Setting up an aquarium
Setting up an aquarium is not really rocket science. Of course, there are multiple styles of aquaristics, and each style requires a slightly different approach, whether it's during setup or in subsequent care of the aquarium.
We will talk about setting up the most common type of planted aquarium with undemanding plants.
First, it is necessary to clarify what kind of fish we want to keep. Depending on this, the size of the aquarium is selected, and subsequently the equipment of the aquarium such as the bottom, amount of plants, possible shelters, etc.
First, we choose the bottom. We have a choice of various materials. The most commonly used universal bottom is siliceous sand or gravel with a fraction of 1 to 3 mm. Most undemanding plants grow in this bottom. It is ideal to place an NPK fertilizer capsule under each plant when planting because siliceous sand is inert, thus it does not absorb any substances and therefore does not retain any nutrients for the root system of the plants. NPK capsules are added under each plant about once a month. Of course, there are various storage substrates, which are full of shelves in pet stores, but they cost quite a bit of money and then I personally would not recommend them to absolute beginner aquarists, as one must first learn how to work with them. Some of these substrates exhaust their nutrient supply and can subsequently absorb nutrients from the water again, thus supplying the plant roots. However, this ability may cause incorrect use of fertilizers to cause the water to turn green, the pH to change, and other problems that you do not want in an aquarium. Therefore, I recommend ordinary siliceous sand or fine-grain gravel to beginner aquarists. The layer of gravel or substrate is usually placed about 2 cm at the front glass and about 5 cm at the back glass. This is because taller plants that are planted in the background of the aquarium need enough bottom height for rooting.
When choosing plants, I recommend using one of the online atlases of aquarium plants, where you can also find information on the demands of the plants on fertilizer, CO2, and light. The less demanding ones, which are suitable for a regular aquarium, have these requirements reduced, but at the same time perform the same function as all the other plants in the aquarium. An aquarium can also be operated completely without plants, but I do not recommend this to beginning aquarists. Plants in an aquarium serve not only an aesthetic function but are significant consumers of nitrates and of course serve as shelters for fish. When acquiring plants for an aquarium, keep in mind that it is ideal to plant about 50 to 60% of the floor area right when setting up the aquarium, so you don't have to interfere with the aquarium later unnecessarily.
Another thing used in the aquarium is decorations. Always choose natural decorations, not artificial, plastic, etc. Various roots or branches of mostly hardwoods can be used, but softwood like conifers can also be used. It is important that the wood is properly dried and then submerged again. Nowadays, when most beginner aquarists acquire plecos, which they call cleaners, it requires natural wood for its life, which it nibbles and gets bulk substances from it, which help it digest. If it doesn't get these substances, it very often suffers from intestinal problems and dies.
The overall look of the aquarium besides wood can be further decorated with various natural stones. Completely unsuitable stones for most aquarium fish are rocks with a large admixture of limestone such as tufa, which gradually disintegrates and releases limestone into the water, which significantly affects the hardness of the water. If you would like to provide your fish with their own shelters, I recommend using natural materials such as pieces of hollow wood, half a coconut shell, or stacking a cave out of stones. Plastic houses, which are commonly sold in aquarium stores, are absolutely unsuitable.
Last but not least, and actually the most important, is to choose the right filtration for your aquarium. There is an inexhaustible amount of both internal and external filters on the market, so it depends on each person's financial possibilities. For a regular planted aquarium, some pump head and sponge cube suffice, but of course, you can also choose an external filter, which does not take up any space in the aquarium and in terms of ease of cleaning might be a better choice than an internal filter. An external filter has several disadvantages, however, you do not have control over water leakage from the aquarium, which can occur due to a leak at the filter head, you must have space for the filter either under the aquarium or next to it, and during a prolonged power outage, it can happen that all the beneficial bacteria living in the filter actually die, thus the filter is devalued and its entire content must actually be cleaned and then the filter reconnected.
On the other hand, an internal filter has the advantage that even during a prolonged power outage, nothing happens to the bacteria in the filter material assuming the aquarium is already biologically established. Further, you do not have to worry about returning from vacation to find the aquarium leaked, which can simply happen with an external one. Nowadays, many people might object that various media can be placed in an external filter and not just sponge as it is with an internal filter. Believe, however, that today there are also internal filters where ceramic or various bio-balls can be used for bacteria colonization, and the safety of operation of the internal filter is simply an undeniable advantage. When choosing a filter, whether internal or external, keep in mind that it is good to select filters where the performance can be regulated and it should be such that it pumps at least once the entire volume of the aquarium per hour. Today, in many articles, you will learn that the filtration should be so strong that it pumps the aquarium volume at least three times per hour, which for me is completely unnecessary, because it's not about having a current like in a stream, but about having proper especially biological filtration, because the mechanical one will occur even at lower filter performance.
Since you will have plants in the aquarium, you need to choose lighting as well. For undemanding plants, I am convinced that the lighting supplied in various aquarium sets is sufficient. If you wanted to get some more demanding plants, you would need to look at other lighting that is significantly more expensive and of course, must be much stronger and have a full light spectrum. Since I'm not exactly a plant enthusiast, I won't tell you about lights here, but I recommend to everyone who starts with aquaristics to use only undemanding plants and only after you master the overall care of the aquarium and understand the biological processes in the aquarium, then you can start thinking about more demanding plants, which then require dosing liquid fertilizer into the water in quite precise proportions, a balanced ratio of light, and adding CO2 to the aquarium.
So, in summary, get an aquarium, put sand, gravel on the bottom, place roots, branches, stones, plant plants, place a suitably chosen filter, and of course fill it with water. I recommend running such a set-up aquarium without any fish for at least three weeks to establish biological balance, without which the fish could be poisoned. What you can put into the aquarium right away are a few aquarium snails, which not only start the nitrification process faster but also take care of any decaying plant remnants and overall cleanliness in the aquarium.
After three weeks, you can confidently release your new aquarium inhabitants. When choosing fish, keep in mind that the aquarium should not be overstocked in the first place. There is a certain rule that I don't really like and certainly don't follow, but for beginning aquarists, it is probably a necessity. This rule says that there should be 1 cm of fish per liter of water. According to this rule, the number of fish in the aquarium can be relatively easily determined.
However, realize that the fish you buy in aquarium stores may not be at their full size, so it is better to first find out how large the fish grow and select the number of fish accordingly. Choose aquarium fish also based on the biotope they come from. It is absolutely inappropriate to put, for example, mouthbrooders from African lakes and South American tetras, cichlids, or catfish in the same aquarium. It's nonsensical because the water values in each of these biotopes are completely different. Therefore, the conditions in which mouthbrooders live are absolutely not suitable for South American fish. So again, I recommend studying what each fish requires in terms of conditions before purchasing them and based on the parameters of your water, also select the future occupants.
If you follow everything as you should, you should not have a problem keeping the aquarium beautiful and viable long-term. Now all you have left is to enjoy the underwater beauty. If someone does not like this article or disagrees with it, of course, they have the right to, it's up to you. I only speak from my own experiences and I think that over the years, having bred and raised fish, I have some. Take care. :)
