Freshwater fish aquarium tips and information

If your thinking about owning a fish aquarium, there is a few things you will need to know before you buy one. Things like, what size of tank you will need, what tempeture to keep the water at and how to maintain that tempeture or how to keep the water the at right levels of ph,oxygen,bacteria,ammonia and other self growing organisms that have to be in the right ranges for fish to live a long healthy life. Another thing you need to think about is how much time you would like to donate to the maintance of the tank, if its just a couple hours a week i would suggest going with a freshwater setup it is alot less maintnance than a saltwater tank. But the fish just are not as colorful as the saltwater fish. If your looking into a saltwater tank let me warn you it is alot of time and money involved in the setup and maintance of a saltwater tank not to mention the fish can go up into 10s of thousands of dollars range, not cheap that is for sure. But there is a variety of fish to choose from weather your going to go salwater or freshwater. A very colorful species of fish, is the freshwater african cichlid they come in a variety of colors, but they are known to be very aggressive so be careful on what type of fish you buy to put in your tank.

Next you need to decide on which size of tank you want , they come in numerous different sizes 10 gal, 15 gal, 20 gal,30 gal and so on. I would suggest you buy a tank that at least a 25 gal or bigger. The bigger the tank the better , it will not get as dirty as fast as a little would which in return you dont need to clean it as often. You should also locate a spot in your house where you going to put the fish tank, that way you will now how big of tank you are looking for. Another consideration to make is how many fish you plan on keeping in the tank. A good note is about 2 inches of fish for every gallon you have in your tank, so hopefully this will help you decide on the size of tank you need. 

There is a few things your going to need if you decide to get a freshwater tank. The first thing is to have a good filtration system, they make a variety of types you can choose from, i like the internal filters they are quiet and keep the tank crystal clear. The external filter systems give you more room in your tank but are a little louder. You will also need a heater if you plan on keeping anything but goldfish in your tank, they do not require heated water to live. but any other type of freshwater fish needs the tempeture to stay around 75 degrees. The third thing your going to need for a freshwater tank is an air ator, or a bubble maker, to keep oxygen in the water and also it keeps good circulation of the water. Besides that all you really need now is decorations to fill your tank with, some rocks and plants with maybe a piece of wood or two. Whatever you decide to do be creative with it,use your imagintation to create an underwater world in your home.

There is alot of freshwater species to choose from everything from very aggressive chiclids to tiny little tetras. Something to look at when your buying fish is to see how aggressive they are, if you put an aggressive fish with a non agggressive fish then your going to be one fish short real soon. You can mix alot of freshwater fish species together you just got to be sure that you got a big enough tank and the fish you have are fairly close to the same size and you should not have any problems. If your not sure what kinds of fish to put in your tank check my links on this page they will answer any questions you may have about owning a freshwater aquarium.

 Another thing to help you, is do a water change of about 50% every other week or so that will help with tank staying the right levels of ph,chlorine,alkalinity,nitrate and nitrite levels. Another words keep the poop to mininum and the green algae down, along with good quality water for the fish.

 There is lots of ways to test your water for the right levels of phm and chlorine etc. The best one out there to get, that is extremely easy to use is a 6 test in one strip kit. You are able to check all the levels talked about in the above tip all in one strip easy as pie ! 

When you have got a fairly good size tank, i would say probably 15 gal or more buy a bigger net. It makes it alot easier to catch the fish, that are extremely fast and hard to catch in those small little green nets that usually you buy,cause when you buy the fish they are small. So get a bigger net to help!!