Three Easy Steps to Avoid Fish Death in Your Aquarium.

So you just got home with that new aquarium from your local pet store and you're so excited to get started you hook up the garden hose and start filling your aquarium. After about 30 minutes of filling your new aquarium with tap water you start dropping in those pretty little fish. Everything is going great, your filter is pumping, your aquarium lights are on and life is good. You go to sleep that night only to wake up and notice those pretty little fish have turned into upside down floating carcasses. What happened? Last night your fish were swimming peacefully in your new aquarium and now they are all dead.

1. Well, lets see if we can break down exactly what happened. Your first mistake was adding fish so soon. The tap water you put into your aquarium from your garden hose isn't exactly "fish ready". There are usually minerals, heavy metals, and chemicals added by local water treatment facilities. This in turn can be very harmful to your fish so before you drop in your new fish condition the tap water.

Now that you have your tap water conditioned you're ready to add fish. You are still really excited about your new aquarium and want to see a bunch of fish swimming around so you head back down to your local pet store and pick up about two dozen fish, plop them in your aquarium, pat yourself on the back for doing such a great job and head off to bed. The next morning your hop out of bed, take a look at your aquarium and all you see is a bunch of "floaters" (industry term for dead floating fish).

2. What happened? You conditioned the tap water so your aquarium was ready to go, so what happened? Simple answer is you added too many fish too quickly. The bacterial colonies in your aquarium haven't fully established therefore the aquarium couldn't support the amount of fish. Before adding fish to your new aquarium be sure to add some Ammonia Neutralizer.

Alright, so you conditioned the tap water and your neutralized the ammonia and since you are not regretting buying your new aquarium yet you decide to head back down to your local pet store and purchase only a couple of fish this time. You get home, drop them into your tank, go to bed hoping those two little fish will still be alive in the morning. The next morning you get out of bed and glance at the aquarium only to see your two little fish still alive....but barely. Now your fish are at the top of your aquarium water struggling, in what seems like they're struggling to breath. "Now what?", you might ask yourself and this is an easy fix.

By this time the casually fish hobbyist does one of two things. Either they throw their hands in the air and put their new aquarium up for sale in the classifieds or they add a circulation pump to their aquarium and all is well.

3. Assuming you were set up with the correct filter from the beginning the easy fix would be to add a circulation pump to help with the gas exchange. Gas exchange occurs when the surface of the water in your aquarium is agitated therefore oxygen will be allowed in and at the same time waste gases like nitrogen can get out.

For today you decide not to add any fish but you do install the circulation pump. The next morning your two little fish are swimming happily around your new aquarium and life is good.

Wasn't that easy? Now enjoy your fish and be sure to support your local pet stores.