How I set-up my 1st Aquarium

Got some free fresh water fish from Bioresearch’s “The Lost Eden”, after going on a Mini field trip. Kudos to the management and staff of The Lost Eden for the brilliant marketing strategy. Each child that joins the tour is given a fish to take care and take home. If you currently don’t have an aquarium at home, chances are you’ll be purchasing the equipment and supplies from them.

I was still in the 6th grade when I last had an aquarium. The technology has changed much since then and I couldn't remember where to start. The logical step is ask around, but be sure to just ask for the basics, as there are a lot of equipment and supplies that you can put into your aquarium which may eventually cost more than you bargained for.

Here’s a list of equipment and supplies to get you started:

1. Aquarium Tank
2. Aquarium Sand or Gravel
3. Aquarium Filter
4. Replacement Filter Media (Usually made of activated charcoal padded with foam)
5. Aquarium Air Pump
6. Rubber Tubing
7. Plants or Decorations
8. Fish net
9. Fish Food

Now that We have everything that We need it’s time to get started:

1.  Wash Clean your Aquarium Tank, decorations and Sand or Gravel. Place the stones into a basin of water. Rinse it about 4 to 5 times or until the water becomes clear to remove the dirt and other impurities from the rocks.  I chose small colored stones against sand, as they are much easier to clean and don’t tend to get washed out when you remove the water.

2. Towel dry your Aquarium Tank. Aquarium Tanks usually come with styro foams which you attach to the bottom of your tank with tape to prevent it from slipping.

3. Assemble your filter by placing the filter media inside and place it inside the corner of your Aquarium Tank.

4.  Gently place the rocks inside your aquarium tank. Don’t just drop them inside as you may crack or worse break the glass.

5. Fill-up your Aquarium Tank with water enough to submerge the Aquarium filter.  Position your decorations inside the Aquarium.  Since We only got a small Aquarium Tank, We opted for plants instead of the decorations.

6.  Add more water into your tank leaving at least 1 to 2 inches space from the top.

7.  Connect your Aquarium filter to the Air pump using your rubber tubing.  Plug-in your air pump and allow the water to normalize for about 1 hr.

8.  Let the fish float on top of the water for about 15 mins. to allow them to acclimatize to the water inside the tank.

9.  From this point Your supposed to just let the fish out from the plastic bags into the tank.  However, I notice that there was a lot of dirt and impurities inside the plastic bag, so I carefully slid the fish into the fish net allowing the water to drain into a basin and transferred the fish into the aquarium.

10.  Congratulations your done. I personally didn't opt to install a lighting system for the aquarium as it is currently placed on a well lighted area and installing a lighting system will increase our electricity consumption. Make sure to ask for the proper feeding and caring instructions for your fish.