Setting Up a Freshwater Aquarium

By Jake Wilson

Setting up an aquarium for freshwater fish is a complicated process. Setting up an aquarium for freshwater fish is not only a big responsibility, but it is also an investment. In this article I am going to be going over several factors to consider when you are starting up your freshwater aquarium.

You have to keep in mind that at least once a week you will need to do some kind of maintenance on your freshwater aquarium. Most of the time, it will be a water change. You will also have to feed your fish at least once a day or more.

Freshwater fish are generally a lot cheaper than their saltwater counterparts. Setting up a freshwater aquarium is much less expensive and requires less materials than setting up a saltwater aquarium. For this reason many people recommend that beginners get the hang of managing and taking care of freshwater fish before they move on to more complicated setups. After you settle on getting and building up a freshwater fish aquarium, you can decide on an aquarium size to go with.

The next step in the process is to purchase all the equipment and your aquarium. I recommend you shop around online for the freshwater aquarium that is going to fit you best. Once you order your freshwater aquarium, you are going to want to find a suitable spot to place your aquarium.

After you find a suitable place to put your aquarium, you need to find a stand for your aquarium. Remember, you need to find a stand that will be able to support the full weight of your aquarium after water is added. A good formula for finding out how much your aquarium is going to weigh, is to take the amount of gallons it is going to hold, and multiply it by ten. So if you have a 55 gallon aquarium, it is going to weigh 550lbs after being filled.

After getting the spot picked out, the right aquarium, and the right equipment, now what you are going to do is wash out your freshwater aquarium with water, no soap at all. Adding soap to clean out your freshwater aquarium can leave soap residue in the tank and can be harmful to your fish.

Rinse and wash all the items you are going to placing in your aquarium. Set up all your now clean gravel and decorations in your freshwater aquarium and start to add water to your aquarium. Now you have your freshwater aquarium all set up to go.

Now after going through that whole process for setting up your freshwater aquarium. You are going to wait, that's right, you have to wait for your water to cycle for a few days before adding any fish. Owning a freshwater aquarium, requires a good deal of patience. But believe me, good things come to those who wait.

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