How To Set Up An Aquarium

You can have the best furniture in your living room, you can have the best lighting in your living room, but it still may not look as good as it can when you place an aquarium in it. This is exactly why people have aquariums in their living spaces, because, after all there really is something about an aquarium. It can instantly add elegance, class and sophistication to the room in which it is placed. You don’t really need to get yourself a clichéd one from an even more clichéd store. All you need to do is make up your mind and you can set up an aquarium all by yourself. While setting up and aquarium yourself, you can add your very own personal touches to it. Go right ahead and read on to establish familiarity with step-by-step instructions on how to set up an aquarium all by yourself.

Steps To Setting Up An Aquarium

You Will Need

Gravel
Distilled Water
Thermometers
Fishes
Fish Tank

Instructions

You can kick start the process of setting up an aquarium all by yourself by first zeroing on a fish tank. When finding yourself a fish tank, make sure its size and shape suits the space set out for it. It will make no sense to buy a huge fish tank when there is hardly any space for the same in your house.
Once you have found the tank that you know you are going to use, go ahead and clean it. Although it may be a new tank, it will still make for better sense to clean it with fresh and clean water. If you have to use a cleaning agent to clean the tank, make sure you use a non-soap based product.
Now that you are done with cleaning the tank, it is time to move on to the gravel. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that you can use the gravel without washing it. For the safety of your fish, you will have to make it a point to wash the gravel. The gravel can be washed with just water or both water and a non-soap based product.
If you plan on using decorations in your tank, you will have to clean them too. The golden rule here is to clean anything and everything that goes into your tank, with or without water as the case maybe. Here too, you can use fresh and clean water or both water and a non-soap based product.
With all the cleaning done with, you can move on to setting up your tank in a location you know will be just fine for the same. When choosing the location for your fish tank, you will have to make decisions on the space that has to be set aside for the fish tank. The space set aside for the fish tank has to be just right for the same and should also ensure its safety. You, after all, don’t want your fish tank falling on the floor due to someone accidentally brushing against it!
Proceed to install the filtration system and make it a point to follow the manufacturer’s instructions when going about it. This is important because models vary from each other and may not require you to do the same things when installing them.
Go ahead and add the cleaned gravel to the tank. The ideal way to do this is to add a pound of gravel when you are adding a gallon of water. If you are adding plants to the tank, you can anchor the same to the bottom of the gravel.
You can now add water to the tank. As far as possible, try not to use just tap water since it may have chemicals in it. To get the better of this, you can use tap water along with conditioners that are readily available at fish stores.
Start the filter system and then place the heater and the thermometer in the tank. Set the temperature of the water after taking into consideration the fishes that you are going to place in the aquarium. Don’t place your fish in the tank just yet.
For best results with the process of setting up your own fish tank, let everything run for a minimum period of twenty four hours. Get the temperature settings right and you are good to go. You can finish off by placing your fish in the tank.

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