There are many benefits to owning an aquarium, from the pride of a beautiful environment set up in your living room to the satisfaction of a rewarding hobby. Science has also proved that watching an aquarium can actually lower your lowering your blood pressure! But if you are not careful, you will not have a happy experience, and although fish may seem hearty, small things can wipe out your carefully planned tank. You can make sure that this does not happen to you by making sure that you follow a few simple rules and make sure you do not make any common mistakes.

Cleaning Your Aquarium

Many years ago, I came home to a dead a dead aquarium. Aghast, I asked my family what had happened while I was away. With guilty faces, my husband explained that he thought he would clean the tank. But instead of doing it the proper way, he dumped all of the fish into a bucket (that I used for washing floors) and washed the tank, with an ammonia based glass cleaner. That was the last time anybody but me touched the tanks again.

To keep my aquarium clean, I use and algae scraper. If the tank gets too green, I will empty ¼ of the tank, using a suction to gather up excess waste, and replenish with water that has sat overnight. If you really think it is necessary to actually clean your whole aquarium, put fish and ½ of the water in a food safe bucket and dump out the tank. Wash everything under clean running water. If you feel you need an abrasive use salt. Nothing else.

Underfeed Rather Than Overfeed

Now I do not advocate starving your fish, but one of the worst things you can do to an aquarium is to over feed your fish. When you overfeed, the fish pass out more waste. This in turn makes not only a dirtier tank, but messes up the chemical composition of your aquarium water and also will clog up your filtration system. Fish should only be fed what they can eat in 3 minutes for top fish, or 15 minutes for bottom feeders or timid fish. Yes, they will come up like starving piranha every time you go by the tank, but would you feed your cat or dog every time it begged for more? Of course not, so realise that fish beg too. It may seem like you are hardly feeding your fish anything, but if you think about how large their stomachs are you will realize they actually need little food

Don't Put Too many Fish In the Tank

It is easy to overcrowd your aquarium, because it may seem large and the fish look small, and of course, there are SO many fish in the pet store aquarium, but the aquarium usually has a double filtration system. The general rule of thumb is four gallons to each fish and if you assume the fish are only an inch long each (excluding tail fins) so that should be 5 fish in a 20 gallon tank. Remember that in a lot of older aquarium care books, this is different, but the 4 gallons to each fish is the more reliable amount.

Get A Large Tank.

Even though you may think that a smaller tank will be easier to keep clean, this in not at all the case. The bigger the aquarium, the easier the tank is to keep up. Small tanks and bowls need constant cleaning because they get dirty so quickly, but with the correct amount of fish in it, the larger the aquarium, the less looking after it needs.

With these few basic steps you will be on your way to having a beautiful, trouble free aquarium that with a minimal amount of care, will be centerpiece in your home decor.