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Setting Up An Aquarium
There is usually a place in every home for a fish tank, and its positioning can often have a major impact on how successful your aquarium will be, a good idea is to draw a plan of the room on paper and sketch in likely positions. Here are a few tips for choosing a location;
- Avoid direct sunlight not only will your fish not look as colourful you will engourage massive blooms of algae
- Avoid positioning the fish tank near to a radiator, the fluctuations in heat will stress your fish.
- Avoid positioning too close to a door, the banging and temperature fluctuations will cause stress to your fish.
- Avoid positioning your fish tank close to any loud speakers or the TV, the constant vibrations will stress the fish.
- Position near to an electrical socket to avoid an unsightly extension lead running across the room.
Remember a fish tank full of water is extremely heavy and cannot easily be repositioned spend time deciding on the location for your aquarium and get it right first time.
The first day of set up will be dominated by positioning the fish tank, installing all the equipment and adding the hard landscaping such as the gravel, sand, rocks etc. The following tools will be required for the first day;
- Screwdriver
- Scissors
- A long Spirit level
- Scrubbing brush to clean rocks and bogwood
- A few old towels
- Extension cable
- Water jug
- Plastic bucket
- Sticky pads or double sided tape to attach the background to the rear of the aquarium
The bucket is the one thing that you will keep for the life of your fish tank, you should buy a new one and not use it for any other purposes, use only for removing dirty water and adding clean water to your fish tank. Now you have chosen a position and purchased your fish tank you can begin the enjoyable part of setting up. It is important to proceed carefully with the setting up and do not rush mistakes here can be time consuming to put right.
Once you have unpackaged your aquarium and unpacked all the equipment you should position the fish tank on its stand. Once this is complete you must ensure it is level, from both back to front and end to end, if your fish tank is un level pack the stand not the tank itself as this will cause stress on the fish tank glass once the it is full. Now your fish tank is level it is a good idea to give the inside a wipe with a clean cloth, your new fish tank may have been sat for many weeks in the shop and will have gathered dust.
The next step is dependent on your filtration method, if you are using an under gravel system in your fish tank it is now the time to place the tray and uplifts into position. Next we add the substrate, there are many different substrate available to us as fish keepers including different coloured sands and gravels. Ensure that the substrate you are using is clean and you have washed it well with clean water, to speed up the removal of dirt during cleaning use boiling water. Do not stop cleaning until the water you are washing the fish tank gravel with is clear. Now you can add your gravel to your fish tank using the plastic jug, pur the gravel into the fish tank to a depth of around 7.5cm (3in).
If you are using an external filter now is the time to connect the system, ensuring there is plenty of room to service not only the main filter but also the pipe work. We can now start to fill the fish tank with water, fill the tank using a bucket do this slowly to avoid disturbing the substrate too much, try putting a saucer on the substrate and pouring the water on to it, this will help. Fill the fish tank around 1/3rd; it is now time to start adding the tank decoration.
The choice of decoration is personal, however try to match the decoration to the species natural habitat, for example bog wood and lots of plants is ideal for species such as discus because not only does it match their natural habitat but also helps maintain an acidic pH. Bogwood would be a bad choice however for a Malawian cichlid who prefer a rocky fish tank with alkaline water and will eat most plants.
Add your rocks plants etc carefully and ensure they are suitably secure, scrub all rocks with a scrubbing brush with species such as cichlid who love to dig ensure the rocks are well buried to avoid and collapsing rock work that could not only harm the fish but also the fish tank. Plants should be buried deep into the substrate.