Aquarium Help

[HpiSavage21]

I am a Newbie to the "Aquatic world", I am looking to get some fish in a tank for my mom since I hear it helps w/ stress and looks nice in the house. I have NEVER owned a fish tank. I am considering getting a 10 gallon tank. I need help on picking the things that are needed to start it and maintain it(Vacuums etc..)
Any recoemendations are apprectated.

Marineland tanks that come w/ filter already?

[Byte 2.0]

Water treatment, if you have city water that was the biggest problem I had.

Last time I had fish, we had to deal with City Water
First time I let the water sit in the tank for like 2 days to clear out but then next time we cleaned the tank we had to rely on the water treatment stuff you buy if you have city water and we ended up killing all the fish.

was not good for stress when they all died.

[sdkfz]

First thing is give up on the 10 gallon tank idea, it is too small as a first tank. The larger the tank the easier it is to take care of. The best analogy I ever had was take some one with a flatulance problem, now if you are with them in a gym or a small meeting room which would be easier to avoid the 'problem'? Same idea with the tank. An over feeding, dead critter etc all are impossible to avoid in the small tank and can become a total dead tank qucikly.

Do not get goldfish as a starter, they are the messiest fish around and a pain to keep clean.

Avoid the 'starter kit' tanks, the deals are rotten, the equipment is lousy, you are doomed to failure (ok maybe a little harsh but you are stacking the odds against yourself).

Find a store that sells fish, not pets, but fish only. Any fool can run a pet store and break even but only the truly knowledgable can run a fish only store.

As to filters look for something that the filter material is cleanable by you. You will pay 3-4 time the amount for this filter than the regular ones, but in the long term (even a year) the cost of replacement filter cartridges will kill any savings you first made.

Do not put the tank on a piece of furniture. It was not made as a fish tank stand so do not use it as such. Between the weight (at 8 plus pounds per gallon just in water) and the spillage that will happen as you work on the tank, you are asking for trouble. You can build one easily enough and save the money if you have any woodworking skills.

Do not buy the fish and the tank/equipment at the same time, set up the tank and get it stable. Once you are sure that everything is running good then get a few fish.

Find out what kind of water you have out of the tap, if you limit your fish to the ones that like this type of water you do not have the hassles of trying to change the water to what the fish like. For example I first kept fish in California near SF. The water was melted snow from the Sierra Mountains- I could keep South American fish from the Amazon and have them breed no problem, but African fish from the great Rift Lakes were a pain to keep. Then I moved to San Anotnio TX. The water is hard as a rock, I could not breed the S Americans no matter what I did with the tap water , but the African fish bred like no bodies business. Sure you may not be into the breeding thing, but I am sure you get the idea. I am in Minneapolis area now and for the Saltwater reef tank I will be setting up soon, I will have to buy deionized water, the tap water will not work. (the tank will be a 125 gallons and wlil need 20% changed weekly - you figure the costs!)

A tank is a small world, it takes time to set up, people will tell you that it can be done in a few hours, but the whole little bacteria recycling the waste thing takes time, buy just a few fish, let the tank cycle for two weeks or so then get some more fish.

The rule of an inch of fish per gallon is not totally right, but a good point to go from. A ten gallon tank with a school of neon tetras (1 inch each and you need 6+ to make them feel good about things), two dwarf catfish to help with keeping the bottom clean (2 more inches) and one other speciman fish and your ten gallon is done - kinda boring so most people double the fish and then as soon as something goes wrong it happens fast. A saying for tanks is good things happen slowly, bad things happen very fast.

Never change more than 10-20% of the water at a time - even if you are fixing a problem, the change can and will shock the fish that are already stressed terminally.

Oh yeah, there is no fish that eats poop, only bacteria do this.

Fish like to eat small meals often- in a perfect world you would feed them a tiny amount 5 or more times a day. Their stomachs are the size of the eyeball, they will eat what they can and no more. Overfeeding only leads to pollution - think of algae blooms where fertilizer gets into the water - overfeeding is doing some thing very similiar.


I hope I have not scared you out of doing this, but it is like building a PC, you need to do some research first.

I would be happy to answer specifics should you need, PM me

[HpiSavage21]

Forgot to mention SPACE IS LIMITED, my bad. I like the Marineland line. But you say they no good?

[juppy]

sdkfz listed some very good points, but I'd like to add a couple if I may.

Something our local fish store owner did for us to help set up the stability of the tank before putting in the fish was he gave us a panty hose anklet that had rocks out of one of his 'already established' tanks in it and was tied at the top. He said the bacteria were on the rocks and that they would filter through the panty hose and sorta help to jump start the bacteria in the new tank. If your local fish seller won't do that for you, you might see if any of your friends have aquariums and if they would do it for you. It doesn't take very many rocks, ours was about the size of a lemon. When we put the fish in finally, the tank was very stable and had no problems whatsoever.

It was mentioned already about not overfeeding....that is a definite must to abide by. My brother's tank suddenly got really cloudy one time....it looked like somebody had poured in a bottle of milk and stirred it around or something. After a little research I found out that he had what is called a bacteria bloom. When you overfeed, the fish can't eat it all so alot of it goes to the bottom and basically rots. The bacteria that take care of the waste in the tank also take care of this, but in turn, the over-ample food supply makes them overpopulate the tank and you end up with so many bacteria that they make the water cloudy. A side effect of this is not only does it look bad, but the bacteria need a little oxygen and when you get that many they take quite a bit of the oxygen. Your fish will start swimming closer to the top of the tank to try and get air because the lower parts don't have enough that they can breathe. My bro lost three fish to this before we figured out what was going on with it.

[Floppyman]

What type of fish do you want to get? Freshwater or Saltwater? If this is your first time setting up a tank I recommend freshwater. Even though the fish are not as pretty, they are more tolerable (and cost significantly less!). Minimum size I would recommend for a tank is around 20 gallons. For filters, I've used both Aquaclear and Marineland filters with no problems.

It appears the others are covering the bases pretty well here, so if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

Also, I recommend that you might go out and get a book on how to maintain an aquarium. There are also plenty of good online resources such as www.aquariacentral.com.

Hope this helps.

[bailey]

another must in my opinion is to use live plants, not the plastic ones, it will help in keeping things natural and stable

[HpiSavage21]

Thanks. Im reviewing my city water specs now and like I said space is limited so I would NEED a 10 gallon tank w/ a few live plants

[HpiSavage21]

http://www.cityofyonkers.com/docs/water.html scrool 2001 report, doubt that much has changed can ya help me pick a few fishies and equipment for taht type of water? how do I start my tank? Fill it up w/ water, decholrinate it, put some live plants in there and some "fish flesh" to cycle the tank? Then do a water test and see what comes up?and then pick the fish based on that?

[sdkfz]

Looks like you have poorly buffered acid water that is artificially raised in PH to avoid corroding the pipes.

I'd select fish from the rain forests of the world, the water there is acidic and soft. The idea being that anything that could have dissolved into the water did so long ago.

Have a look at what is available and post a list of what you thought looked cool, rememebr - 10 inches of adult size fish is your limit so one fish that get 10 inches long - 20 that get one half etc.

Equipment wise - I'd aim for:

If you get live plants a better light (a least the bulb should be upgraded),

Ego-Jager 100 watt heater and get the shortest length available - you only have a ten gallon tank.

A filter that moves at least 30- 40 gallons an hour. Since you are interested in live plants do not get a undergravel filter - it uses the gravel in the tank as the filter material and lots of plants do not like them. After that I'd aim for say the Penn Plax Cascade 80 or the Marineland Primo Multi Filter or the Marineland Millenium 1000

About 10-15 pounds of gravel and darker colors are better for algae control and the fish like them better, Fish will 'fade' to match the white gravel.

A PH test kit and an amonnia test kit

Thermometer

A siphon/gravel cleaner for changing the water and cleaning

Algae scraper, this can be a sponger on a stick a sponge or magents that you use one inside and the other outside of the glass, takes your picks.

A brush for scrubbing the stuff - a nail brush will work - and a bucket- 5 gallons should do it.

A small amount (about 1/2 a cup) of old gravel from an exisiting tank and a half of a cocktail shrimp. If the gravel is the same color as yours just put it one (do not clean this old gravel at all) If the gravel is not the same and you do not want to see it later, use a knee hi panty hose to put the gravel in and knot is shut. Put it in the current of the filter on the gravel.The shrimp is in there to rot, yes rot, it will provde the same stuff that live fish will give to push the bacteria through the set up and is cheaper and kinder than using fish to cycle the tank.

NOTE: all fish things are for the fish tank only - get all new stuff for the tank - NO SOAP or cleaners should be introduced into the tank EVER.

For example - spraying windex onto the tank to clean the outside glass can give a enough ammonia to kill - clean the outside like you clean a monitor - spray cleaner on the towel then use the towel on the tank

After the tank is st up a while good starter plants are Elodea, horwort, anubias and java fern. Some cryptocoryne species are hardy too.