Here we’ll be taking a look at the Seachem® method for starting a new freshwater tank! There are some differences in setup depending on what kind of freshwater fish you intend to keep, but most freshwater aquariums have the same basic components.
Choosing your fish
Now, you experienced fishkeepers may be reading this and thinking to yourself “What are they saying? There are all kinds of steps to go through before picking out your fish!” and we agree! Picking out and purchasing a fish is the last step in the tank setup process. However, a bit of research is essential before starting to purchase and set up your tank. What kind of fish do you like? Do you want to show off one particularly fancy fish, or do you want to have an assortment of schools? Do you like colorful, showy fish or weird, interesting fish? Taking a few walks through your local fish store and browsing some catalogues of fish will help you get a grasp on what is available and what you might want to keep in your own tank.
During your walk through the fish store is also a good time to ask some of the experienced fishkeepers in the shop about local water parameters. That’s pH, KH, GH, and general water quality right out of the tap. Depending on what the local water is like, you may need to do some soul-searching about whether you’d prefer to just choose fish that suit the local water, or to take steps to make alterations to your water parameters. That may mean something as simple as just adding a buffer like Neutral Regulator to keep your pH at 7, or it may mean setting up with a whole RO system for more drastic changes. Don’t worry – we’ll go through buffering and water chemistry in a bit, just keep in mind that if you need to change your tap water, it will require some dedicated effort and investment.
As you find fish that you like, take note of their aggression levels and their space and water parameter requirements (pH, KH, GH, and temperature) as well as their adult size. Any fish will be happy to eat a fish that it can fit into its mouth, no matter how non-aggressive they have been up to this point, so the adult size becomes important surprisingly quickly. The fish you pick out need to all have water parameters that overlap both with each other and the prospective water parameters of your tank. This is a great time to use the workers in the shop! If you’ve got a good local store, they’ll be able to point you toward lots of fish that will suit your prospective tank setup and will be able to live together. If you’re doing research on your own, you may need to take notes in order to compare fish. Here’s some quick suggestions of where to look:
Basic Tank Types
Soft Water (5.0-6.5)
|
Tetras (soft water varieties) |
Apistogrammas | South and Central American Cichlids |
| German Blue Rams | Gouramis |
Neutral Water (6.5-7.5)
| Teras (neutral water varieties) | Rasboras | Barbs |
| Danios | Plecos |
Hard Water (7.5-8.5)
| Platys | Guppies | Swordtails |
| Mollys | Rainbows |
Tank Setup
Alright, now you know what kind of fish you’ll be getting and what kind of water they need, so it’s time to look for supplies. First, the tank.
Tanks come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, so feel free to pick one that fits your style. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll need to do maintenance on this aquarium on a regular basis, and as much as we might like to think that we will, none of us really want to go out and buy a new tank for a fish that has outgrown the old one. Pick a tank that you can care for easily and that will in turn be a good environment for your fish, and note that you’ll usually need about a gallon of water for every inch of adult fish.
Depending on the type of tank you get, it may already have a lid or hood. The Great Lid Debate in the fishkeeping community is still on as to whether lids are harmful because they prevent proper gas exchange at the surface of the system or helpful by preventing significant evaporation and keeping fish from jumping. A good compromise is a lid-less tank with a hood as part of the tank stand and possibly a bit of mesh to keep jumpy fish inside, but you may find that a full glass lid suits your system better, especially if you opt for an air pump to help keep your tank well oxygenated.
Now, it is time to look at your filter setup. A good filter should do a couple of things for you: it should clear away floating particles, it should house the bacteria that clears away dissolved fish waste, it should circulate and oxygenate the water, and it should have space to add extra filter media if you need it. Filters come in lots of varieties, from hang on back filters like our own Tidal® Filter to canister or sponge filters. Each type of filter has its own advantages, so here are the pros and cons a few of the most popular kinds.
The canister filter
This is a big filter with lots of space for media that fits under your aquarium. It typically has an intake and outflow, and has hoses that take the water out of your tank and returns it back once it is clean.
Advantages: Lots of space for media, available for very large tanks, adaptable to different kinds of filter media
Disadvantages: Expensive, difficult to do maintenance on, necessitates the use of an aquarium stand
The sponge filter
This is exactly what it sounds like – a sponge attached some kind of pump that forces water to flow through it so that detritus is removed. Due to its simplicity and low cost, this is a popular choice for store tanks, quarantine systems, and holding tanks.
Advantages: Very inexpensive, easy to set up
Disadvantages: No space for extra media, not adaptable to different kinds of filtration, tends to make the tank susceptible to ammonia spikes after maintenance, clogs easily
The hang-on-back filter
A hang-on-back or “backpack” filter hangs off the rim of the tank and offers easy-to-access filtration. These types of filter vary widely in quality and efficacy (the Seachem Tidal® filter was, for example, designed to address the common disadvantages of hang-on-back filters while keeping the advantages) so it’s important to research hang-on-back filters before purchasing one for use.
Advantages: Relatively inexpensive, easy to set up and maintain, sometimes space for additional or different media
Disadvantages: Not as much space as a canister filter, sometimes low flow rate, sometimes must be altered in order to hold proper media
Heaters are the next pieces of equipment you’ll need to consider, and are important even if you live in an area that is relatively warm all year round. The heater is there both to keep the tank warm and to keep the temperature consistent throughout the day. Many fish keepers prefer glass or metal heaters, but talk to your local fish store about their preferred heater brands and grab one that you can be sure won’t quit on you any time soon.
Lights are a different story in terms of what’s necessary versus what is recommended. Fish don’t particularly care about light as long as it is on a regular schedule, not abnormally bright, and they have sufficient cover, but plants are very picky about their lighting. If you’re planning on setting up with plants at some point in the future, it will be worth it to invest in a light that will suit plants now. We usually recommend to start with a light that can provide the proper spectrum for plants even if it isn’t quite powerful enough, and supplement the light later if you need to.
Finally, everyone’s favorite part of setting up a new tank: decorations! This is your system, and you should set it up to look the way you want. If you like neon gravel, get neon gravel. If you want to fill your tank with action figures, go for it! (As long as they are aquarium safe, of course.) That said, here’s some things to keep in mind as you pick out your materials:
- It’s hard to swap gravels once the tank is set up, so if you think you’d like to set up with plants in the future, it’s worth setting up with a plant-friendly substrate like Flourite® now.
- Gravel (or any other kind of substrate) acts like a backup filter for beneficial bacteria.The more porous it is, the better it will be at housing bacteria. If you opt for glass pebbles or a bare-bottom tank, you’ll need to make sure you are making up for it by having lots of space for bacteria in your filter.
- Fish that swim in mid-water don’t care much about what kind of substrate is in the tank, but bottom-feeders like corys and loaches do. These fish like to dig through the substrate looking for food, and so will prefer a soft substrate like Flourite® Black Sand.
- An exceptionally deep substrate can cause water chemistry issues down the road, especially if you are opting for sand, which is hard to keep clean. Just go for a few inches, maybe up to three if you plan to add plants in the future.
- Decorations can be whatever you like as long as they’re aquarium safe and won’t alter water chemistry in a direction you don’t want, but avoid sharp edges and small holes that fish can get caught on or in.
- Some of the more timid fish will be out-and-about more if there is more cover.You may see your fish more if they have more to hide behind!
Water Chemistry
Finally, the tank is ready to fill with water! Depending on what your soul-searching has led you to, you might find that you just need some Prime® and Stability® to clear out chlorine and chloramine and introduce lots of beneficial bacteria colonies. On the other hand, you may be keeping fish that are not suited to what is coming out of your tap, and so you’ll need to change some things. Here are some parameters to consider:
pH
pH is the parameter that we all hear about most often, but compared to KH and GH it is quite difficult to control. pH is determined by the balance between buffers like carbonate and phosphate and acids which are naturally added by fish and leached by organics in the tank. If you have lots of acids coming into the tank, your pH will tend to drift down. If you have lots of buffers built up in the water (or being leached by substrate and decorations) then your pH will tend to hold steady or drift upward depending on the kind of buffer you are using. Most tanks have a low pH problem rather than a high pH problem, so in most systems it’s necessary to add buffers regularly to get the pH to hold steady. Here’s some of our favorite buffers for freshwater:
Neutral Regulator® is the easiest to use, and it doubles as a water conditioner! This is a phosphate-based buffer, which makes it very strong and stable, but not the best for planted tanks where we want to practice precise control over phosphate levels. This product will hold the pH at 7, will lower the GH by precipitating calcium and magnesium and will increase the alkalinity of the water (more on alkalinity vs KH in a bit). Many hobbyists maintain a freshwater community using Neutral Regulator® and tap water alone.
Alkaline Buffer™ & Acid Buffer™ are our preferred buffers for high-mineral tanks or planted tanks. These are carbonate-based buffers, which means that they have to be used together in order to target a pH in the neutral or acidic range. They won’t touch GH, but they will increase KH (again, more on KH vs alkalinity in a moment). These buffers are very popular because they can shift the pH quickly and won’t impact the phosphate reading in the tank.
KH & Alkalinity
Are they the same? Are they different? What are they? Finally, we have the answer!
Alkalinity is a measurement of how easy it is to shift your pH. If your pH is rock solid and won’t shift even if you want it to, you have a high alkalinity. If your pH is loosey goosey and shifts if you so much as sneeze near the tank, then the alkalinity is low. Seachem® measures alkalinity in “meq/L” which is an alarming-looking notation, but measures exactly what we want it to measure: alkalinity.
KH is (technically) a measure of just carbonates. Carbonates are a part of alkalinity, but they’re usually not everything that’s contributing to alkalinity in the tank – you usually have phosphate, borate, and lots of other kinds of buffers too. That said, odds are good that if your test says “KH” it’s actually reading Alkalinity. “KH” is the term that most fish keepers are familiar with and so it is used on most test kits, but it’s actually quite difficult to only measure the carbonates and not other kinds of buffers as well.
The takeaway from all this is that with most test kits, KH = Alkalinity. They have different units, and different people will get after you for using each term, but for practical purposes you can assume that your “KH” test kit is actually telling you the “total alkalinity” of your tank, possibly reported in dKH or possibly in meq/L. The products mentioned above under “pH” will raise your total alkalinity too, since they’re making the pH more resistant to change.
GH
At last, we are into easy territory. GH is a measure of dissolved minerals in your water. These are minerals like magnesium and calcium, which don’t do much of anything to your pH or KH in an ordinary tank environment. GH is very important to fish, since it is what lets them regulate the amount of water outside their body vs inside. It’s easy to raise GH, but difficult to drop it. You can think of it like stirring sugar into your coffee versus trying to pull the sugar back out again. The best way to go about drastically lowering your GH is to do water changes with low-GH water like RO/DI water. Raising GH, on the other hand, is easy as pie. Here are some products to raise GH:
Replenish™ is a pre-dissolved mineral supplement for the fish-only system. It’s great for community systems since it hits the major mineral requirements of fish without any extras.
Brackish Salt™ is a mineral supplement made specifically for those livebearers that are so popular in new tanks (guppies, platys, swordtails, etc.). It’s also great for more particular brackish fish like scats, gobys, and puffers.
Equilibrium™ is a GH supplement formulated for plants. It’s just fine to use in fish-only tanks, but it takes a bit longer to dissolve than the other two. We recommend this one if you plan on keeping plants in the future!
Cycling your tank
At last, your tank is set up, your water chemistry is set, and it’s time to get the tank cycled. This is the process of growing your beneficial bacteria colonies to the size they need to be to support a thriving population of fish. There is an entire article in the Seachem® product guide here:
So we’re not going to go too far into the particulars of tank cycling. Here are the basics though:
Add a regular source of ammonia. This can be live fish, artificial ammonia, or even a pinch of food every few days. Bacteria needs food to grow.
Keep that ammonia detoxified. This is both for the sake of the fish and for the bacteria. As long as there is ammonia or nitrite in the tank, both the fish and the bacteria colonies will be a little bit stressed. We recommend regular doses of Prime to keep the ammonia and nitrite detoxified while cycling.
Add a bacteria supplement. A good bacteria supplement hurries the cycling process along and makes for a much more stable tank. We recommend Stability®.
Keep your tank parameters steady. Bacteria doesn’t like change, so doing big water changes or allowing your water parameters to fluctuate will limit their growth. At this early stage, consistency is key!
Maximize bio-media, minimize chemical media. Using lots of bio-media and avoiding the use of chemical medias that will pull organics out of the water will ensure that your bacteria has lots of space to grow and ample food to fuel that growth. Hold off on that carbon until the tank is fully cycled!
And with that, you’re finally ready to go! You have the fish you want, they are living in a tank and in water that suits them, and all you need to do is keep on top of tank care! That, however, is an article for next time.
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