Tips For Setting Up A Saltwater Tank

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If you have decided to put a saltwater aquarium in your house, you may have taken the time to save up the money you needed for the equipment, and may have gone out to purchase everything, only to realize that there is still so much you do not know about setting up an aquarium; if you plan to get started soon with the salt water aquarium, here are a few things you will need to make sure you know for starting out.

Even if you have bought a brand-new fish tank, you should check for leaks before you do anything else; this is a step that a lot of people skip, as they assume there is no way a brand-new fish tank will have leaks, but while it is unlikely that you will deal with leaks in your tank, it is certainly better to catch them before you put in fish than to wait until you already have a full and functional tank to find out that it is leaking.

After you have filled your tank all the way and allowed it to sit for a couple hours, to make sure no water is leaking out, you should give the tank a thorough cleaning; in cleaning the tank, you will want to use about a teaspoon of bleach for every 5 gallons of water, and you will want to give everything a thorough scrubbing - and of course, when you finish cleaning, you will want to rinse out the tank thoroughly to get rid of any excess bleach.

Once sand and any plants or rocks that you want to add have been put in the tank, you can start preparing your saltwater and adding it to the tank, along with the filter, the heater, and anything else that will be going into the tank before the fish; of course, at this point, you might think that your tank is all set to go, and many people make the mistake of beginning to add fish at this point. One thing you should understand, however, that all the levels will need to balance out in your tank before it will be safe for fish - and considering how expensive many saltwater fish are, you will certainly not want to risk their health just because you were impatient - so let the tank run for a minimum of 3 days, and if everything still looks good at that point, you will be ready to start adding fish at last!