mechanical filter and let it remain in the saved up water for some time. Soak it up and rinse it thoroughly. Then place it back into the aquarium. Mechanical filters usually need to be changed once or twice a year.
You should also change around 25% of the water every 2-4 weeks. Use a siphon-operated vacuum to clean the gravel and clean the water from debris and other harmful particles.
What other cleaning equipment is needed to maintain a fish aquarium? Let us check them out first.
Cleaning Equipment Needed
You would need the following equipment to keep the water in the fish tank clean and to help provide a better environment for the fish community.
- Siphon-operated vacuum
- Scrubber
- Fish net
- Safe cleaner
- Cleaning wipes
- Replacement of filter cartridge
- Water bucket
- Plant fertilizer
When to change the water of your fish tank
If you see the water turns yellow, cloudy or smells bad, it is time to change the water of your fish tank. Also, take a look at the amount of fish the aquarium carries. Is it too overcrowded? Are you overfeeding the fish? However, don’t wait for the water to turn yellow or cloudy, it is important to carry out partial water changes.
Use a scrubber to clean both the outer and inner walls of the fish tank. Once you have done that, remove debris from gravel using a siphon. Let it settle a bit. Remover some of the water from the fish tank using siphon-operated vacuum. Then add some of the aged water that you have placed in a bucket into the aquarium. What is aged water? It is tap water that has been left on its own for 24 hours or more.
Why is it important to use aged water instead of water straight from the tap? Water delivered from a tap is under pressure and usually contains some dissolved gases such as carbon dioxide. These dissolved carbon dioxide gases can lower the pH of the water. But if you let the water stand for some time, the pH level rises, making it suitable for the fish in the tank.
Fish has a delicate nature. Even slight changes in the pH level can shock the fish. If the change in the pH level is a lot, it can be lethal for your pet.
It is also important to get the water tested every month just to check on the ammonia and nitrate levels in the fish tank. Take some of the water to the aquarium dealer and get it tested.
Note that you must carry out water tests every month before changing the water. Also, don’t use untreated tap water. Add a good dechlorinator. Remember that most tap water contains chlorine or chloramines, which can be harmful for your fish pet.
Whenever you add water to the fish tank, make sure the water is of the same temperature as that of the aquarium to avoid causing stress to the fish.
Maintaining Live Plants in the Fish Tank
You may have added decorative artificial plants and some live plants to make a natural habitat for your fish. It is important to maintain live plants in the fish tank. Add some plant fertilizer for the live plants every month. Shake off the live plants to remove any debris from it. Using a fish net remove any visible dead leaves or twigs from the aquarium. Trim off the plant in your aquarium to make it look neat.
So, this was a comprehensive aquarium maintenance guide. Follow these tips to carry out routine maintenance tasks for your fish aquarium at home. If you love nature, then you should also take a look at how you can make your own terrarium at home. Don’t forget to write to us at blog@zameen.com and we will surely get back to you. Keep visiting Zameen Blog, the best lifestyle blog in Pakistan. Subscribe to the Zameen Newsletter to receive regular updates.
