by Kenton Turner

Created on: January 07, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2008

You've seen them at garage sales, those empty fish tanks. Maybe somebody bought it on a lark after seeing those lovely fish in the pet store. They brought it home, put it by the windowsill, filled it with water and gravel and plastic plants, added a few fish, and enjoyed their new pride and joy. At least for a week or two. Then came the algae, and the cleaning, and the sick and dead fish until eventually the tank was drained empty and put out with the old encyclopedia set and last year's snow pants.

Maybe this story sounds a little too familiar. Or maybe you've been afraid of getting a fish tank because you don't want the hassle. If you have always admired aquariums but thought that they were just too much work to keep, then you need to know a few tricks which can make setting up and keeping an aquarium much easier and more relaxing. Aquarium maintenance does not need to be a headache. This article is written for the beginner to intermediate fish keeper, so certain assumptions are made regarding the tank; namely that it will be freshwater, that it will be a community tank with different kinds of fish from around the world, and that it will have plastic plants rather than live plants. First let's examine seven common mistakes and how to avoid them.

The first mistake people often make is thinking that a smaller tank will be less work to keep clean. This may seem logical, but it simply isn't the case. A larger tank is more stable, can have a more balanced cycle of water-purifying bacteria, and can comfortably house certain fish species which will help you keep the tank clean (such as the plecostomus, or sucker-mouthed catfish). It also reduces the likelihood of fish crowding. Crowding will cause the water to get dirty faster and cause the fish to get sick more often. The most commonly sold aquarium size is ten gallons. I would recommend a tank of no less than 30 gallons in size; the bare minimum size needed to adequately keep many popular species of fish such as angelfish.

The second mistake people make when starting out is to get goldfish. They're popular, they're pretty, and they're rather tough, but they are a messy fish with a large metabolism. They eat a lot, and produce a lot of waste. When calculating fish density, I count a goldfish as being equal to three other fish the same size. There's nothing wrong with goldfish, mind you, but they do require considerably more maintenance than other fish.

The third mistake to avoid is setting your tank up near a window

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