How To Get Fish Tank Ready For Fish?

It is common for fish to die shortly after they’ve been brought home and added to a fish tank. While it may seem like the fish were already sickly when you bought them, the cause of death is usually the fish tank. Specifically, a poorly prepared fish tank.

How you get a fish tank ready for fish is just as important as how you take care of it once you introduce the fish. Without the right process, your new fish could get sick and die within a few hours or days.

In this guide, we explain how to get a fish tank ready from fish including running tests, setting up the right equipment, and cycling.

Why Do You Need to Prepare a Fish Tank Before Adding Fish?

Simply adding substrate and water then turning on the filter doesn’t mean that the fish tank is ready for fish. Like all other animals, fish are highly sensitive to their environment. They survive within a very narrow range of parameters such as pH, temperature, ammonia, and dissolved oxygen among others.

Preparing a fish tank ensures that these parameters are within the normal range for the type of fish you plan to put inside the tank. This maximises their chances of survival and allows them to thrive.

Without proper preparation, pH might be too high or too low, there might be ammonia in the water (which is highly toxic to fish), or the temperature might be off.

5 Steps to Get a Fish Tank Ready for Fish

1. Position the Aquarium and Gather All Equipment

Don’t wait until you’ve filled the aquarium to position it. Water is heavy and it will be difficult and dangerous to try and move a filled aquarium. A small 10l fish tank will weigh 10kg when full, and that’s before you factor in the weight of the fish tank itself plus the gravel. A 28l fish tank weighs over 30kg.

With that in mind, make sure you place the aquarium on a flat and study surface. If you are putting it on a cabinet or table, check its weight limit to avoid disaster. Other things to keep in mind when positioning an aquarium are:

• Place it where temperature stays consistent, so avoid drafty areas, spots that get direct sunlight, and anywhere close to heat sources or vents.
• Avoid placing the fish tank in high traffic areas, as loud noises can disturb the fish.
• Keep the fish tank where you can easily observe and access it. This allows you to enjoy the fish tank and easily access it for maintenance.

With the fish tank in place, gather all the equipment you need to set it up. This includes the filter, a heater (if you need one), lights, thermometer, an air pump, substrate, water conditioner, and a water test kit.

2. Add Substrate and Decorations

Time to start filling up your tank. But before you put in the substrate, you need to rinse dust and any other other contaminants off it.

Put the sand or gravel in a bucket and blast it with water from a hose as you can see in the video below. Agitate the debris so that dust and other fine debris float to the top. Pour off the water, being careful not to pour out the substrate as well. Rinse several more times until the water runs clear. Also rinse off any decorations before you put them in the aquarium.

You can now add your clean substrate and decorations to the fish tank.

Tip: The only time you should not rinse substrate is if it’s bioactive substrate, meaning it already contains beneficial bacteria. Rinsing can disrupt this bacteria. 

3. Install Equipment

Set up all the equipment you are using, but do not plug in any electrical ones yet as they can get damaged if there’s no water.

For now, just position the filter, air stone, thermometer, lights and anything else where it will be once the fish tank is running.

4. Fill the Tank

Tap water is the best kind to add to your fish tank, but you need to treat or condition it first to remove chlorine and chloramine, which are harmful to fish. Put the right amount of tap water into a bucket then add a conditioner  and let it sit for the recommended period before carefully pouring it into the tank.

5. Cycle the Fish Tank

The final major step in reading your fish tank for fish is also the most important one. It’s called cycling and it is extremely crucial if you want your new fish to survive.

When organic matter, which includes leftover fish food and fish waste, breaks down, it produces ammonia. Ammonia is extremely toxic to fish and can kill them within hours or days. The only way to deal with ammonia is to have certain beneficial bacteria in the substrate and filter.

Some of the bacteria consumes ammonia and produces nitrites, which are also toxic to fish. Some other beneficial bacteria consume the nitrites and produce nitrates, which are harmless unless their concentration gets too high (regular water changes prevent this).

But the bacteria takes time to develop, so you can’t put in fish immediately. Cycling the fish tank allows sufficient beneficial bacteria to grow. It takes 4-6 weeks depending on tank size, water temperature, and other factors.

Test the Water Before Adding Fish

Just before you add fish, run a final test to check all parameters. Use a water test kit or take a sample of the fish tank water to a local fish store.

Once you are sure everything is good, you can safely add the fish. Just remember to acclimatise them before adding them to the fish tank.