So you want to set up a fish tank, well the first thing that I will tell you is that you have to be patient and should not jump right into putting fish in your tank. In this article I will be explaining all of the steps to setting up a fish tank for tropical fish only.

When you are selecting an aquarium to buy you must know what kind of fish that are going to be living in it and how big the fish will get. As a simple rule, for every inch of fish that there is there should be 1 gallon of water.

The next thing that you need to do is get all of the stuff that you will need to do so. This will consist of a fish tank, filter, lamp, water heater, gravel, decorations, water conditioner, bacteria supplement, and a background if you choose to jazz up the tank and make it look more like a fish environment.

Find a space in your home that you want to set up the fish tank at. This should be somewhere that is not in the way and make sure you are happy with the spot because moving a tank can be a pain once you have fish in it.

Next fill the tank up with water to the top, do not worry about putting any conditioner in the water yet as we are only testing to see if the tank has any leaks. Let the water sit in the tank overnight, and in the morning check around the tank for any signs of water, once you are sure there are no leaks you can empty the tank.

When you are waiting to find out if your aquarium had any leaks or not you can start pre-treating gallons of tap water in jugs with water conditioner. One thing I do to speed up the process is add bacteria supplement to the water also, to get the perfect mixture ratio make sure to pay attention to the instructions on the bottle of water conditioner.

Now the tank is still empty so this would be the best time to add all of your decorations and gravel if necessary. Before you add gravel to the fish tank make sure that it is absolutely clean and free of dirt, this is very important. Wash the gravel and decorations with running water multiple times.

Start setting up the filter pump and the heating pump. Add the water solution from the jugs that you already pre-mixed, fill the tank up to about an inch from the top. Put the overhead lamp on if you have one and turn on the heater and the filter pump, you now want to be patient and let the water cycle for a week at the minimum.

After a week of the water cycling you can add a few starter fish, this will help the conditions for future fish a lot better. Once you select a couple of starter fish, keep a close eye on them. I would not recommend added any more fish into the tank for about 4 to 6 weeks.