Top 5 Things Not To Do When Setting Up A Fish Tank

1. Not Buying A Big Enough Tank
Raise your hand if you wish you had a bigger tank than the one you started out with? This is what happens. You want a fish tank and you decide on a certain size tank (29 gallon for me) and think that’ll be big enough for everything you want to put in there. You set it up and get more into it and realize that the tank is too small. So you get a bigger tank. You realize again that it’s not big enough. Repeat. This is why many of us have MTS (Multiple Tank Syndrome). You can avoid this by looking around your place and finding out where you can put the largest tank possible before you even start. For the rest of us that already have multiple tanks? There is no cure for it. Sorry. But welcome to MyFishTank.Net online community where you can join the rest of us MTS’ers.

2. Rushing Into It
You watch Finding Nemo and you want your own Dory and Nemo. So you go out and buy a tank and unfortunately things don’t usually go well if you go that route. Let’s try that again. You want a fish tank. So you go out and buy the combo package that the fish store is offering. You start to add fish that you see at the store that look cool. But unless your LFS helps you, you usually end up with fish of different compatibility or worse yet, a saltwater fish in a freshwater tank (!).

Take the time to do your research. Not only will you save money but you’ll provide a healthy environment for your fishes. Plus you’ll also avoid the MTS I talked about above. See…it’s all a chain reaction. The best thing to do is to READ and READ. and then once you’re done reading…READ some more. Ofcourse remember to ask any questions you have in our online fish forum.

3. Doing What Other People Think Is Cool
You want to belong with the cool fish people on the forums. But doing what they like…is that going to be what you like? Remember that your fish tank is for YOUR enjoyment and then to share with others. Ofcourse if you want Tank of the Month or something, then it’s a different story.

As an example, when I first started keeping a saltwater tank…all I kept on reading about were the expert saltwater keepers that kept the ultra-hard to keep SPS corals. I wanted to be cool too! So I strived to keep SPS corals in my tank. Soon I realized that I enjoyed keeping soft corals like anemones more than SPS corals. So that’s why I decided to get rid of my SPS collection and started collecting anemones.

4. Being Cheap On Equipment
Fish keeping is not a cheap hobby. It’s expensive. Even more expensive if you keep a saltwater tank. But everyone knows that one thing you shouldn’t try to save money on is the equipment. Why? Because 10 out of 10 times you’ll want to get the better equipment after buying the cheaper one. You also always want to get an equipment that is rated for a tank that is larger than yours. My garage full of equipment that were replaced can attest to that.

5. Buying The Wrong Fish
Buying the wrong fish is a big no-no. First, you just wasted your money but most importantly you put the fish’s life on the line. Buying the wrong fish and putting it into the wrong environment puts alot of stress on the fish. You have to remember that ultimately we’re responsible for our fishes and have to do our research first. It’d be like buying a great dane dog for an apartment. Not going to work.

So do you research. See what fishes are compatible with your tank environment and if they get along with the fishes in your tank also. I’ve read stories of people who bought a $200 dollar fish and have it bullied around by their $5 dollar fish that was already in there. That’s not doing the right research ahead of time. Plus fishes are so hard to catch once they are in the tank.

So what other tips do you guys have that you want to share? Let me hear it!