Keeping an aquarium at home is a dream of majority people. Aquarium will make your home beautiful, it kills your boring time and observing fishes in an aquarium helps to reduce your stress. But before starting, you should understand the necessary things on how to set up a fish tank and maintain it.

Choosing a fish tank

Choosing aquarium tank is the first part. I have seen many people telling that beginners should select the small tank and I am totally against that. Small tanks need more care and maintenance. So decide on how many fishes you are placing in the tank and choose the tank which allows more space for the fish to swim around.

Rectangular tanks are the best which has more surface area, and it will enable the air to mix with topwater. I do not suggest bowls because fish can't hide anywhere inside it and it frightens them. Choose rectangular tanks or tanks with corners and more surface area.

Find an Aquarium position

Once you choose an aquarium the next step is where to place it. It would be better if you can keep it in your living room. Everyone including your guest can easily see your aquarium if you put it in your living room. Find a place with plug points, because you need to connect your filter, aerator, heater and thermostat.

Make sure to keep away your tank from direct sunlight as it increases algae growth, temperature and in turn reduce oxygen levels. Keep it in a place where you can quickly drain the aquarium water.

Get ready to do regular maintenance

Cleaning is the painful part once we set up an aquarium. But we can reduce this to some extent If we use best aquarium filter otherwise, you should change the water every couple of day.

Do not replace full water in your aquarium in a single shot. It will stress your fishes. Change 10-20 percentage water once in two weeks once the filter is installed.

Buy a filter and aerator for your aquarium

Waste produces by the fishes should be removed from aquarium regularly. Otherwise, nitrites discharge by fishes gets converted to ammonia which is toxic. Ammonia formation can avoid by using best filters available in markets. Choose a filter based on ths size of fish tank and fish stock. Big tanks need a filter which can circulate more gallons per minute.

An additional aerator or oxygen pumps should be added to provide more oxygen to fishes. You can use air stones which helps to dissolve more oxygen in water because of its small bubbles.

Aquascaping your fish tank

Aquascaping is the art of arranging your aquarium with stones, gravel, plants, driftwood etc. Natural and artificial plants can be added to organise aquascape.

Gravels and sands are used to decorate fish tanks to make more beauty to an aquarium. Best gravels should be selected to stabilise your plant's growth. You can mix fertilizers with gravel which promotes water plants growth.

Keep a stable temperature

The temperature should appropriately maintain in an aquarium for fishes. Water change and lights in the aquarium can change water temperature. Heaters and thermostats can be added to measure and stabilise water temperature.

Maintain a temperature between 24 to 27 °C(75 to 80 °F) for the tropical fish tank.

Maintain proper ph level

Water pH should be at a level of 6 to 7.5. Less than seven means water is acidic, and more than 7 means water is alkaline.

Water should be changed and tested to make sure that pH level if balanced. We can test ph of water easily at home. You can use the pH testing kit, liquid or litmus paper is available in the market to measure water pH.

Fungus prevention

We should clean aquarium to make sure all epoxy, the adhesive is removed. Use potassium permanganate to remove fungus before adding water.

Add salt in small quantities in some intervals helps to prevent fungus infection in fishes. Medicine available in the market can be mixed in aquarium water to prevent fungus. If you find some whitish or light grey growth in fish skin, your fish is fungus infected. Separate infected fish from other fishes do avoid further disease spread.

Add fishes to your tank

Once you set up a fish tank, just operate filter and aerator for some days till your aquarium stabilised. Make sure tank ph is in expected value. Choose the number of fishes based on your tank size. More fishes mean more waste, more oxygen and more filtering required. Think this before filling your aquarium with a lot of fishes.

Don't put fish directly into aquarium from cover, keep your fish with the cover in the aquarium for 10-15 minutes, so that both temperatures will be same. Put fish into aquarium once both temperatures equalise.

Hope you get some idea about how to set up a fish tank at home.