5 Tips on the choice of fish

Now this is probably the most popular part of setting up an aquarium. Nevertheless the most important thing is that you don’t start buying fish too early. You need to give your system some time to become a suitable environment for your future fish.

1. Before you go and buy any fish for your aquarium, test the quality of the water. You can do that yourself with the help of some products you can buy in your aquarium shop or you can go to an aquarium shop where they test the water (you need to bring a little amount of it in a glass) and also tell you whether the results are ok or not. In order to save you from being completely desperate after a week of daily tests and “no, it’s not yet ok”’s, you should in any case wait for a few days before testing the water. And even if the results are fine you should still wait and see if they are still fine the next day. During the first week or so the water quality can change very quickly from one day to another.

2. If finally the water quality is alright, there is one more thing you should do before you can finally get your fish. Find out some information about the fish you are planning on buying. You need to find out whether your tank is suitable for them (is it big enough?, etc.) and also whether those fish you want will get along with each other in one tank. This is in fact a little bit complicated. You will find out that there are fish that have beautiful long tales and fish that like to destroy these tales; there are fish hat move hastily and fish that can only stand calm movements within their tank… as I said: this is complicated. But if you take some time you’ll find a good mixture of fish that will get along well.

3. Now that you have also found out about this it is time to get you some fish. But don’t buy all of them at once but rather step by step. Your system then has a chance to cope with the organic waste the fish produce. And while the first fish are in the tank you should frequently check the water quality to see if there’s anything wrong. Don’t overload your system.

4. Don’t buy fish that will grow too big for your tank. Some people say that fish adjust to the tank size but this adjustment is rather degeneration.

5. Some fish tend to eat the plants in your tank. So when you buy fish, find out what they eat. Some also like to eat little fish - always be a little careful with that as well.