Water Pump Aquarium

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March 9th, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Water Pump Aquarium

Determine Aquarium Tank Size

When preparing for your new aquarium, you need to not only determine what size tank you want, but how big of a space in your home you have to place it. You might like the 200 gallon reef tank that they have in the local fish store, but if you don’t have the space (and probably the experience to maintain it), and then you should keep on looking.

Typically, you’ll want to get the biggest tank that you can afford and keep in your home. Contrary to belief, having a larger tank is actually easier to maintain than a smaller tank for two reasons. First, fish need lots of room to swim and lots of oxygen in the water to breath. The larger water surface in the tank, then the larger the amount of oxygen can enter the tank. Second, the hardware to maintain a larger tank has a bit more power to clean and maintain the water quality. The small tanks typically come with very cheap filters and water pumps. The larger tanks require more advanced and heavy duty tools to work. Their filtration methods are typically much more advanced, and hence, do a much better job of keeping the water quality good for the fish.

Another important factor to determine which size tank you’d like is to estimate the number of fish and other sea-life you’d like to keep in your tank. You’ll want to calculate the surface area of the tank to determine the number of fish you can store in that tank. Let’s say you’re interested in a standard-size 55 gallon rectangular tank. These sizes are typically about 14” wide and about 48” long. So that’s 672 square inches (14” wide x 48” long). A rule of thumb is 1” of a freshwater/coldwater per 30 square inches. So let say you have 10 adult swordtail fish, which are usually about 2” long. So that’s 20 inches of fish (10 fish x 2” long). So take that 20” of fish x 30” square inches that they each require = 600 squire inches. So you have enough and then some. Sounds a bit complicated, but believe me, if you overcrowd your tank, you’re headed for disastrous results.

As you can see, having a longer, rectangular tank (which provides lots of surface area) is much better than some of those taller tanks with less surface area. So don’t just shop for a tank based on the gallons it can hold. The amount of surface area is very important as well.

Remember, choosing the correct size of your tank is the most important first step you’ll take in your path towards maintaining a healthy aquarium. Good luck!

- Duane Nason

About the Author

Duane Nason is a hobby aquarist and has maintained freshwater and saltwater tanks for the past 6 years. You can visit his website at Duane Nason.