Setting up Your First Fish Tank - Part 1

This article is intended to help beginners avoid common mistakes when setting up an aquarium for the first time.

The first tank represents the first step into the wonderful word of the aquarium. The problem is that almost no one gets informed before making the first step, which is usually wrong one, leading to serious consequences on the fish.

Most of people hurry to buy a tank and two fish from each species they can find in the pet-shop. Also the first tank is small, and usually crowded with incompatible species. This is because the seller tries to make as much profit as possible from a novice in this world. But ultimately we can not blame the pet-stores sellers and owners, nor can we deprive them of profit and let them starve, so before you buy the first aquarium you should read about everything related.

The aquarium

The tank may be different sizes and shapes, depending on the creativity of those who built it and the fish species for which it is built. The most common form is the rectangular parallel piped shape tank, but there are aquariums in the form of a cube, hexagon, bowl, etc. A beginner's tank is usually quite small, because we all start with the wrong impression that a small aquarium is easy to maintain. You can't possibly be more wrong, the tank is a biotope, a copy of nature, the smaller the tank the easier is to unbalance, so any changes in its parameters can easily cause deaths in the fish population. Don't start an aquarium smaller than 10 gallons. Don't rush at all. Read and inform yourself before you go buy. You probably want to have fish right away, this is not the case, and you will need equipment and a lot more knowledge before you start introducing the fish.

Required Equipment:

Filter, air pump with hose and air stone, heater, thermometer, hose for changing the tank water, fish landing to catch fish.