Very quickly it was apparent to me that I needed to keep these animals in an appropriate sized aquarium due to their nature and overall size they got and luckily enough for me I scored my first "big" aquarium not long after I started looking.

Probably the most important part of keeping an aquarium is learning about the cycle. They joy with cycling is you can make it as complicated or basic as you wish, and for the sake of this we will make it as basic as possible for you.

The simplest way of explaining the cycle is that is makes your aquarium safe for your fish. It does that via good bacteria within your filter breaking down nasty stuff and turning it into something that is less nasty for your wet pets. This process goes from ammonia (very nasty) to nitrite (also very nasty) on to nitrate (only nasty at high levels). The idea is to not put fish into an aquarium with ammonia or nitrite but to wait until this process has gone through to nitrate. Depending on the method you use to cycle your aquarium this could take anywhere from 3 days up to 6 weeks.

Bottled bacteria is a good way of speeding up a cycle for a new aquarium (please see cycling section) using these products can shorten a cycle down from upwards of 6 weeks to as little as 3-7 days. If using a bottled bacteria to cycle a fresh aquarium, please note although your aquarium is cycled and ready for wet pets, it is still a very immature system, so slowly adding fish is still the best option.

 

Plant selection is also very important, all too often pet shops sell non-aquatic plants as aquatic plants, this is a recipe for disaster as they will not last long submersed underwater in your aquarium. We at the fish room do not carry not aquatic plants, to give you the best possible chance of having your plants survive.

Once you have decided where your new aquarium is going to sit, you need to decide if you are going to go with tropical fish or cold water. As a general rule, tropical is easier to look after than cold water and gives far greater options for wet pet selection.

These fish can be kept in a community aquarium but it has been noted they can pester other sedentary or long-fined fish. It is best to keep them in groups of 6-10 due to their complex hierarchy but also because they will become withdrawn or even aggressive if kept singularly and have been known to pull eye balls from corydora if group numbers are to low.