Tips on Aquarium Maintenance

Don't you think watching beautiful fish swimming must be quite interesting and relaxing? So, why not try to experience this by keeping an aquarium. Keeping fish as pets and maintaining them is quite easier as compared to other pets. Anybody with real interest in aquariums, must educate themselves about the basic requirements of pet fish. This knowledge will help in imitating an aquarium environment similar to the conditions of the natural habitat of the pet fish. In fact, aquarium keeping is one of the most popular hobbies followed worldwide. Among the Americans, it is the second-most important hobby next to stamp collection.

Tips on Maintaining an Aquarium

Regular aquarium maintenance is very important in order to create a healthy environment for the fish and other plants in the aquarium. The main objective is to clean wastes, check chemical balance, and check water pH. Maintenance differs for marine water fish and freshwater fish. Let's see some of the common important aquarium maintenance tips, which will really help you in taking care of your aquarium.

Aquarium: First, decide about the size before actually setting up an aquarium. An aquarium may range from a small fish bowl to a large public fish tank. It is always better to prefer a larger aquarium since higher volume of water is more stable in terms of temperature, water chemistry and cleanliness. Also, overcrowding exposes the fish to more stress and pollutes the water more quickly.

Aquarium Fish: While buying aquarium fish, one should take care about the requirements and compatibility of fish. Different types of fish have different requirements and not all species of fish are compatible. One should check the fish compatibility with the tank environment and other fish in the aquarium. Majority of the fish types can't be kept together. Also, it is important to buy healthy fish since; even a single sick fish can infect the remaining fish in the tank. Healthy fish are active and have erect fins, clear eyes and good skin color. Even after the fish get established in the tank, regular checking should be done for any disease infection.

Aquarium Water: Water is one of the most important factors that should be maintained carefully in an aquarium. While adding water, for the first time, to the aquarium, make sure that the water is free of chlorine and other dissolved solutes and gas. It is always recommended to leave water for conditioning at least for one week, before introducing fish and plants. Afterwards, water changing should be done regularly at least once in a month. It is necessary to change only 25-30% of the total water in order to dilute the accumulated harmful chemicals such as nitrites, nitrates and phosphates. The replaced water condition should match the temperature and pH condition of the existing aquarium water in order to avoid adverse effects.

Maintaining Temperature: Maintaining optimum temperature for each fish type is important. Basically there are two types of fish - tropical and cold water. Tropical fish is comfortable in temperatures around 25º C. Cold-water fish prefers a much lower temperature than the tropical type. Moreover, the aquarium temperature should be maintained constant as far as possible; any abrupt change in temperature will result in fish-shock and may cause diseases. In order to avoid temperature shock, many hobbyists prefer to attach a thermometer and a heater to the fish tank.

Maintaining Light: Natural light supplemented with artificial light is essential for both plants and fish. Plants need light for photosynthesis and growth, whereas fish need light for feeding and spawning. Also, suppression of harmful algae and plankton are possible only in presence of light. Optimum light requirement would be around 12 hours per day. Above all, fish look more beautiful in well-illuminated water.

Feeding Fish: Overfeeding should be avoided. Feeding twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening time is enough. Although feeding amount depends upon the fish type and population, it is advisable to feed only as much as the fish can clean up in 5 minutes time. Many people opine that fish are healthier, if they are kept hungry in between. Fish diet should be varied and should include cooked food (if possible).

Maintaining pH: Although the optimum pH for all fish is neutral (7), fish can tolerate a pH ranging from 6.6-7.4. Water, due to its dissolved minerals has its own natural buffering capacity, which can be checked by testing water hardness. Since fish can't tolerate a fluctuating pH, it is advised to check water hardness regularly in order to maintain a near-about constant pH. It is found out that increase in phosphate level (which also indicates increase in algal growth) plays an important role in destabilizing pH. One tip for maintaining pH is cleaning water regularly to get rid of wastes and algae.

Quarantine Aquarium: Use quarantine aquarium to keep sick fish, if any. This will help to prevent spreading of disease to other fish and also, the sick fish will recover sooner. Quarantine aquarium can also be used for acclimatization of newly bought fish before introducing to the already established aquarium. It also enables to check whether the new fish are disease-free or not.

Other tips include adding maximum plants to hamper algal growth. One can also make use of scavengers like snails and aquarium crabs for consuming algae, which indirectly reduces the excess nitrates and phosphates from the tank. While cleaning, don't empty the aquarium completely, since it can destroy the useful nitrifying bacteria. Also don't use chemical soap or detergent, while cleaning. Water testing should be done on a weekly basis to check the parameters of aquarium water.

Since you are interested in aquariums, let me mention some of the wonderful and common aquarium fish, which you might wish to watch. The list includes goldfish, butterflyfish, koi fish, catfish, lionfish, rainbow fish, oscarfish, angelfish, bettafish, pufferfish, clownfish, starfish, hogfish, scorpionfish and so on. One can even add coral reefs in aquariums to make them more lively.