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.![](/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/Pour_in_Water.jpg)
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.
![](/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/Plastic_Bucket.jpg)
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.
![](/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/Added_Plants.jpg)
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.
![](/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/CU_Fish.jpg)
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
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