The Beginner's Guide to Establishing and Maintaining a Desktop Aquarium

Keeping a fishtank is a very rewarding hobby and makes a beautiful piece of decor for your kitchen counter or office desktop. However, it is very easy to make a mistake and eventually kill your fish.

You should set up your fishtank in a good place without too much direct sunlight. Direct sunlight stresses out the fish, causes temperature fluctuations, and creates unwanted algae growth. This place should not be subjected to too much noise or disturbance. This place should also have normal day/night lighting, depending on what fish you have--that is, it should not have light overnight for most fish.

All equipment should be rinsed off with tap water before use. Most fish will tolerate softened water. You can also use drinking water. However, it is very important that the water used to fill the fishtank is either aged or treated with a tap water conditioner before adding fish; This is important because tap water contains chlorine. Aging water also stabilizes the water temperature, which prevents stress when adding your fish. Bottled water does not have this risk, because it contains no chlorine. Be sure not to use distilled water, because that lacks necessary minerals for life.

Follow all directions to set up your fishtank and filter, and in some cases your heater. Add gravel and all decorations. Make sure decorations are firmly seated in the gravel, or you run the risk of crushing your fish under a heavy ornament.

THIS IS WHERE MOST PEOPLE MAKE THEIR MISTAKE.
If you are like me, you want to dump your fish straight from their bags into the newly filled aquarium. This is a very bad method and will totally stress out or even kill your fish. Before adding fish, it is extremely important to first establish a biological filter, or cycle your tank.

Cycling a tank: By cycling, I am referring to running a full nitrogen cycle. This only needs to be done once in most cases. There are a few ways to cycle your tank, but all of them end up in a proper fishtank with a good bed of ammonia and nitrate absorbing bacteria. These chemicals are waste products of fish, and lots of good bacteria in your tank use these and convert them into nitrites, which are much less harmful and are controlled by regular water changes. This means that you can't buy all your desired fish at the same time that you buy your fishtank. It is also very helpful to have a starter colony of bacteria from an established tank. If you have another established fishtank, you can take the filter media cartridge or gravel from that fishtank. You can ask your petstore if you can have a cup of gravel from their fishtank--just check to make sure the fish in that fishtank are healthy. You can either mix this gravel with your own, or place it in a mesh bag and drop in into your tank so that bacteria from this can begin to spread throughout your tank. You can remove this bag later.

The first method of cycling a tank is using one to two very hardy fish. You add these fish to your new fishtank and they produce the waste. All you can do is hope that they will survive. If you have an ammonia removing product like seachem Prime or Amquel+, you can use that to help out your fish. However, it is a waste to use these products to fully take out all the ammonia, because that will inhibit bacteria growth. This cycle will take approximately a month, at which point you can go buy fish and add fish to your tank at a rate of about 2 fish per week. If you add too many fish at once, even after the cycle has completed, there will be too much fish before the bacteria levels rise to accommodate the sudden spike in waste products.

The second method of cycling is the fishless cycle. This cycle requires a source of pure ammonia purchased at a home improvement store or supermarket. Make sure it is PURE ammonia. You add this to the water instead of adding fish, and use an ammonia and nitrate test kit to determine when the tank has been cycled. When no more nitrate exists, that means all the ammonia has been taken care of and your bacteria bed is sufficient enough to add a few fish. This cycle takes about a month as well. Add fish gradually.

The third and easiest method of cycling fish is to use a bacterial supplement. These add the necessary bacteria straight up and skip the cycle altogether. These products make it viable to buy your fish at the same time as you do your other equipment. To do this method of cycling, you add the recommended dosage of the bacterial supplement, wait for the water to clear as the bacteria establish themselves on your tank's surfaces, and then add your fish. If you wait too long without adding fish, then the bacteria will die since they have no waste product to break down. This is the most practical way to cycle your tank, but it cam be made even better by using pure ammonia as food for the bacteria, and waiting a month or so before adding fish.

After your tank has been cycled, you can add your fish. But it is very unwise to just drop them in. You must acclimate your fish to your own tank water, since your water is probably different than the water in the bag in terms of pH, Hardness, and temperature. You can do this by floating the fish bags in your tank water, and adding about 1/2 a cup of your water to their bag every 10 minutes. After about 45 minutes of this, your fish are now ready to be dumped into your tank.

Congratulations! You have successfully established your tank without stressing out your fish too bad. From now on, you need to perform routine maintenance on your fishtank.

For a 1-2 gallon, you MUST perform 75% water changes every week. This is absolutely crucial. Nitrite levels rise very quickly in small tanks and you must make water changes to deal with this. DO NOT rinse out the gravel, as this destroys your bacterial colony.

For a 3-5 Gallon, perform 50% changes every 1-2 weeks, depending on tank size and number of fish. Again, do not rinse out the gravel.

All water changes should be performed as follows:

1) if your tank is small, then you must remove your fish using a cup or a net. I find the easiest way to do this is use a bit of food to bring your fish to the surface, and then dip a cup in the water and the vacuum from the water going into the cup will suck your fish in. Make sure you cover these cups.

2) Use a gravel vacuum and a bucket. Place an empty, clean bucket next to your fishtank. Use the gravel vacuum to suck the debris out of your gravel while draining the water level in the tank. If necessary, you can catch fish with a net or cup and put them in this bucket while you perform maintenance, but this is not 100% necessary.

3) Use another container to fill with tap water and treat with tap water conditioner. Some people keep separate containers with treated water. This ensures that the water is the same temperature as your tank water. Otherwise, wait till the temperature stabilizes, and then pour it into your fishtank to the right water level. I like to use the gravel vacuum to suck the new water into the fishtank, because pouring a lot of water creates spills and makes a big disturbance in the tank.

4) change the filter cartridge if necessary. This only needs to be done every 1-1.5 months.

5) Replace your fish if you took them out. You are finished.

Other than that, feed your fish as necessary and you may need to remove algae from the tank sides with a toothbrush from time to time. Enjoy your new pets!

For more information on smaller fishtanks, visit my other articles.