March 29, 2012
At one time, I had many freshwater tropical aquariums set up around my house. I was very much into the hobby of keeping tropical fish. I had all kinds of tropical fish in my tanks: angels, neons, barbs, tetras, guppies, white clouds, dwarf cichlids and many more. I even had several marine tanks set up and wrote a book about them called TROPICAL SALTWATER AQUARIUMS, How to Set Them Up and Keep Them Going. But over the years, I kept fewer tanks of fish and finally there were no tanks left.
But I’ve started again. I’ve just set up two small freshwater aquariums. Here’s what I did.
I washed out the tanks thoroughly, using NO SOAP at all, just water and a clean (never used) sponge. Then I rinsed the tanks completely and set them in safe places that were strong enough to support their weights when they were full of water, gravel, plants and fish. Water weighs a lot; you should figure that an aquarium averages about 10 pounds a gallon, so a ten-gallon aquarium is going to weight about 100 pounds.
I poured tap water into the aquarium and let the water age for several days. I also added a water conditioner, which helped the water age more quickly.
I washed out about two pounds of gravel per gallon in a new plastic bucket (remember NO SOAP) and then poured the gravel into the aquarium.
I added a filter, a small water heater and then planted a few underwater plants. After another few days I added a few fish: white clouds, platys, cherry barbs and two small catfish.
So far the fish seem fine. I’ll keep reporting to you about how they are doing and also show you some photographs. If you have a tropical fish tank and home or in class, write about your experiences and send me some photos too!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
