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Buying A fish tank
Kewop Decam
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I want to buy my girlfriend a fish tank for Christmas, but I don't know a damn thing about them. I want to get her one of those fish tanks that you can easily put on top of a drawer. Her drawer is about 6 feet long and 3-4 feet wide. It's a strong drawer that can hold some pretty heavy stuff.
Exactly what do I need to know? Which kind of water is easier to deal with, salt or fresh? How hard is it to maintain? Is PetSmart a good place to get one or should I go to some chain that specializes in it? Is it okay to mix fish with crustaceans of any kind? What supplies do I need to buy to maintain the tank?
I don't want to spend more than $250 on the tank alone. Is that even enough for a full working tank with no fish?
Help me, for I know nothing about fish tanks.
Exactly what do I need to know? Which kind of water is easier to deal with, salt or fresh? How hard is it to maintain? Is PetSmart a good place to get one or should I go to some chain that specializes in it? Is it okay to mix fish with crustaceans of any kind? What supplies do I need to buy to maintain the tank?
I don't want to spend more than $250 on the tank alone. Is that even enough for a full working tank with no fish?
Help me, for I know nothing about fish tanks.
Kewop Decam on
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The basics are:
Fresh water aquariums are much easier to maintain than salt water aqauriums, and the stock are generally less expensive.
Water and gravel and all that jazz is heavy, and the aquarium will probably weigh 10 pounds per gallon. Make sure the structure can support that without shifting laterally the first time someone looks at it funny.
How hard it will be to maintain depends almost entirely on what she wants to do with it.
PetSmart is fine so long as you don't want anything super-fancy.
Fish and crustaceans mixing depends entirely on the fish and the crustaceans. It's not impossible, but make sure they're compatible. Google should be able to answer any questions in that regard.
Supplies depend on your area and the fish. At the minimum, you need food for the fish. If you don't want to let the water cure, or if your area uses chloramines instead of simple chlorine, you'll need a water conditioner. You'll want a water-testing kit, but people do get by without them if they stick to hardy, nonfinicky fish.
$250 should be plenty. Tanks run from about $15 for a ten-gallon glass tank to jaw-droppingly expensive for a hundred+-gallon acrylic bowfront. Depending on what your girlfriend wants, you could be able to get a $50 ten-gallon kit that comes with everything. You might want to buy things piecemeal, though, or go with a bigger tank. It really depends on what she wants.
Your best bet is to find out what sort of fish she wants to keep and design the tank around them. It will make maintenance less of a bitch, and fish that are in conditions that suit them are much easier to keep healthy.
I guess I could buy her some more of those. She had three, but they died over time.
Are they a real pain in the ass to deal with? Like what is so bothersome about them? I just want to know because I'll know if she'll be willing to do the work or not.
EDIT - Pretty much, she likes any fish that looks "pretty" she has no real preference. Oh, I do know she loves those Finding Nemo like fish.
Might I suggest some ryukin goldfish? They're very showy fish, yet still as hardy as any other goldfish. And, like most goldfish, they are extremely curious--mine used to follow my finger when I pointed to them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukin
I had four of them once in a twenty gallon tank. They weren't that big, but I'd say for smaller ones, five gallons a fish isn't too restrictive.
If she's into bettas, a ten-gallon tank for one should be fine. You can grab one of the kits that comes with a heater, a filter, a hood and lights and have everything ready to go. A 10-20% water change weekly is pretty easy to manage with a small tank. You should google "betta forum" and do a little bit of reading. Most of the big ones have pretty large noob sections that can tell you exactly what you need to make everything just right for the fish, which will cut down on problems later.
I've never dealt with a heated tank, but for a coldwater tank you need a filter, an aerator (a pump and air stone, or similar arrangement) and a light. They're usually rated for the tank capacity and aren't that expensive or difficult to maintain, you just need to change the filter element every so often.
Fish tanks are really, really, heavy. Would you, for example feel confortable standing on top of the piece of furniture you're talking about? If you wouldn't, it's probably not sturdy enough.
Lastly, If you get a glass tank, don't place it directly on top of anything, even if the surface seems totally flat. Put some foam, or old carpet, or cardboard or something down first. Otherwise, you can put a bending strain on the (glass) base, which means when you fill it with water the whole thing can explode in a cloud of schrapnel and sashimi.
Best bet is to find a decent pet shop and ask for advice.
So, non-heated is easier to deal with it. Also, do I fill the tank and then move it into the room, or put the tank in the room and fill it there? I workout often and my work out weight with a bench is 285 (that's not a max, that's just my simple workout weight). Should I be able to lift a normal sized full tank about 20 feet or so?
You can get some pretty fancy fish in a ten gallon freshwater tank. I haven't had an aquarium for a while, but I used to have neon tetras, hatchet fish, these "shark" fish (all silver with black tips on the fins), mollys, guppies, an eel-like thing called a kuli loach, snails, some tiny crabs, and a salamander (though the salamander escaped from the tank and dried out to death.) I'd say just take a trip to a pet store and see what freshwater fish are available. You won't be getting clown fish or lion fish with freshwater, but you can make a nice mix of different species.
Upkeep is fairly minimal. Get a decent filter, check the water every now and then. I had snails and some algae-eater fish that kept the tank pretty free of algae and such, but you'll still probably have to siphon it or replace the water every now and then. (The snails were great, but if you use them be ready for billions of them.)
Edit: I'd recommend filling the tank where you want to put it. Even if you can lift it, when it's filled up you're going to have water splashing everywhere. Clean it out, put the rocks in, and put it in place before adding water.
Assuming she wants to care for it, I would not go over 20 gallons if you are putting on that piece of furniture.
DO NOT move a tank with water in it. The seams are meant to hold tight while sitting and if they flex, especially with pressure behind them, they'll leak.
cold water tanks are a little cheaper to run, but you are very limited to the number of fish and the type you can house - 1 goldfish for every 10 (yes, TEN) gallons is the max recommended if you go that route because they are very messy fish.
If you go tropical (heated) then stick with smaller, peaceful fish. African Cichlids are generally the most colorful tropicals but after a month or three, get very territorial depending on species and will kill eachother in a small tank.
Some 10 gallon tanks come with dividers for placing 3 Betas (fighting fish) into them - might be a good option for you.
I would advise staying away from real plants and not getting a Plecostomus.
Freshwater tanks, depending on your city/well water will have to be conditioned to remove the Chlorine or Chloramine in the water prior to putting it in the tank.
Please look at the information provided at http://www.aquariumadvice.com (mods let me know if this is considered not allowed) as I believe that is the best aquarium-related site on the intertubes
last final note for this post, read and learn about the Nitrogen Cycle.
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If it's the loach, you could get her a pair or a trio (they shouldn't be kept alone) at pretty much any pet shop that carries fish, but you'll need a bigger (20-30 or more gallons) tank. They're loads of fun to watch, though.
Heated tanks aren't that much more problematic than coldwater tanks, depending on where you live. If you're still in Florida, your tank is probably going to be room-temp+ three-quarters of the year and would only need to be heated from November to February. That's actually been kind of a crotch-kick for me, since most fish do better at under 80 degrees and I'm not one of those hardcore dudes that goes out and builds kegerators for their fish tanks.
EDIT - "Some 10 gallon tanks come with dividers for placing 3 Betas (fighting fish) into them - might be a good option for you. "
Really? I need to check that out because it sounds damn cool.
I've seen those. I always feel sorry for the one in the middle, because the two on either side will just float there and stare at it.
I actually found that real plants, depending on the kind, were great to have. As long as they're not going to completely take over the whole tank, they can help keep the water clean. Any reason to stay away from them?
Edit: same goes for the Plecostomus (never knew it was called that). Is there a problem that I never heard about?
Also, her house can be fairly cold actually. Her parents blast the AC the majority of the time. So it would be smart to get a heater then huh?
Depends on the pleco. It's a catch-all name for a big group of fish, so you don't necessarily know what you're getting. The ones that do eat algae tend not to get enough to eat in a small tank, so you lose them, and it's hard to tell whether or not the one you're buying is healthy thanks to their armor. Others are problematic for different reasons.
Plecos are awsome and are my favorite type of fish but they don't really belong in a new tank with people that are just getting into the hobby. The ones you see in the petstore simply by the name, "Pleco" or "Common Pleco" are any of many various species, most if not all with max sizes approaching and sometimes exceeding a foot. They won't grow that big in a small tank of course, but they will be stunted and like the plants, just sit there "surviving"
There are many species of plecos that stay small and are awsome fish to have - but they eat algae and plant matter and depending on the species, sometimes meaty foods too. If you do find one you like, they appreciate supplemental food as new tanks wont have the buildup on the glass/decorations/etc to keep they healty.
I'm rambling
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What is that? You gotta talk to me like I'm a dummy, I don't know this stuff.
A shoal is a group of fish--kind of like a flock of birds. Some fish are solitary, others really should be in group and do all sorts of neat group-behavior tricks if they're kept with more than a few of their buddies (like the formation-swimming thing you see on nature shows with big groups of prey fish all changing directions at once).
Danios, specifically zebra danios, are pretty much the standard-issue fresh water aquarium fish. Most types of danio are cheap as hell, forgiving of beginners' mistakes, fairly pretty, and will do the formation-swimming thing if you keep them in groups of six or more. You'll see a lot of them when you go fish-shopping.
The tank is the cheap part. It's the tank light, heater(s), filter, chemicals, food, etc that gets expensive. Keep in mind that you'll need to vacuum the tank periodically. If I remember correctly, about every 1-2 weeks. It's not a fun process and the bigger the tank, the longer it takes. You should get a book on this or even USE GOOGLE. All of this shit is already on the internet. Make sure you want to put forth the effort before you going laying out a few hundred bucks.
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