my daughter gamer girl wants to set up her first fish tank and if you're not familiar
with aquariums the process can be a little overwhelming at first so I'm gonna show you
what we did and then you guys can follow along first of all what is the right age to get your
kid their first fish tank now for context I waited until my daughter wasn't in elementary
school where she was old enough to brush her own teeth dress herself she packs her own school
snacks so you know as the adult in the situation I'm obviously ultimately responsible for these
fish but the test I expect her to help me with include just gotta feed the fish every day and
like be old enough not to overdose the tank with food um I want her to observe the fish every day
to see if there's any illnesses or weird behavior and then finally she is going to help me with the
water changes which we'll talk about in a future video also if this is your first fish tank and
you have absolutely no aquarium supplies I hope you saved up some money because you're probably
going to be dropping at least $200 to $300 I know contrary to popular belief fish are not
cheap pets I mean they're cheaper than a dog for example but you know a brand new dog you would be
getting them like a first vet visit with vaccines and brand new toys and food and the crate the dog
bed all that it really adds up and so in the same way you know fish they're cheap by comparison but
totally worth it so I put down my shopping list in the description so you can follow along to
see exactly what I bought otherwise if you got everything ready let's get started now the first
step is to pick the location for the tank I chose the kids bathroom because it's very conveniently
right next to a water source I like it how I can just basically take an aquarium siphon and drain
water directly into the sink and then of course use the sink to fill water back into the tank also
there's several electrical outlets as well because I want to plug in my heater and my filter another
thing is it's not in direct sunlight because I definitely don't want to be growing a ton
of algae and having to clean that off and then you want might want to make sure it's not next to like
a AC or heating vent or like a door that leaves is outdoors and is constantly letting in cold air
just because we don't want the temperature in the tank to be constantly swinging and then finally
the bathroom is not a high traffic area so we're not going to have a lot of people like constantly
bumping into it or dogs or you know young kids that visit once you have the location you want
to get the biggest fish tank possible that you can fit in that area now I know a lot of people
think well I just want a small tank because it'll be cheaper it's it's really not that much cheaper
because you're gonna have to buy the same amount of equipment and a smaller tank it tends to get
really dirty quickly because it's a small amount of water and then you can only keep really tiny
fish in it versus a bigger tank you have more water to play with more fish to choose from and
also the water parameters are going to stay a lot more stable which means your fish are going to be
healthier now in my case I measured the distance between the two sinks in the bathroom and the
biggest tank I could fit was a 15 gallon Cube however I personally would recommend that you go
and get a tank from Petco they often have these dollar per gallon sales or big sales on their
aquariums and just get an Aqueon rimmed tank it's very very affordable and then make sure to get a
lid to go along with it because the lid is going to prevent excess heat from escaping the tank so
it's going to save you on electricity costs it's going to prevent evaporation of water so you're
not constantly having to top off and then also you don't want your fish to jump out of the tank
I personally got an aquarium kit that already came with a lid and then there was a light installed in
it so I didn't have to get a separate aquarium light and then once I took it home I went ahead
and rinsed everything just to make sure to get the dust off don't use any soap because that's bad for
the fish and then I did a 24 hour leak test where I filled the whole tank up with water let it sit
there for 24 hours make sure there's no leaks because there are sometimes like our tiny little
cracks you may not have noticed in the store if it does start leaking pretty easy I can just return
the thing to my local pet store and get a new one after the leak test was over I removed all the
water and then installed the aquarium background really easy just bought it from the pet store you
just cut it out to size and then stick it on with Scotch tape that's it there's many many designs
that are available but I personally like black just because it seems to make the fish colors
really really pop the aquarium background it's not necessary but for me it just is a way a simple way
to make your aquarium look really professional quickly because it hides all those ugly cables
and tubing behind the tank after installing the background it's now time to put the tank in its
final location so if you have a tank stand go ahead and build that now I don't so I just went
ahead and put it between the two sinks and then it's time to add the gravel so you typically
want about one pound of gravel for every gallon of tank size that you have so for example my 15
gallon tank needs about 15 pounds of gravel and again same with the background I would recommend
maybe a darker more neutral colored substrate to really make the fish look good however
um my daughter obviously she chose something a little more colorful she went with the rainbow
clown puke gravel and I was able to convince her to get like a black gravel with some rainbow
pieces in it so it doesn't look like that bad but it's still a kid tank right some people like if
they have a really massive tank they might try to cheap out on the gravel by going to let's say
a landscaping company or a hardware store to get their kind of normal gravel there that stuff is
very very dirty and dusty so you're gonna have to rinse it a bazillion times otherwise it's going
to make the water in your tank very cloudy since I have a smaller tank I just bought aquarium gravel
and it's usually pretty clean so I didn't rinse it at all I just dumped it straight in as for the
aquarium decorations a lot of times you don't know like how many you need until you actually
put them in the tank so go ahead and position them do a little interior decorating and then
you may find out you don't need as many ornaments as you thought you did but once you're satisfied
with the look go ahead and take the ornament back out cut it the tag off rinse it with water again
no soap and then put it back in the tank now you may be yelling at the screen and going Irene what
about the live aquarium plants okay yes yes I love live plants they're absolutely beautiful they help
purify the water by absorbing and consuming the nitrogen waste that your fish makes however given
that this is my daughter's first tank I really want her focused on how to keep fish alive and
not also have to juggle how to keep plants alive and balance the lighting and the nutrients just
it's like a a little above her pay grade right now and in fact my first take it didn't have
any live plants and I just kept the light off the entire time um when I wasn't looking at a tank no
algae ever grew it was really pretty looking and I just focused on keeping plants alive yes I had to
do lots of large water changes but at that phase that's what was right for me so the compromise is
the easiest low light plant I could think of is pothos it's actually a house plant that you can
get from you know a Home Depot hardware store or a plant nursery tree and you can either take
the plant and like wash off all the dirt from the roots and then put the roots in the water and the
leaves are outside of the water or you can just trim off a little stem and then stick the stem in
the water and the stem will grow roots itself so that way you get you know still the beauty of the
plants and that water purification benefit without having to worry about how to grow underwater
plants however the second easiest plant I could think of that actually does grow in the water
would be anubias it doesn't need a lot of special nutrients or a low it's a low light plant as well
and in my case I did kind of want to create a little bit of a forced look like most people
when they buy anubias they're gonna get some super glue gel and then you just kind of glue The Roots
onto like little rocks or some of the decorations that you have in the plant uh in the tank however
in my case I actually wanted to try to plant them which you're not supposed to do because
the anubias has this thick rhizome stem that's horizontal and it cannot be covered whether by
a substrate or by Glue like don't put glue on it right however if you want to give it that look
like it's planted in the ground what I did was I plunged the roots and the rhizome completely deep
into the gravel and then I gently pull the plant up until the rhizome was just above the substrate
but the roots were still stuck in the gravel and that's how I was able to get that planted anubias
look give it a shot now let's talk equipment a lot of beginners they want to skimp out on getting an
aquarium heater but I mean there are some cooler water species you could get that don't require a
heater so I'll put a link over here of my top 10 species for that but most of the fish the colorful
fish that you're going to see at the pet store like the Guppies and the bettas they do want to
live at Tropical temperatures so the easiest way to do that is to just go ahead and get a
heater stick it in there it's just going to take care of the temperature for you it's kind of the
same as if you are forced to live in colder than comfortable temperatures and that you had no coat
or jacket your body is constantly shivering it gets stressed your immune system is compromised
it's easier to get sick same thing goes with fish so I'm going to put a link down in the description
of what size heater you should get based on what size tank you have but once you have the heater go
ahead and put it in the back of the tank but hide it behind one of the tallest decorations you have
and then put it as low down in the tank as you can that way when you're doing water changes you don't
want the water to go down low and then all of a sudden your heater is above the water line and
it could burn out that way because of that we are not going to plug in the heater yet until we fill
up the whole tank with water so wait for that step same thing applies with filtration you do not want
to skip out on getting a filter because it's going to make your life a hundred percent easier like as
a beginner I would say a filter is a must-have because it has all sorts of benefits it's going
to keep the water in the tank constantly moving so that you don't get like gross and stagnant
biofilm on the surface like you might see in kind of some stagnant ponds or swamps out there it's
going to also increase surface agitation and oxygenation in the water so your fish aren't
gasping for air and then finally as per the name the filter helps filter out particles that are
kind of floating in the water so it doesn't look cloudy and murky and gross my personal favorite
kind of filter is a Sponge Filter just because I kind of had a bad experience with an hang on back
filter where I accidentally flooded our hardwood floors I know what I did wrong now but I just I
find sponge filters to be a lot more reliable in general so I have a whole tutorial over here on
how to install it but basically I just connected the sponge I put the Sponge Filter into the tank
connected Airline tubing to go outside of the tank and connect to the air pump and the air
pump is the thing that you plug into the wall so the air pump actually has the diaphragm or the
motor that produces airflow and then that makes the bubbles in the tank and then in between the
Sponge Filter and the air pump I connected a check valve so that just in case the power
goes off I'm not going to have flooding issues where water is pouring out of the airline tubing
now normally I would just get a one Outlet air pump but because my daughter wanted a bubbling
treasure treasure chest to ornament thingy I have a two Outlet air pump and that way I just
connect the ornament using some Airline tubing and then another check valve to prevent flooding
now we can finally add the water I used a colander and balanced it kind of on the lid in the rim so
that when I'm pouring in the water it doesn't knock over all my carefully placed decorations
and plants and then make sure to use like a dechlorinator or Water Conditioner of some sort
so that'll get rid of the chlorine in your tap water if it has it now in the past you used to be
able to like age your water by letting it sit for 24 hours and all the chlorine would evaporate but
now a lot of municipalities are using chloramine instead of chlorine which is a lot more stable
it won't evaporate so that's why I make sure to always add some dechlorinator into my water
as soon as your tank is full of water you can go ahead and plug in your filter but for your
heater most manuals tell you you have to wait like 30 minutes for the heater to temperature
acclimate and then you can plug in the heater also look in the manual because there's going
to be a diagram showing you how to make a drip loop with the power cord of the filter and the
heater so that water won't accidentally flow down the power cord into your electrical outlet
at this point do not add any fish I repeat no fish allowed and the reason why is because my
tank is brand new and if I add some fish in there I feed them they start pooping that is
going to produce toxic ammonia which literally kills fish and so what I need to do is actually
to cycle or season my aquarium with beneficial bacteria and grow some live plants the pothos
and the anubias and those are two ways that nature uses to process toxic ammonia and make
it safe for your fish to live in purifies the water basically so I have a video on
the Aquarium Co-op Channel that I made for them on How to cycle your aquarium after the cycling
process I'll show you what to do when to add new fish which I'll link in this playlist over
here in the future take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see in the next video!