Aquarium Art

Three simple rules before you even think about what you want.

1. Establish your budget $500 or $5,000
2. Establish the space available including floor strength
3. Buy the largest sized aquarium you can afford

My own rule of thumb for any aquarium is 70 gallons. In various literature I’ve read over years that seems to be the starting point give or take 10 gallons. From experience larger tanks have yielded better over all results.

Bigger (more water volume) is always better.

A few things you need to understand.

Aquariums are work. Water is heavy.

If you don’t maintain your aquarium properly it will look like hell.

The reason I recommend the “larger the better” is that a greater volume of water reduces the rate and degree of of fluctuation of water chemistry and temperature.

Bear in mind that fish live in environments with millions of gallons of water that is fairly stable and what variations exist are natural and related to seasonal weather patterns that tend to be consistent over time.

Fish do not usually adapt well to rapid fluctuations of any kind unless they lived in an environment where such fluctuations were normal.

Some fish therefore are less susceptible than others.

Saltwater fish are particularly sensitive to rapid changes  - given that they live in huge bodies of water (the ocean) that do not fluctuate in chemistry or temperature except extremely gradually.

So as you can see my emphasis is on size and my recommendation is the larger the better within your budgetary and space constraints.

Once you have chosen the size of the tank – the next step will be to choose the tank inhabitants and decor.

I will discuss that in another article.