All aquariums are equal as it is essentially a glass box we fill with water and put inhabitants in it. What we are going to understand today is the pure basics of setting up an aquarium. We will need sand or gravel, know about the water, a heater, dechlorination, and filtration water, cycling the aquarium, and lighting.
Base
Usually, people use sand or gravel because these are known as inert substances which means it doesn’t leech anything out and if you choose to keep plants, they aren’t going to feed on anything from the sand or gravel. When you are setting up an aquarium, usually on average you would want 2-3 inches of sand or gravel. If you are looking to keep plants in your aquarium that’s a great idea because you’re going to have less maintenance in an aquarium filled with plants. Sand and gravel work wonders with plants but there’s a trick to which plant would help you the most for example a super easy plant like Amazon Sword, water wisteria, etc. Expensive plants require planted tank substrates so the choice is yours.
Water
After placing all your aquarium decors such as plants or other showpieces, comes the part where you fill your tank. A lot of the time people are faced with the challenge of how to get water inside the aquarium. A lot of people think it would be a good idea to pour gallons and gallons of water into the tank using buckets. It can be done but for the long term, that’s a terrible idea. Instead of doing so, you can buy a water changer which is a long hose that connects your faucet and all you have to do is turn on your faucet there’s also a little switch to turn on if you want to pull the water through the hose. Use your water dechlorinator which will make the water in the aquarium safe for the fish otherwise your fish may die and the plants don’t like chlorine in the water either. It gasses off the chlorine from inside your aquarium. To apply the dechlorinator, you can find instructions at the back of the bottle and if you are not very strict with how much dechlorinator your bottle says to pour, that should be fine too- it’s better to overdose than to under-dose.
Aquarium heater
This is a big deal when it comes to setting up an aquarium because most community fish prefer heated water and there are a large number of brands offering the best heaters for your aquarium. You may be able to cut corners on a lot of the aquarium items but you cannot go wrong or lenient with a heater, so best to get a decent one. Most nice heaters come with digital built-in thermostats which you can set accordingly using a little so please do not buy any cheap heaters as they are big game changers. To understand what size of heater your aquarium needs there’s an easy math that every one gallon of water requires five watts of heater or you can even go higher on the watts, but not less. Cheap heaters may stick to your tank or not turn on at all which can kill your fish so if you’d like you can also use two small heaters in your aquarium at once. It’s always better to have your aquarium heater near the aquarium filter but it’s not a necessity.
Filtration
You must be wondering what filter to use for your aquarium as it can be the most complicated and overwhelming decision to make. In general, if you’re keeping a smaller tank that is below 30 gallons then you should use a sponge filter; but this too can get overwhelming because there are different types of sponge filters. Once you figure out your filtration tool, you have to connect an air pump to your filter. Once they are connected and the air pumps into the airline, it sucks air in through the filter, and air bubbles show up in your water. Feel free to place your filter anywhere you want in your aquarium as it would filter the air from any position.
Cycling process
We need beneficial bacteria to grow on the filter pad of the Sponge filter or the filter and that in turn makes it an ecosystem for the fish to live within. You can cycle the aquarium having fish inside the tank, using fish food, and using chemicals. You can try adding a Guppy fish to your aquarium and in one month your aquarium will grow a cycle of its own but for better understanding do speak to professionals or watch more videos on this for practical help. If you make a mistake in your cycling process then your fish(es) can die due to the water burning the gill plates of the fish. If you would like to jumpstart the cycling process of your aquarium, you can go to your nearest aquatic shop and let them know that you’d like to buy a used sponge filter to jumpstart your tank cycle. This way you can spread the good bacteria your tank needs by using an old sponge filter.
Lighting
Many of our favorite parts of setting up a new aquarium could be the lighting. This isn’t crucial unless you’re keeping plants in your aquarium. Different types of plants could require different types of lighting which, as well is another complicated thing to understand. If you’re not keeping plants or coral then you can use any type of light you want for example blue light, yellow light, white light, or any other colors or lights you want. Aquarium plants require light that has high lumens (brightness) from around 6000k to 7000k that would replicate the light of the sun for the plants to the best of our ability.
So those are the basics on how to set up your aquarium. You can use anything to decorate your fish tank, starting from lights to show pieces such as a rock castle or plastic plants as well. Some easy-to-grow aquarium plants are dwarf hair grass, water wisteria, java moss, hornwort, etc.
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