How do I start A fresh water tank?

Question

Got a 40 gallon tank , gonna start it up ,but I need good advice....gonna get Tropical fish..plez help

Answer 1

Your best bet would be to go to a good fish store and ask for any information on starting a fresh water tank. The other problem I see is that tropical fish are salt water. You definitely need to go talk to a professional for advice.

Answer 2

Supplies you need:
- a good filter designed for the size of your tank
- a heater designed for the size of your tank
- an aerator (bubble stone or power head)
- a hood that fits your tank with light
- water dechlorinator chemicals (anything that removes the
toxins from the water such as chlorine - Cycle is a great
product)
- decorations (whatever you want)
- tropical fish flakes (any type you want)

Thoughrally rinse all your decorations (gravel, artificial plants, rocks, etc). Do NOT use soap or bleach under any circumstances, then place in tank in desired locations. Install the filter and heater according the manufacture's instructions. Set the heater to 78 degrees.

Using a bucket, or jug fill the tank very slowly with slightly warm water (not too hot, not too cold) until the water is 1 in below the rim of your tank. This is important. You must let the water sit for at least 48 hours before you put any fish. A new tank system is very delicate.

Start with only a couple of "starter" fish. Platys or Mollies are a good bet. Introduce them slowly into the new tank. Place the bags, unopened, in the tank so that they float. Wait 15 minutes, then cut the bag open and let them out.

You must let the enviroment cycle before you put in any more than that to allow the beneficial bacteria to get established. This usually takes 6 weeks of undisturbed growth. If you happen to purchase water testing kit (which I would reccomed), then you will first see the ammonia level rise. When the ammonia breaks down it turns to Nitrite. When the nitrite breaks down it will turn to nitrate. When you notice the first two levels are down to normal, and the nitrate is at a reasonable level, the cycle is complete.

After that you may add more fish! Only a couple at a time as to not stress them out too much. Do not overpopulate your tank however. A good rule of thumb is 1 inch per gallon (keep in mind those are adult sizes!).

Do a partial water change once every one or two weeks. Make sure to add the appropriate amount of water conditioner to the new water!

You've picked a great hobby. Good luck!

Answer 3

Start by filling and setting up the tank and letting it run for at least two to three days and get fully adjusted . Distilled water will also help the tank to get adjusted the quickest. Also you should have gotten some water conditioner chemicalswhen you got the tank. Then go to a fish store and pick a fish you like best and then most fish stores will be able to tell you which fish get a long with them. It is hard to tell you what kind of fish you will enjoy and depending on your dedication and how much work you are willing to do you have tons of options.

If you are new to tanks it is best to stay away from agressive fish as it is too easy to get a miss match and have them kill eachother. I love angel fish as they are big and beautiful and noticible. I have kept them with guppies, zebras, neons and a very large angie eater(not sure of the technical name). I would definatly get an algie eater as they save a lot of time on cleaning and keep your tank spotless.

But then I am not an expert I have had tanks for years and had an angel fisn in with a gold fish for 2 years before someone told me they can not live together. Of course I told them after two years I doubt they can live without eachother. But you should definatly go to a smaller fish store where they have more knowledge and time to talk to you not to wal- mart or a chain store. Because You are taking little lives into your hands.

Answer 4

by just letting the tanks "run" for a week or so isnt really doing anything-you need the fish and the waste in the tank to grown the bacteria bed you need or by some thing from the pet store to "grow" bacteria. However, and I dont care who disagrees-I did this for all my customers in my store and it never failed me---when you want to buy fish, ask the dealer to give you a couple of bags of the "water" in the tank and siphon some of the dirt from the gravel--this is the already grown bacteria and will give you a head start providing the tank isn't infected at the time. I have set up fresh water and salt water tanks from 10 gal to 125 gal and seldom lost a fish. Like I said, most people wont agree but it never failed me and I always save some in my tank if I ever decide to strip it down but all I do is once in a whihle, remove 3/4 of the water and fill her up again after I vacuum the gravel.

Answer 5

on the 40 gallon tank you have to have a good filter and a algae eater to help keep the tank clean you can get them from any fish store on the other fish ask for the help the people will help you and let you know what you need for the tank. some fish don't like plastic don't get the black Moore's the ones with bubble eyes they will die of the plastic plants are in the tank.

Answer 6

You should leave the tank standing for a few weeks with just the water, plants and stones etc, with the filter going and the heater on. If you put the fish in straight away they will die. By the way, tropical fish don't live in salt water.

Answer 7

There's too much to write so I'm really just gonna talk the most important thing about keeping fish, which is the cycle. If you don't want to lose any fish then you really should read about cycling a tank, fishless is best. If you don't decide to go the fishless route then don't go buy just any fish some are very sensitive about water params and they will die through the cycling process. Check this link out and it will tell you all about it, http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/cycle.html

The site is mainly about goldfish but it covers all fish and even has a section there if you want to talk more about it.

Answer 8

go buy chemicals to get rid of the chemicals in the water what a oxymoron start your filtration system buy some fish only two or three and then let them poop in it and dont clean it for a few months so the biological filter can start and then get a policastimas* (Spelling) and get a few more fish depending on your tank size

Answer 9

Tropical fish are not saltwater fish. They are (for the most part) warm blooded fish and need a heater.

List of what you need:

- a heater for a 40 gallon tank
- a filter for at least a 40 gallon tank (but bigger is better and cuts down on cleaning)
- water conditioner (This removes chlorine from your tap water and makes it safe for the fish. I reccomend Stress Coat)
-Stress Zyme
-gravel vaccum

First you need to add your gravel and decorations. Now fill up the tank with tap water. Get the filter running and circulating the water. Add your water conditioner. I also recommends adding Stress Zyme to a new tank, this helps speed up the growth of good bacteria.

Place the heater in the fish tank but do not turn it on right away. Wait at least 1 hour before turning it on. The glass needs time to adjust to the temperature. If you turn it on right away it will break. (I did this once when cleaning out a tank).

Now you need to let this run and sit for at least 4 days. (Water in fish tanks need to have time for the good bacteria to start growing before you can throw fish in it.) The general rule is for every 10 gallons the water should sit for 24 hours.

Okay so it is four days later. Now you can add a few fish.

Please do not try to fill up your tank in one day with fish. This dangerous to your tank and stressful for the fish.

Since the good bacteria hasn't completely neutralized yet, throwing in a lot of fish will give you a bacteria growth boom and your tank will get cloudy and this will stress out the fish.

So go to a store. I recommend Pet-smart. They have the fish easily organized in groups. And they only sell freshwater fish, so you do not have to worry about which fish is what.

You can do tropical semi-aggressive fish only OR tropical community fish only. Please do not attempt to mix these kinds of fish. It's just too much of a risk, even tho it may work for others.

Semi-aggressive fish are not that colorful, yet they tend to get to nice sizes. (6 inches - 12 inches on average). In this group you have Bala Sharks(will get 12 in), Tiger Barbs (3 inches), Kissing Fish (6 inches), Angel Fish (5 inches), just to name a few.

Community fish are smaller , yet much more colorful.
Most do not grow more then 3 inches. Since they stay small you can have more fish in your tank if you go with community fish. some of my favorites:

Mickey Mouse Platy: http://www.adaniels.com.ar/enciclopedia/Dulce/TROPICAL/Platys/Platy_Mickey_Mouse.jpg
They have mickey mouse's head on their tail! Platies are also live-bearers, which means they have live babies - no eggs. If you don't want alot of babies, get all males or all females.

Mollies: Very popular fish that come in a variety of colors (black, white, orange, mixed). Also live-bearers.
- Dalmatian molly: http://www.aquariumfish.net/images_01/dalmatian_molly_w270.jpg
- white molly :http://www.df6na.de/df6na/Fische/Aquarium/Zahnkarpfen/Molly_white.jpg
- various balloon belly mollies: http://www.aquariumfish.net/images_01/balloon_molly_3933.jpg

Neon Tetras: prob one of the most popular fish. These guys are very pretty and school together. So you need at least 3 if you choose to get these.
http://centralpets.com/critter_images/fish/freshwater_fish/FWF_0004630_20020601225736.jpg

Zebra Danios: Another schooling fish that is lively and active.
http://www.bayfish.com.au/images/longfin%20zebra%20danio_sml.jpg



Whatever kind of fish you decide to get, I do not recommend buying more then 4 every few days. So if you go in on a Monday and buy 4 fish, do not buy any more for I would say at least a week for the first time. Then you can start to add more fish every few days.

Fish also do better in pairs. So I do not recommend buying one type of this fish and one type of that fish. Always buy at least 3 of schooling type fish.

Do not overcrowd your tank either. The general rule is for every inch of fish there needs to be one gallon of water. So technically you could have 40 one inch fish in your tank. But most fish do not stay that small. So please take into account how big they will get. At pet-smart each tag with the fish's name and price will tell you how big they will get.

Okay how to clean your tank.

You need to take 25% of the water out of your tank once a month. Do this with a gravel vacuum (cheap item, less then $10). Also change your filter pads. It's that easy! That's it.

More pointers:

After your tank has been established for a while you can add an algae eater to help keep the tank clean. Wait to get him last tho since a new tank has no algae.

Do not leave the tank light on all the time. The more you leave it on the more algae you can get. And if it gets bad enough you can get it in your water. Algae eaters will not eat algae in the water. The water will appear green and it takes a lot of cleaning over a period of weeks to fix this problem.

Do not overfeed. They really only need to be fed once a day, but twice is okay. Just do not give too much. Their stomachs are only the size of their eyes. Give them flakes or pellets.

Give them frozen blood-worms as a treat once a week. They love these and they are really good for them.

Watch your fish! If you notice anything different about them (like white spots, cotton growth, not eating, not swimming) the fish could be sick and seek advice at your local fish store before it is too late to save the fish.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Answer 10

Look here http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=147265
also post questions of your own on the forum.

You also need to fishless cycle, this post explains why and how
http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861&hl=
You need a filter, heater and light as essentials, but I would also recommend looking into a begginers book.