A Step by Step Guide to Setting Up a Home Aquarium

There are actually quite a few different steps that are involved in setting up a home aquarium, all of which need to be taken seriously into consideration and acted out upon if you want to have healthy, happy fish.

Getting Started

The first step to setting up a home aquarium is to decide on an actual aquarium. You are going to have to choose what size and style of aquarium you want, and there are many to choose from, so this process can often take a fair bit of time. It largely depends on how many fish you are planning on having and the types of fish that you want, as if you want larger sized or a large number of fish, you are obviously going to have to purchase a larger sized aquarium in order to have adequate room for them.

Preparation

The next step involved in setting up your home aquarium is to clean the tank, gravel and decorations that you are going to use with a non-soap based product. It is crucial to use a non-soap based product because if there is soap used it will get into the water and may negatively affect or even kill some of the fish.

You then need to determine an appropriate site to have your home aquarium. There are not many restrictions in terms of where you can place an aquarium, although you are going to have to have an electrical socket nearby, and you also do not want to put it near a window that has sunlight coming through because this can create too much heat in the water and hurt the fish.

Now you need to install the filtration system, following the particular manufacturer's instructions carefully, since each different model is going to vary in terms of how they are supposed to be installed. Add some clean gravel to the tank, and put any plants that you want in, making sure to anchor the bottoms into the gravel so that they will not float up to the top once you turn on the filtration system.

Now you can fill your home aquarium with water, making sure to leave about an inch of space at the top so that the water will not spill over. Start the filter system, add the heater and thermometer, and then let everything run for at least a day or so until the temperature settings are proper and the water is moving around, and then you can add your fish.