Set up ur first aquarium and keep it healthy. Review on Aquarium

This might not be the right place to discuss, but the article/message matters. Hence if you are reading it, you might be already be searching for it. In this article, I will try to jot down the very basic things, which we always tend to overlook, while setting up/maintaining an aquarium. If you follow this article religiously, your tank and the tank mates will be a genuine value addition to the already beautiful home/room you have with lively/healthy fishes.

The first and foremost thing is to chose an aquarium. Now this is something you need to do it yourself. Just remember that a good visual effect cannot be achieved using the ordinary glss and silicon gel. They always leak. It's not exactly a great idea to empty your aquarium frequently for repairing. If it's a bigger one, it's nightmare. Those bluish glsses are now outdated.

Now, there are imported, molded, good quality Chinese/Korean aquariums available in the market which can definitely give you a pleasurable effect, because of the glss quality they use. This is all about visual, so don't try to save money in here. A standard 120L aquarium would cost you somewhere Rs12000-rs14000.

Once you chose the aquarium, it's extremely important to chose the base/stand on which you will keep the tank.(length x breadth x height) in inches /1000 would be the amount of liters of water it needs to support. So check with your carpenter or buy a suitable stand. The last thing you want would be to hear a crackling noise with your room flooded with water and broken glss in the middle of night or when you are not home.

Once your aquarium and stand is ready, it's time for design/beautification. This goes entirely on yourself, how you would like to set it up. Would recommend, visit some shop/friend and try to take an idea. It's something of a copy-paste and creativity. Always make sure, you rinse the decorative materials/pebbles/sand/soil whatever you will use, very well, before putting on to the tank.

So tour tank is ready and you cannot wait to see fishes swimming. Here comes the laborious part.

The first and foremost part is the filtration mechanism. This part is the heart of your aquarium and most people do neglect it, because of the lack of knowledge. YOU cannot live on Mt Everest neither in Sahara Desert because of extreme conditions and neither in the middle of a busy polluted street because of pollution. You need a clean environment to live and so do your fishes. It's up to you to keep it clean by understanding filtration mechanism.

There are 3 types of filtration.

1) Mechanical: This type of filtration uses a sponge/wool to grab the solid particles floating in water. Very simple and all aquariums have it.

2) Chemical Filtration: You need chemical substances like zeolite and activated carbon, which abosrbs the toxic material present in water

3) Biological filtration: This is the most important step which you NEED to understand. Type in the Google as "nitrogen cycle of aquarium" or "biological cycle of aquarium" and read on.

You CANNOT just let the fishes into your aquarium. They will die mostly. It's because your aquarium is never "cycled"(read biological filter). One good way to establish your tank as cycled is to apply external bacterial mechanisms like Prodibio "Bioclean". Hopefully you need to order it in your fish store. These external bacterias sets up your aquarium in 24 hrs to be ready for fishes.

DO NOT overfeed your fish. Most people tend to do this. Fishes are always hungry. The more they eat, the more messy your aquarium becomes with pollution. Feeding optimal quantiy every alternate day is fine. Technically fishes can survive without food for 2 weeks. So you need not worry about their hunger. You need to understand that whatever food you give must be consumed within 5 mins. That is the optimal amount of food your fishes require. More feeding will cause death.

NEVER overcrowd your tank. An average estimate is an 1inch fish require 3 litres of water. So you can calculate. How will you feel if you are forced to live in a 1BHk flat with 15 people?

After you are convinced that the filtration part is ok, time to read on.

Choose your fishes properly. As per nature's law NEVER keep big with small fishes. Bigger will eat up the smaller ones. This is nature's rule and you can't change it. Even if you keep goldfishes with smaller ones, the latter will eat away the fins/tails of goldfishes and eventually it will die. Size DOES matter in a fish world.

Also, you cannot keep all the varieties in the same aquarium. e.g you can keep guppies/mollies/tetras in the same tank but keeping cichlids with them will cause a mssacre. When you go to a fish store, try to examine what fishes are kept with what species. So decide on the fishes first and then go purchasing.

Get one API/Boyu "freshwater aquarium master test kit". It will cost you somewhere between 2500-3000.

During the first week, you have to test everyday for pH, ammonia, Nitrite/Nitrates. These will be rising steadily at first and will gradually subside.

Once the readings are normal, then only release the fishes. After the stable reading, you have to change 20% of water every/alternate week and repeat the tests every weekend to monitor. It's better to change water in the middle of the week and repeat the tests every weekend.

If you understand biological filtration, you now know why this change is required.

It is always recommended that you keep one-two scavenger fishes in your aquarium e.g sucker or tiger loaches. They eat up the garbages and helps in your effort to keep the aquarium clean. They don't harm anyone nor anyone harms them.

If you are using planted aquariums, there is hell lot of more to take care of, but I seriously doubt if any newbies would go for a planted aquarium. I suggest you get habituated with a normal non-planted aquarium first for a year atleast.

You have to keep a separate/small tank to treat the diseased fishes. NEVER put on the medications in the aquarium directly. That will destroy your biological cycle by killing all bacterias(good-bad both).

You also need to understand the basic fish diseases and the remedies. How will you feel if someone gives you crocin for stomach upset. Google will help you a lot in this. Buy the medications which lists the composition clearly. Hong Tai corporation, Singapore has got good series of Rid-ALL products which are readily available in Indian markets e.g Rid-All anti ich, Rid-All Methylene Blue etc.

So, if you got bored already, can't help. Nature/Mother earth gave us a perfect, clean world to live in but we polluted it. Hope you give your little tank mates a cleaner world to live in.

A visibly Clean water is not always clean. Keep reading.

API(aquariumpharm.com) and prodibio( http://www.prodibio.com/) are a good read to start with and understanding what products you need to keep your aquarium healthy.

Best,

Surajit