When looking at what equipment you need for your aquarium you have you can go multiple directions.  One is to choose the cheapest that will just do the job.  I suggest not to do that because if you are serious about keeping fish, and think about doing it for a long time it will cost you more to replace the cheap equipment as it breaks then to buy quality that will last you a long time.  Also I want to mention that broken equipment that goes with out notice even for a short period of time can cause death to your fish.

The next direction is to buy those pre-packaged aquarium and equipment deals that pet stores sell.  Even though some places might actually put some thought into what equipment is included in the tank, I doubt that they put much consideration about where its going, what kind and how many fish will be in it and the quality of products being used for those packages.

The next direction is the one I like to follow. This is where after having figured out the appropriate place, size, style, shape of the aquarium, and figuring out type, size and amount of fish living in that aquarium, I choose equipment based on those parameters and I know that the performance and longevity will not disappoint me.  In the following posts I will go into detail about each piece of the aquarium set up puzzle.

The major areas that the aquarium equipment falls into are lighting, filtration, heating, and agitating the surface.

The minor areas of aquarium equipment fall into decorations, water conditioner, test kits, power supply equipment, cleaning, fish control.

I will visiting each of those areas one at a time and explain differences in types of equipment for your set up.  You don’t have to follow all the suggestions or rules, but in thinking at least a little bit about what you are getting will ensure a successful fish keeping start up.

Part 5, Aquarium Set Up.

Part 2 of aquarium choices you have to decide is weather to buy a glass or acrylic aquarium.  There are benefits and drawbacks with both of them and its up to you to determine what is in your best interest and budget.  Here are some differences of the 2 choices you have.

Acrylic cost more then glass, the same size aquarium can cost as much as 2 or 3 times more.

Acrylic holds up better when shipped, usually acrylic aquariums can be shipped using most major shipping services.  Glass aquariums are almost impossible to ship, and need to be bought locally.

Acrylic insulates better then glass, meaning that you wont need as much heating power to heat the same amount of water. The water inside is also fluctuates slower allowing for good stability.

Acrylic lets more light through then the glass, thus making things look brighter and more colorful on the inside.

Acrylic has a bigger variety of styles you can choose from, and even regular rectangle tanks have rounded corners instead of seams like glass tanks.

Glass does not scratch as easy as acrylic does, in fact you have to use special acrylic cleaning pads, and if you have sand be careful not to get a grain of sand under the pad, it will scratch the acrylic.

Acrylic weighs less the glass aquarium for the same size tank.

Acrylic requires complete support along the hole bottom surface of the tank, versus glass just supported by the edges of the tank.

As you can tell there’s quite a bit of things to look at when you are trying to pick a right aquarium.  You don’t have to put this much consideration into it, but putting at least some effort into choosing the right tank for your home, budget and fish you want to keep, will ensure your success at fish keeping.

Ok now we have picked out the area, picked out the size and shape and type of the aquarium we can start choosing equipment that will fit your budget, your aquarium and your fish.

Part 4, Aquarium Set Up.

Next lets take a look at what to consider when choosing the right aquarium size and shape for your set up.  Aquariums are made in allot of different shapes, when back in the day rectangle was the standard, we now have allot of options, everything from quarter round corner tank, to half round against the wall aquarium, to hexagon shapes of various sizes and height to round sphere tanks, and also cube tanks, not even listing out all different options you have when using acrylic.

So when looking at a space that the tank will sit at also look at what shape of tank would look best in that place.

Next is time to figure out the amount of fish you would like to keep, and their full grown size.  Why that has anything to do with aquarium size is that the more fish you want the bigger the tank has to be. Keep in mind that just because pet store sells a fish that’s 1 inch long right now does not mean it will stay that way, aquarium fish varies in sizes from as small as 1/2 inch to as big as 18 inches when they are fully grown.  When considering the fish always think of them as fully grown, because isn’t that the point of having a pet, to watch them grow and live healthy.

Choosing the largest aquarium that will fit the space and your budget will make your first experience with aquarium setup easier.  Don’t think that the smallest the aquarium the easier it is to keep.  Actually its quite the opposite. The more water volume you have the more forgiving the aquarium is towards little mistakes you might make as a beginner, also in smaller aquariums, toxins build up faster, water chemistry changes quicker, temperature is more unstable.

Another thing to think about when choosing tanks size is that fish need oxygen to live, oxygen gets into the water when water ripples at the surface.  You might have air stones producing bubbles that you think provide oxygen to water, but its actually the ripples in the surface of the water that the bubbles cause that get the oxygen exchange between air and water.  So having bigger tank allows for more water surface to have more oxygen exchange.

One of the calculations that you can use to figure out the size of the tank according to how much fish you want to keep that deals with surface area of the aquarium.  Multiplying the depth and length of the aquarium together will give you square inch size of the surface area. The rule states that you don’t want to keep more then one inch of fish per 12 square inches of surface area.

There is also another calculation which looks at it a little bit differently but still gives you a ruff idea and its one inch of fish per gallon of water in your tank.  You have to take into consideration that if you have sand, rocks and decorations in there, that it actually is anywhere from 10 to 15 percent less water volume.  So if you have a fish that will be 4 inches long when fully grown, it takes up 4×12=48 square inches of your surface area or 4 gallons of your tank volume.

Both of those calculations will give you a ruff idea of what you have to work with and does not really account for the fact that fish are not all the same and 1 inch of slender fish does not occupy the same amount of area as 1 inch of full bodied fish, and also like I said before you have to account for the full grown size of the fish even though you will buy them much smaller at the store.

Using info provided previously and in this post you should be able to figure out proximate size and shape of the tank that will work best for your home.

Part 3, Aquarium Set up.

Before you can go out to the store and start buying equipment for aquarium setup, you will need to figure out couple of things.  One of the first things that you need to do is determine the location and space available for aquarium setup. Following are a couple ideas you should keep in mind when picking a location for your aquarium.

Find an area that will allow for the biggest aquarium you can afford to fit. The reason why is discussed in the next section about aquarium selection.

Space between the tank and the wall for filters, wires pipes and other accessories need to be at least 6 inches in some cases so make sure that the depth of the area is large enough to allow for the deepness of the aquarium and space behind for equipment.

Make sure the floor will be able to support the total weight of the tank.  Placing aquariums on second or third floor might make the aquarium unstable and might cause damage to the home.

Also consider that when you change water or perform maintenance you might spill some water and the location has to be capable of getting wet once in a while.

There is some noise associated with keeping aquariums, sometimes it can be very quiet, but depending on your choice in equipment, it might get loud enough to if the aquarium was placed in the bedroom, it will be very noticeable when you trying to fall asleep.

Once you determine the best area for your aquarium you need to look at the following items to make sure your aquarium set up will be compatible with that space.  Now you don’t have to do this but if you can check off at least couple of items from the following checklist of compatibility for that space you will increase your chance of success.

Make sure there are no heating vents near the aquarium, vents can affect the temperature of the water in the tank and make it vary when it has to be stable.

Make sure there is no windows or skylights next or over the aquarium, sun light can affect the temperature and also might cause green water or other kinds of algae growing in the aquarium.

Make sure the place is not in a drafty area which might cause fluctuations in the temperature of the aquarium.

Make sure that you are not exposing the aquarium to impact by putting it in heavy traffic areas like hall ways where you can damage it when carrying something through the hallway.

If placing tank on existing furniture, make sure that the furniture can support total weight of the tank, in many cases aquarium stand is a requirement. To figure out proximate weight of the tank you can multiply each gallon of tank by 10 Lb.  Example of a 55 gallon aquarium will weigh approximately 550 Lb. when fully set up.

Also consider the decor of the room and the lighting to place the tank where it will be seen as a benefit to the room.

Lastly write down the measurements of the area so that at the store you can pick out the best fitting aquarium for your space.

Now that you have picked out a space and know the maximum size of the aquarium you can fit with your budget and your space we can talk about the size that you would want and why, and also the style and type of the aquarium.

Part 2, Aquarium Set Up.

Allot of people start out their fish keeping not putting much thought behind it.  They go to the pet store, then either get those pre-packaged aquarium deals, or pick out items the pet store people help them with.  Either way, they will get everything they think they need to keep fish, at the same time they will pick out fish they think look cool or unique or beautiful or what ever reason might be.

When they come home they take the aquarium setup and put it all together, fill it with water, add some water conditioner and throw in the fish.  And this is where it all starts going wrong.  In about a week if not sooner their fish start getting sick and dying, one by one they get flushed down the toilet and people start panicking, first they think something is wrong with the water so they start changing water, cleaning filters, and resetting up the whole aquarium and restarting back up with the same way as before and adding new fish from the store. Then again all the fish die one by one or even faster then that, and they start giving up, pack up the tank and put it in the attic, basement, or garage till further notice.  Another unsuccessful aquarium setup experience that ruins their hole attitude towards fish keeping.

Aquarium set up starts with a decision to be involved with pets that will be challenging, frustrating, and difficult to keep in the beginning.  But with consistency, time, and gained experience keeping fish will turn into a relaxing, rewarding and regular paced hobby.

I will provide information necessary to get new comers to this hobby from frustration to relaxation and enjoyment of keeping fish.
First I want to describe major responsibilities one will have once everything is set up and running to give an idea of what is to come.

Fish even though they are behind glass are in some ways just like any other pet that is free to run around your home.  You need to work at keeping them healthy and happy.  One difference is that fish lives in their own area that you or other free roaming pets don’t share, so you need to make sure that their envelopment is perfect for them.

Once a week or at least once every 2 weeks you will have to perform maintenance on the tank like cleaning glass, filter, gravel and performing partial water changes.  Your fish will need to be fed daily, maybe even small amounts multiple times a day.  The aquarium water will have to be tested and monitored about once a week to make sure you have right parameters for the fish you keep, which could be moved to once every month later on when things are moving along.  And there are recurring costs associated with having aquarium set up like replacing filter media and buying food and also your water and electrical utility bills might go up depending on the size of the aquarium.

Now with 2 of my current set ups the 125 and 135, I do exactly that, water change once a week, clean glass once every other week, clean filter once a month, siphon dirt from the sand once a month. I check water parameters once a month to make sure that the city water have not changed anything, and besides that just feeding of the fish on daily basis and that’s about it.

So if you can dedicate a little bit of time once a week to perform little maintenance on the aquarium you will be set to keep healthy and happy fish.

Now that we looked at whats to come after set up and you still interested, we are ready to look at aquarium location to figure out optimal aquarium for your home.

I will be providing allot of information that I have gathered either from personal experience or found useful to me on the Internet.  Later on after I complete all the posts on how to set up an aquarium, I will make a short version touching just on major most important areas.

Part 1, aquarium set up.