Aquarium Advice from Mr. Coxon
Aquarium: Choose the largest aquarium you can afford (keeping in mind the cost of filters and other needed materials). It is easier for things to go badly in a small tank than a larger one. The standard twenty gallon tank is a good beginning size, though a 10 gallon tank can work well if you are careful. Smaller tanks are not recommended. Most people find hexagonal and other oddly shaped tanks to be difficult to maintain.
Get a glass top with a fluorescent strip light. Glass tops are easy to clean and, if you decide to keep live plants, you can easily add a second strip light. Fluorescent lights produce little heat and you can buy special plant bulbs if you want. Plastic hoods are a pain to deal with and clean.
Either buy a stand or place the tank on a very sturdy, level surface. A full 20 gallon tank will weigh about 200lbs. If it is not level, the chances of it getting a leak will be greatly increased.
Place the tank out of direct sunlight—this will cause algae problems.
Filters: There are many filters to choose from. The easiest combination to maintain will be an under-gravel filter with a power head and an over-the-back power filter.
The under-gravel filter is a plastic plate with slits in it that goes under the gravel. The power head sits on top of a plastic tube connected to the plate that draws water through the gravel. The gravel then becomes an excellent area for helpful bacteria who think that fish poop is better than a pizza buffet. This is called biological filtration. You absolutely must have biological filtration!
The power filter sits on the back of the tank with one tube that draws water in. The water then flows through a filter pad that takes out anything floating in the water. This is called mechanical filtration. The pad usually contains activated carbon which takes out impurities from the water, making it crystal clear. This is called chemical filtration. Your tank will look nicer, the fish will be happier, and you will have less work to do if you have mechanical and chemical filtration.
Some power filters also have a wheel on the outside that spins around slowly as the water falls back into the tank. This lets helpful bacteria thrive and replaces the need for the under-gravel filter.
Buy pre-washed gravel sold specifically for aquariums. Other gravels may be dirty, contain toxins such as heavy metals, or affect the water chemistry.
Heater: Buy a submersible, thermostatically-controlled heater and set it to 76F unless you are keeping cold water fish like goldfish (no heater needed) or fish that like unusually warm water (like discus). Most people keep their tanks too warm, leading to increased disease and lower oxygen. Do not buy cheap heaters that hang over the back—I was shocked many times while working in aquarium stores by these cheap heaters!
Decorations: I recommend that you start with a large piece of driftwood and 3-5 medium rocks. Buy these at a pet store to ensure they are clean and nontoxic. Stack the rocks to form some good cave-like hiding places.
Buy a sheet of solid black background paper. This way, your filters and cords will be hidden and black lets your fish show off their colors well. Pictures of fancy underwater scenes behind your fish will wash out their colors.
Plastic plants don’t look very good. Natural tanks will be more enjoyable. After you’ve been successful with fish for a while, buy second strip light and fluorescent tubes made especially for growing aquatic plants.
Lighting: Put your light on a timer. Unless
you are keep live plants, just have the light on when you are enjoying your
fish. My unplanted tanks are
If you keep live plants, you should get a second strip light and special bulbs. A special fertilizer for aquatic plants will be needed, along with a thick layer of gravel—about 2lbs/gallon. Your lights should be on for 12-14 hours/day.
It takes about six weeks for enough bacteria to grow to eat all the fish waste, but you can speed up the process by a few weeks if you add a little bit of gravel from a healthy, older tank. To ensure that your tank has cycled, take a Zip-Lock sandwich bag full of water to your aquarium store. Good stores offer free water tests for ammonia, nitrite, and pH. Really good stores can also check your water hardness, nitrate, and phosphate levels.
Once your tank has cycled, meaning that your ammonia and nitrite levels are zero, you will have some nitrate. This is harmless to fish, but causes algae to grow. Your regular water changes will help reduce this problem. Also, I recommend that you stick a pothos cutting in the back of your tank and grow the ivy across the top. This plant will root quickly in water and absorb nitrate and phosphate from your water, reducing algae.
Black slime or hair algae mean that you have too much nitrate and phosphate in your tank. Keep up your water changes and leave your light off more if this becomes a problem.
Siphon hose and buckets: After your tank has cycled, you should begin doing small, partial water changes every week or two. To make this chore easy for a 10-30 gallon tank, buy two, two gallon buckets that will only be used for the aquarium (not mopping or washing the car, etc.). Keep one bucket full of fresh tap water, covered with a towel to keep out dust and pets, next to the tank. This way, the chlorine will evaporate out (it takes about 24 hours) and the water will be close in temperature to the tank. NOTE: Montgomery County, VA now treats its water with chloramine, which will not evaporate out. Tap water must be treated before being used in aquariums! Visit a local store to buy some chloramine remover.
Buy four feet of ½” diameter plastic hose. Place one end in the tank and suck on the other end while your head is below tank level. This will start a siphon—let it flow into the empty bucket. To stop it, cover the end with your finger and lift it above the top of the tank. Now, gently pour the water that’s been sitting for at least 24 hours into the tank. Dump the waste water (it’s great for watering plants!).
Stir the gravel with your hand before doing the water change sometimes to keep it loose and not too full of debris.
Buying fish: There is a very limited selection of aquarium stores in Montgomery County. C&P Discount Pets by OfficeMax in Christiansburg is my current recommendation for buying fish. Wal-Mart has always done a terrible job of providing healthy fish and knowledgeable advice. Zooquatic Pets was my choice for many years, but lately I've heard of a lot of poor advice coming from them. Classy Pets in Radford has a long-standing reputation of having sick and dying fish. I've seen Petsmart continuously over-feeding thier fish, causing cloudy water due to high ammonia. Basically, it's up to you to read everything you can about the fish you want to keep.
Use books, web sites, and previous visits to the pet store to decide which fish you will keep. Patience and education will help you enjoy this hobby. DO NOT IMPULSE BUY! You will end up with a hodgepodge of fish that shouldn’t live together, may fight, or outgrow the tank. Read books and magazines to get ideas while your tank is cycling. When you first start going to the store, take a notepad and pen to write down fish you like. Ask the clerk lots of questions. If the clerk doesn’t have time for you, come back at a quieter time. If the clerk still can’t answer your questions, shop elsewhere. A good clerk should know lots about fish, including how big they get, how tough they are, which fish they get along with, and which fish they may not get along with. A good store doesn’t want to sell you a fish that will die quickly; they want you to be a customer for a long time. They will understand if you don’t buy something every time you visit.
Buy fish that fit your tank. Never buy fish that will outgrow your tank. While it is true that being in a small tank will stunt the growth of some fish, this is unhealthy and will lead to early death. Oscars are one example. They are cute when small, but may grow to a foot in length. A 55 gallon tank is really too small for two adult oscars. And don’t think you’ll magically have enough money to buy a bigger tank when the time comes. Baby fish may double in size every month—they will outgrow your tank very quickly! If you want to keep oscars or other large fish, save your money and buy a 75 gallon tank along with big filters before you buy the two oscars that will soon fill it.
Good pet stores have a guarantee of at least 48 hours, but a week or two is better. Still, if a fish dies shortly after you buy it, it was probably your fault. Always have your water tested before buying new fish and when a fish dies. Be very careful to get your fish home quickly and not to let the temperature change. Keep the plastic fish bag in a dark paper bag to reduce the fish’s stress. Turn your tank light off. Float the bag in your tank for five minutes, then open it and let some of your tank’s water into the bag. Let it sit for 5 more minutes before letting your new fish into your tank. Leave the light off for 20 minutes or more.
Buy fish that will live in different parts of your tank: a few interesting catfish to smell out fallen food in the rocks, a nocturnal fish like a knife fish to sneak around at night, a small school of the same kind of fish to dance around in the open, a smart cichlid to make a home of your driftwood, a butterfly fish to search the surface for food.
I always set up a tank knowing exactly which fish and plants
it will house. A biotope aquarium is one that mimics a real-life habitat.
The two aquariums that I manage at CES are African biotopes. The 135 gallon
terrarium in front of the school is a
The one inch per gallon rule is only good for very small fish. I recommend you under-stock your tank, not putting more than one small fish per two gallons. Your fish will be happier, act more natural, and live longer.
A well-thought out selection of fish will make your tank interesting to watch for hours instead of minutes.
And, if you can’t resist certain fish that can’t live with your fish... start another tank. In high school, I worked in aquarium stores where I could buy things wholesale and ended up with 7 tanks at home—a 120 gallon big fish saltwater tank, a 30 gallon conger eel tank, a rainbow tank, a Caribbean reef, a catfish tank, a desert tank for a collard lizard, and a 75 gallon aqua-terrarium with lots of frogs, fish, newts, and lizards.
Feeding: A good flake food and a small container of blood worms make a good combination. Blood worms are loved by fish and are good for their color. Don’t worry—they’re not really a bloody worm, but a red insect larva that grows only in very clean water.
As fish are cold-blooded, they need a lot less food than us ounce per ounce. Feed no more than the fish can eat in 2 minutes. It’s best to feed them once or twice per day. I never feed mine on the weekends because I’m not at school. You can leave them for a week to ten days with no food. Never use vacation tablets. These pollute your tank. If you’ll be unable to feed them for over a week, show a friend how to do it while you’re gone.
I recommend that you dip the food underwater—don’t just drop it on top. Many fish are not adapted to feed from the surface.
Responsibility: Fish are living things; vertebrate animals with a nervous system similar to yours. They feel pain, suffer in dirty water, and will die if you don’t take good care of them. If you are not willing to spend a few minutes almost every day watching and feeding them, 20-30 minutes every other week for partial water changes and filter cleaning, and your money to buy fresh food or needed medicine, then get another hobby. Try stamp collecting. You can leave stamps for years and they’ll be fine.
Depending on the species, healthy, well cared for fish may live for 3-20 years or more. Some goldfish (living in ponds, not bowls) have lived over 100 years. In the terrarium at the front of the school, the Congo tetras have been there for seven years.
Keep reading. There are several different magazines (at one time I subscribed to four) and hundreds of books ranging from beginner to marine biologist. There’s always more to learn about aquariums and fish—many species can be bred and raised at home, you can learn about reef and plant tanks, there are dozens of different habitats you can study and mimic.
