My first post is going to look at the choices that I made and you are probably considering and the decisions that I finally decided on.
The most important and first decision is whether I could actually be a fish keeper for a tropical aquarium. I won’t lie, I had no idea the level of involvement required. You have to be prepared to put time in certainly to begin with while you tank cycles (will discuss a little later). You need the space for your tank, the plugs for the heater, filter and lights and storage for the various pots, kits and gizmos you will end up with. Consider and plan at this point, location, location, location.
Your tank needs to be on a strong flat and level surface because once it is full it will weight a hell of a lot!! You must also think about sunlight, direct light on your tank will effect temperature and promote algae to grow. Both not a bad think but all considerations and things to manage.
That leads us onto equipment. I actually ended up buying a kit from a large pet store. My reasons were simple, it was a bargain and the right size for me and the space I had available. My tank is a Interpet Fishbox 40 which came complete with heater, filter, tap safe and filter start. Plus the deal came with a stand, food and a filter boost formula. All that for less than £100!!!
The tank is actually a 48 litre tank which is a little misleading from the name but the 40 refers to the dimensions. This is a great starter kit and ideal for what I needed. It gave me all reasonable products without having to spend hours searching and comparing each product.
Once you have your kit it’s about setting it all up. That’s relatively simple and usually the core kit is the same on all tanks. But your individual side comes out when it comes to the decorating. Substrate, plants, rocks, ornaments, lights, bubbles, and the list goes on. This will depend on what you want your aquarium to be for. I personally went for a simple community aquarium so my decoration is pretty much my choice. I have black and white gravel, two fake plants, a rock and a swim through barrel. This still leaves plenty of space for more as and when I want to.
Now for the water, which will usually be from your nearest tap but you need to remember that our drinking water has an awful lot added to it for consumption. Including chlorine which is designed to kill bacteria, good for humans, bad for tropical fish! So you need to add a tap safe solution to balance the water ready for the fish.
I completed all this then ran the tank with the filter and heater running. This allowed me to ensure that everything worked and begin circulating the water and allow it all to settle. This was the first frustrating bit for me as I wanted to start stocking the tank. However, the manufacturers advice and it seems that of the experienced is to allow this to take place for 3-4 days. Needless to say I waited for 1! This day did allow me to actually sit down and read about what it was I was undertaking.
Now this is the point I nearly fell over. The nitrogen cycle, not exactly what I had in mind when buying a fish tank. The bare basics seem to me that fish obviously produce waste and along with excess food this all builds up to a combination of dangerous chemicals in the water. If this build up is too much then it is fatal for the fish. The way this is managed is by allowing the tank to cycle through the nitrogen cycle and thus allowing the build up of good bacteria to process the waste. A bit like Activia for fish.
There appears to be a number of ways to do this process but essentially there seems to actually be two, fish in or fish less. Fish less cycling requires ‘seeding’ of bacteria in the tank. The source of this can be from a mature cycled tank, such a a small amount of gravel or other item, shop bought filter media or a liquid additive. Once in place the tank needs to run allowing the bacteria to grow usually takes about 6 weeks to fully complete. Fish-in cycling is often suggested as a bit cruel but my understanding is that if done careful and properly it shouldn’t be cruel at all. The process is to place a small number of hardy fish into the tank and through monitoring and water changes allow the process to take place without the chemicals rising too high and the bacteria to grow.
I decided to go with the fish in process. My thoughts being firstly, I’m far to impatient to have a tank sitting here with no fish. Secondly, the mrs was not impressed with the idea of it either. I was also concerned at seeding bacteria with items from a tank I didn’t know and the possibility of spreading disease. Once you have decided on your process of cycling its actually time to think about fish.
When looking at fish this is obviously going to be dictated by your process of cycling. As I have gone for cycling with fish I needed a small number of hardy, tolerant fish. Upon reading there are a few out there but I also wanted a fish that was entertaining and attractive. I settled on three Zebra Danios. These are very tolerant and very active so ticked every box.
This brings me up to date. Today the fish were added and seemed to settle very quick, I also completed my first batch of monitoring tests and the results were as follows;
PH – 8.0
Ammonia – 0
Nitrate – 0
Nitrite – 0.
This is what I expected as the cycle hasn’t started yet but tomorrow the hard work begins.
The Tropical Tank 