MAKING AN AQUARIUM AT HOME

The beauty inside your house can be enhance when you have an aquarium in the living room. Instead of buying a ready-made aquarium set sold in the pet shop, do it by yourself. All you need are the following:

Use ten gallon tank for easy mobility. You need air pump with tubing, air stones, box filters, under gravel and living plants. See to it that the aquarium can hold water to avoid crack to the surface. Use cover with working light. The air pump should have a steady and firm flow of water without any blockage. The heating devise is free from any rust. Be sure that the heater glass has no crack.

Run your aquarium without a fish inside. This will be your trial run. After a week, add fish you like, but keep the quantity to the minimum. Then add live plants for greater effect.

After you rinse out the tank with under gravel filter inside, start putting other ornament. Wash the gravel before putting it. It should be clean and free from any debris.

To hold down the plants inside, you need rocks and settle it into shelves near the back of the aquarium. Use live plants rather than plastic plants so that the aquarium have a natural look.

As the materials are inside (except fish) now the time for you to add water half-way at first. To avoid destroying your arrangement, use folded newspaper as your dish so that the water slowly transported inside the aquarium and fill it without moving the lay-out of the materials inside.

At first, the water will cloud, but it can clear within 1 or 2 days. If possible do not use chlorinated water. If not possible, use conditioner you can buy in pet shop and use it to neutralize the water from the chemicals.

If you think your aquarium still need additional adjustment regarding its arrangement, do it because the water is only half-way in the aquarium.

After the tank is fully filled, hook up airlines to filter and test the heating system. It will take 3 to 4 days checking the thermometer to let the thermostat to regulate the temperature to 78'F. This conditioning period will allow any impurities to reduce or disappear while the bacteria will now begin cycling the wastes.

Choose harmless gold fish or other kind of fish that are peaceful. Start it with only 4 or 5 fish for the first months. After your purchase, acclimatize them slowly because of different temperature by floating it in plastic container in the aquarium for 30 minutes maximum to avoid stress to the fish for sudden change of temperature.

At the end of the month, add more but don't overcrowd it. In your periodic cleaning, you need fish net, algae scrapers, gravel vacuum, test kit and fish food. You should have a daily feeding schedule. Make a regular schedule for testing the water quality for hardness and nitrates changing water and cleaning the aquarium.

Change water every 2 weeks to remove unwanted sediments. In feeding, dry flake foods are good. Use other kind of foods you can buy in pet shop.