Let's Get Started!
There are many things you have to learn about fish and how to keep them. Your fish, at one time, lived in the ocean or other waterway and you need to make its new home just like the home he once knew. Your fish will become your pet and will depend on you to take care of it. They need just as much care as any other pet you might have. They need to be fed regularly and most important is that you must make sure the water is safe for him to live in. This process of making his water safe involves testing the water to see if the chemical balance is safe. After a few times you will become very good at this and you will learn many things about science and nature. I will try to teach you the basics about the cycles your water will go through and why. You will have to learn some new words and some of them may be a bit difficult for you, but I know you will be able to understand it and will have a very successful aquarium.
But, before you need to be concerned about any of that, you will need to get your aquarium ready for your fish. NO FISH YET! We have a lot of work to do before we get any fish. This will be so much fun!
1. Put your aquarium in the place where it will stay. Water is very heavy and you don't want to have to move it after it is filled.
2. Rinse any gravel or other substrate (any material you might want to put on the bottom) with plain water only (no soap or detergent) and then place it in the bottom of your aquarium.
3. Rinse any decorations and plants with plain water and put them in the gravel where you want them.
4. You are now ready to put in the filter, pump and heater (if you have one). Please get an adult to help you with this step.
5. Now you can start adding water. Put a bowl in the bottom on top of the gravel so that the water does not splash around and make a hole in your gravel.
6. After you have the water added, you can plug in your pump and filter (again, get an adult to help with this).
7. NO FISH YET! You will not be ready to add any fish for at least two weeks. You can take this time to learn about how your aquarium works.
8. The water you have put into your aquarium needs to be tested now to see if it has anything in it that would hurt your fish. If your water comes from a city water supply, and it more than likely does, it will have something called CHLORINE in it. Chlorine is a chemical that the water company adds to make the water safe for us to drink. It is very bad, however, for our fish. Chlorine will eventually leave the water in a couple of days, but it would be a good idea for you to test it yourself so you can see what a chlorine test is. You can do that with a Chlorine Test Kit. Find a place in your house where you can sit come containers of water to allow the chlorine to draw out for when you have to do water changes.
9. Now you need to test your water for something called pH. This is a very difficult thing to explain and all you really need to know about this right now is that the reading you take should be right around 7.0. Anything less than 7.0 is known as ACIDIC and anything about 7.0 is known as ALKALINE. This condition exists in our drinking water and although it is alright for us to drink, it needs to be right for our fish to survive. In fact, after you have fish in your aquarium and your pH is low, adding more water (from the containers you have sitting out) will usually correct it.
10. Take the remainder of these two weeks to get comfortable with testing your water and if you want to re-arrange any of your decorations, do it now before you put in any fish.
11. After the two week period is over and your water tests alright for chlorine (this level should be at "0") and your pH level is right around 7.0, YOU ARE FINALLY READY FOR A FISH! Notice, I said a fish (That Means 1). Make it an inexpensive one to start out with.
Now you are ready to learn something new. It is called "Cycling Your Tank" or "The Nitrogen Cycle". Click Here to begin the Nitrogen Cycle.
