Article by Sandra Gaffney
People enjoy the wonderful hobby of owning an aquarium for a number of different purposes. Seeing that underwater marvel just brings wonder and enjoyment into the eyes of those who behold it, and you’re never too late to come and join into this magnificent hobby. However, you need to acquire some knowledge about raising fish in aquariums first, and in this article we’ll teach you all about freshwater aquarium tanks.
1st Focus: Aquarium Size and ShapeSurface area is almost always more important than a fish tank’s volume. One good reason for this is the kind of fish that you plan to raise in the aquarium. More often than not, some of these fish would cluster around at a single depth level in the water, making the volume of the water disregarded and would seem useless.
Generally speaking, larger tanks don’t always relate to a harder time in tank maintenance. In fact, certain procedures when maintaining the fish tank, such as partial water replacement, have little or no significant difference to that of a regular sized aquarium.
The fact is, larger tanks are easier to deal with because you can control the water chemistry quite easier. Beginners tend to have a harder time in maintaining the proper water chemistry of smaller sized fish tanks because even slight changes could indicate a fatal reaction to the fishes, whereas keeping a larger tank could make these reactions significantly lower, because of the added area that these substances has to travel, along with the fact that it weakens as it spreads over a large area.
In addition, beginners tend to have a wide fascination for a number of fish as their interest in raising fish grows, and would like to have as many fishes as possible in a single fish tank, which is why a bigger tank to increase this fascination and the number of fishes is better in the long run.
2nd Focus: Fish Tank MaterialGlass and acrylic are the two most common materials used in making aquariums. These kinds of fish tanks have a lot of characteristics that are either advantageous or disadvantageous, but ultimately it all depends on the hobbyist’s preference.
Glass is the common and the “stereotypical” aquarium material for tanks. It has quite a durable composition, doesn’t incur scratches that easily, and is stable when worked together as a single piece. These kinds of tanks are heavy, and are quite difficult to transport to another place at times, plus the material is commonly know for its brittleness. Glass tanks may be sturdy enough, but they’re not as resistant as to endure cracks, which might totally shatter the glass while drawing water into it.
Acrylic tanks, on the other and, are the new age type of fish tanks. They are crafted with synthetic materials that mimic the properties of glass, while removing almost all of glass’ weaknesses. These kinds of tanks are usually at around half the weight of a glass tank of the same size, and are durable enough in the sense that they can be whacked but not shattered. The downside, though, is that acrylic tank gets scratched more easily than glass (although reworking acrylic tanks back to their pristine condition isn’t as difficult compared to shattered glass), so you can’t scrub those algae off as rigorously as you would in a glass tank.
