How to Take Care of an Aquarium

Transcript To pick an aquarium filter, there are a lot of different types of filters on the market, you want to get one that best suits the type of tank that you have. The good thing for consumers nowadays is the increased options for turn key aquariums. There are a ton of aquariums out there …

Transcript I just like using hot water, hot fresh water. The filtration components, the decorations, after awhile, their going to get really scummy and nasty, and they are going to need some cleaning. Take them out, use strong, hot water. You want to use a brush that’s not going to gouge the filtration, just use …

Transcript Okay, if you just clean your aquarium and your tank still smells, I would make sure that you clean the lip around the aquarium. Make sure you took the tank top off the tank and free it and wipe it down of any food that may have splashed up on it, any waste that …

Transcript Well, if your fish tank isn’t pumping water, there are a couple of things you want to look for. A lot of times, it’s the most obvious thing. Maybe it got unplugged. Maybe the surge strip is unplugged. Sometimes, when people do maintenance, they accidentally plug their filter into their light timer. So the …

Transcript If your fish are breathing heavy and not eating, there’s something going on, either the fish are sick or the water is not good. Maybe one of the parameters has slipped out of range, it could be the temperature, ammonia, nitrite, pH, anything of those things will cause stress on the environment and cause …

Transcript The cost associated with maintaining your aquarium is obviously based on whether you do the work yourself or you hire a professional to do it. If you hire a professional you can usually rest assured that the tank is going to be properly maintained. They’re going to come on a regular schedule, typically once …

Transcript To clean your aquarium, you should never have to remove all of your fish. Remember, we’re doing regular maintenance. We’re cleaning the tank every week, every two weeks, every three weeks. You never want to shock the entire system. Removing the fish is shocking the system. Let’s leave the fish in the tank. Change …

Transcript Your fish tank could smell from a number of reasons. I think the most common reason is when people feed their tank, the fish are so used to feeding off the surface that they splash the food back up onto the lid of the aquarium. It gets on the rim, it gets underneath the …

Transcript When you go away on vacation, I think the best thing to do is to have somebody that you trust, whether it’s a neighbor or a friend, somebody who you can instruct on what to look for and what to do in your absence, come and check on the tank everyday. You usually only …

Transcript Most people think that if a fish dies, it’s going to foul the water and it’s going to kill the other fish. Whatever killed that fish is now in the water, and I now have to change all the water. That’s a misnomer. You don’t want to do that. You want to remove the …

Transcript If you have aquarium sand in the tank typically it would be in a salt water aquarium. Most people with fresh water don’t have sand. They use gravel. The sand has a tendency to get kicked up very easily, and with a lot of fresh water filters they have a sensitive filter where if …

Transcript If you notice that your fish have white spots on them, they’re probably suffering from ick. Ick is the most common parasite associated with aquarium keeping. It occurs in fresh water and salt water. It’s usually brought out by a change in water temperature. That’s usually what brings the parasite out of its dormant …

Transcript Some people who are not experienced don’t really know what to look for, so certain symptoms that you want to look for to diagnose problems or potential problems would be the following: you can look and see if the fish are eating as they normally eat. If fish stop eating or a couple of …

Transcript To control ammonia in an aquarium, well first all, a lot of new tanks will experience ammonia, and it’s perfectly fine. You just want to make sure you don’t have a lot of fish in the tank to experience the side-effects of high ammonia. Every tank goes through a cycling period where the bacteria …

Transcript There are a lot of options when picking aquarium fish. I really do recommend you get the advice of a good retail store employee. Find somebody with experience. Somebody that knows the specifics about your aquarium. The size, what your budget is, whether or not you want fish that are going to outgrow the …

Transcript Cloudy water is typically caused by a bacteria bloom. Usually if you do too much maintenance on the tank, if you clean the filter, do a big water change, gravel clean, you’re going to be upsetting the balance of the aquarium. Bacteria is going to take to the water column and start scavenging waste …

Transcript If you want to keep a big aquarium in your house, the same rules apply to a small tank that apply to a large aquarium. They have the same basic needs. You want to keep the water clean. You want to keep the needs of the fish met. With a large aquarium, there are …

Transcript When deciding on what shark to get, you want the best shark for your fish take. It first depends if you have a freshwater tank or a saltwater tank. The sharks that you’ll find for freshwater tanks are not true sharks. They’re not cartilaginous. They’re bony fishes. Their fin patterns and their morphology closely …

Transcript The frequency of cleanings on an aquarium really depends largely on the stocking density of the tank. Every tank is unique. Every tank’s a little bit different. So it’s hard to set a general rule that applies to all environments, all aquariums. But as a general rule of thumb, I like doing a good …

Transcript To clean your gravel in your aquarium you want to have a basic siphon kit. I prefer one that is a two piece kit. It’s got a two inch diameter, maybe twelve to twenty-four inch tube, connected to a five-eighths or three-quarter inch flexible hose that’s maybe four to eight feet long that goes …

Transcript Well, your electric bill will definitely go up depending on how big your tank is and the types of pumps and filters that you have. And lights. If you know what you’re paying for electricity now, usually you’re billed per kilowatt, you can figure out the watts of your tank by just adding up …

Transcript To keep Koi fish in an aquarium, you want to try to replicate their natural environment, just like you would do with any other fish. Koi fish require very clean fast-moving water, highly-oxygenated water, and they need a very large environment. They get very, very large. Even though freshwater fish, their size will be …

Transcript If you have green water it means you have free-floating, suspended algae in your water. I’ll tell you how to fix it. And then I’ll tell you how to prevent it from happening. If you go to your fish store they sell algicides. They’re either in pill or liquid form. These will help to …

Transcript To clean your fish tank filter, let’s define the word cleaning. Cleaning usually means soap, water, sterilization. That’s not what we’re doing here. Our goal is to just free all the waste that’s been trapped in the filter and allow the filter to do what its goal is: to filter the impurities in the …

Transcript Okay. If you have red algae, you probably have a salt water aquarium, because we don’t usually find red algae in a freshwater aquarium. Just in case, your algae looks a little bit reddish, is in a freshwater aquarium, and it’s more like a rust color, that’s probably just brown diatom algae. That plagues …

Transcript Hi. I’m Joseph Caparatta. I own this beautiful store, Manhattan Aquariums. We’re on the west side of Manhattan, at 522 West 37th street. We also service aquariums. We do custom installations, design them, maintain them; that company’s called New York Aquarium Service. I’ve been working with fish since I was 13. I started working …

Transcript Fish have been dubbed to be the most aggressive things on this planet next to people, so it’s pretty common that you’ll find one fish chasing another fish. The thing is, is it chasing it to the point where it’s shredding its fins, it’s kicking up at the corner, because this will surely result …

Transcript You do need bottom-eating fish for your aquarium. The fish that are associated with eating on the bottom are typically catfish. A lot of the catfish get very large, so keep that in mind when you’re buying bottom-eating fish. Ask your sales rep at the fish store, “How big do these fish get?” A …

Transcript If you find your fish are on the bottom of the tank and they’re not eating, probably there’s something going on. Typically, there’s water chemistry, but your water could be fine and the fish could be sick. So the first thing you want to do is try to look for symptoms on the fish. …

Transcript To set up a planted aquarium is very similar to a regular freshwater aquarium but the plants are going to need very bright lights and when you have bright lights in the tank to promote photosynthesis you’re also going to get a lot of undesirable algae. So it’s a balancing act between having just …

Transcript To clean the rocks in your aquarium, mainly the substrate of your aquarium is going to be typically rocks, gravel, and you’re going to want to clean that on a regular basis. Every three or four weeks when you do your good water change you want to siphon the rocks in the aquarium. So, …

Transcript To clean a salt water aquarium, very similar to a fresh water aquarium, I recommend doing it very, very regularly. You don’t want to let a salt water aquarium’s parameters get out of whack. You don’t want the pH to drift out of range, your nitrates to get too high. You don’t want to …

Transcript Bottom eating fish are fish that would be catfish, otocinclus, any fish that scavenges off the bottom. Remember, fish in an aquarium are going to eat everywhere. They’re going to go to the top of the tank, the bottom of the tank, they’re going to nibble on the decoration. They are even going to …

Transcript The viewing panel you can clean with a regular aquarium algae sponge. Don’t use a sponge from your sink or from CVS or something, because a lot of them have anti-microbial agents, and that’ll harm your aquarium. So use a regular aquarium sponge. Find out if you have a glass or acrylic tank and …

Transcript To clean a freshwater fish tank, when we say cleaning, we probably mean maintaining. You want to clean your tank once a week, every two weeks, once a month, depending on how dirty it is, how many fish, and how much you feed. Every tank is going to be a little bit different, but …

Transcript To build a fish tank sump, first of all, I recommend you buy a sump. I’m not going to recommend you make one, because you’re probably setting yourself up for more problems than it’s worth. But if you’re enthusiastic and experienced enough to try this, basically the needs of a reef sump, which is …

Transcript Common fish tank problems would be your fish are sick, they’re not eating, the fish’s eyes are cloudy, just general health concerns of the fish. To fix that or to solve those problems you’ve got to look a little bit deeper. Let’s find the exact cause. Let’s see what’s wrong with the fish. Is …

Transcript To clean dirty fish tank glass. Well, we have the glass inside the aquarium and outside the aquarium. Let’s start with outside the aquarium. You want to use something that’s not going to be toxic to the fish. If you’re going to use Windex or some kind of spray cleaner please don’t spray it …

Transcript To set up a reef tank you want to start with picking the largest size tank you can. Reef tanks have a lot of needs, and the more water you have the more forgiving it’ll be. You’ll have less fluctuations in temperature, pH, calcium. It’s just a larger body of water to resist change. …

Transcript Okay. To set up a fish tank protein skimmer, the obvious recommendation is to look at the instructions. I don’t advise the challenge of setting up a skimmer without having instructions. That being said, the things that you want to keep in mind when setting up a protein skimmer is where the effluent releases …

Transcript To pick a heater for your aquarium, very simple. Most heaters nowadays are fully submersible. I think it’s rare to find a hang-on-the-back heater. Those were around in the 80s and 90s, but now everyone uses submersible heaters. The only advice I would really give you is that you put the heater low in …

Transcript When deciding on an aquarium for your home or office there are a lot of things to consider. I think two of the biggest things to consider are whether to go with glass or acrylic and then to go with a turnkey system or piece mail the whole thing; buy the filter, buy the …

Transcript Some tips that I would keep in mind when setting up an aquarium are the weight load. A lot of people forget that water is very heavy. They’ll buy a two or three hundred gallon tank, they’ll stick it in their upstairs apartment, and they’ll wonder why the floor sags a little bit. So …

Transcript To pick corals for your aquarium, there’s a ton of corals to choose from. If you’re a beginner, I would go with soft corals, namely zooanthids and leather corals and mushrooms, things that are soft, that don’t have a calcium structure like a hard coral does. When these corals die, they don’t leave behind …

Transcript To aquascape a saltwater aquarium this is very, very critical. This is what you’re going to be staring at every time you look at your aquarium. So you want to put a lot of thought into it. First you need to look at the materials. I like dry reef rock like Marco Rock or …

Transcript Mechanically, automatic feeders should last as long as the batteries last. I’ve seen automatic feeders that are well built that last for 10, 15 years. It’s more, can the fish survive just being fed via an automatic feeder. You have to have the feeder always working. I find when people rely on automatic feeders, …

Transcript To set up a goldfish tank, let me define tank. Most people, when they buy a goldfish, when they win a goldfish at a carnival, it usually comes in a bowl. I think goldfish bowls are one of the top sellers at aquarium shops, so let’s talk a little bit about bowls, and then …

Transcript To set up a fresh water aquarium, you’re going to need your tank, your strong stand. Remember water is very heavy, so you want to go with a designated aquarium stand. You don’t want to just put a fish tank on a piece of furniture. I’ve heard nightmare stories, where the stand just collapses …

Transcript The easiest salt water fish to keep would definitely be fish from the grouper family, the damselfish family, triggers, lionfish, eels. These are the fish that people have been keeping since the beginning of salt water fish keeping, the 1970’s, 1980’s, when people really started to see this as a viable hobby. Only recently …

Transcript You can use tap water to fill a saltwater aquarium when you do your water changes, but it really depends on the area that you live in and how good that water is. Most water is safe to drink and bathe in, so therefore, it’s got to be safe for your aquarium inhabitants, and …

Transcript If you’re a beginner and you’re looking to get an aquarium, I do recommend getting something on the small side, maybe a nano-aquarium and something that’s turnkey, like a complete setup. There is the general rule that the larger tank, the more forgiving it is and the more stable it is. Remember, with an …

Transcript Basic fish tank supplies would be, well, aside from your normal filter, air pump, heater, lighting of the aquarium, supplies would be, you’re going to want a good test kit. You’re going to want to test the pH, your nitrogen cycle – namely your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. It also doesn’t hurt to test for …

Transcript To pick aquarium decorations, I recommend you go to a local store and get the advice from somebody who works there. There are a lot of beautiful decorations that you can pick for your tank and there’s also a lot of things that can be potentially be dangerous for your tank. What I do …

Transcript To set up a salt water aquarium. Well, obviously you need an aquarium. You need the right life support for the types of animals that you’re going to be keeping. Now there’s a fish only system and there’s the living reef. That’s something you want to decide in the very beginning. Whether you’re going …

Transcript Depending on the type of tank you have, that will determine whether you or not you need a protein skimmer. However, if you have a saltwater aquarium, you really should consider a protein skimmer. Protein skimmers don’t really work on freshwater. They’re mainly just used on saltwater due to the attraction of waste molecules …

Transcript To decide if you need an air pump for your aquarium you want to look at the other pieces of filtration that you have and determine whether or not they are sufficiently providing oxygen for the aquarium. I like air pumps on fresh water aquariums. They’re great at supplementing oxygen into the water. Most …

Transcript When setting up a reef tank they are not cheap. You can get a turnkey small nano setup for several hundred dollars that has most of the equipment you would need. It has the protein skimmer, a good light, stands, everything you need to set it up. You’re going to need some supplies: some …

Transcript Corals are animals, and they do need to eat. Thankfully, they are largely photosynthetic, so they derive a lot of food that they require directly from the strong lights that we put on our aquarium. The algae that lives in the tissue of photosynthetic corals produces the sugars and carbohydrates that corals need. However, …

Transcript You should feed your fish… Okay, this is where I can get in a lot of trouble because fish really do need to feed all day long. So, they would benefit from feeding two, three, or even four times a day – but very small feedings. Most people’s schedule doesn’t warrant that type of …