So you want to keep tropical fish? Congratulations on choosing a rewarding and satisfying hobby. Keeping tropical fish is an immensely enjoyable pastime providing you get it right from the start. It is my hope that within this website to bring you some basic information in an easy to understand way that will enable you to set-up and enjoy your aquarium for a long time to come.
Before you rush off to buy an aquarium and fish, you need to ask yourself a few questions to ensure that you don’t find yourself deeply disappointed. I would really hate for you to find your purchase lying on the bottom of the tank and children crying because their pet has died.
Firstly it would be a good idea to work out what sort of fish you want. Do you like the idea of goldfish? Something more colourful like guppies perhaps? Something simple like mollies? Maybe something more exotic like cichlids are you your liking? If you are a complete beginner to fish keeping I would strongly suggest a ‘Google’ image search for tropical fish. Browse until you find something you like the look of – then find out everything you can about it.
From that starting point you should then consider if you would like more than one type of fish in your aquarium. The next important question is ‘Are they compatible?’ You really don’t want your fish eating each other. That’s just as bad as dying on you. Compatibility will also cover things like water quality and temperature. These things need to be close for everyone to get along.
Your next consideration is how big will they grow? Fish are living things – they grow – you can’t stop it. A guideline is approximately 1 inch of fish to 1 gallon of water. This inch refers to the adult size and does not include the tail. Multiply this by the number of fish you hope to keep. Although tanks come in different shapes and sizes the measure of how much water they hold is what you are looking for.
Now that you have worked out what size of tank you might need, do you have room for this in your home? You need to consider a few things in respect to the placement of your tank. If you place the tank in a busy walk-through within your home like a hallway the sudden movement of people passing could startle your fish and cause distress. Placing your tank in direct sunlight will cause algae problems and you’ll be cleaning it far more than you realised. The changing of water will be a regular occurrence. What route will you take with old ‘fishy’ water without spilling it on the carpet?
One word of warning. Tropical aquariums require heating, lighting and filtration. All of these eat electricity like there’s no tomorrow. Please factor the cost of running these items 24/7 before you make any purchase. Fish keeping is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby not a stressful drain of resources.
The majority of this website is based on my own experiences with tropical fish and not just theory spouted by somebody who hasn’t even got their hands wet. Bearing that in mind please read on and enjoy.
Adrian.