Starting an aquarium can be similar to walking in a hardware store. You walk into the pet store with grand ideas of all the fish you want in that tank. You listen to the rumors about how easy these fish are. You pick out a cool looking tank and leave the store. You get home only to find out the levels of water is crazy, and now your new fish won’t adjust… so what’s up with that?
More often then not, the reason for having a successful fish tank or a stressed-out disaster has more to do with the size of the tank than anything else. Sounds simple enough, right? Let’s break it down visually. I created the following graphic to break things down in a logical way, four levels of aquariums from smallest (nano) to largest (community).
Why Tank Size Matters for New Fish Keepers
Nano tanks is less than 10 gallons. These are those neat little desktop ecosystems that are ideal for housing a single betta or some shrimp. They require precise attention because of their limited water volume. If you forget to feed them once, or skip a water change, all sorts of nasty stuff can accumulate quick. For this reason, many experts recommend skipping the nano phase altogether if you’re looking for a forgiving experience with your initial tank.
Small; 10-30g If you want to have an active school of community fish (e.g., tetras, rasboras) but don’t want the weight of a huge maintenance regimen, then the ten-to-thirty gallon range are the sweet spot for novice keepers. You may have heard people say one inch of fish per gallon of water. That’s an old rule of thumb. It is useful to get you started, but it doesn’t account for biology. The chart contains a more realistic bioload factor, which indicate that certain messy/active eaters require a lot more room than just their length indicates. For example, a fry goldfish may only be two inches in length, but it wastes like a bigger fish and can grow quickly. Overlooking this results in overstocking, bad water quality, and dead fish, much quicker then starving them would.
You’re not just keeping pets; you’re dealing with chemistry. Weight will be a serious topic of discussion once you start building larger tanks. They hold water (which weighs about eight pounds per gallon), but the glass, decorations, and even gravel adds weight too! When full, a typical 55g tank weigh more than six-hundred pounds. This is another reason for strong stands rated to support at least ten pounds per gallon of water, as noted in the infographic. Most home furnitures are not made to withstand that kind of pressure without buckling or breaking. Choosing a good spot is every bit as important as choosing the right fish.
Tanks come in all sizes, which means so does lighting, filtration and everything else. You can get away with using modest LEDs and sponge filters for small tanks. But when you go large, you will need a strong canister filter to maintain clear water. If your tank is planted, you have yet another twist: Live plants depends on light and carbon dioxide to thrive. Without appropriate hardware, that lush green carpet will become a pile of brown sludge in no time. The point: Any step up in tank size requires a step up in supporting equipment.
The other requirement is cycling your tank (creating beneficial bacteria that convert ammonia to lower levels of toxins) for at least a few weeks before you add fish. That’s boring, but not negotiable. Once you’ve cycled the tank, maintaining balance require testing the water regularly, usually weekly, and performing partial (twenty-five percent) water changes. Feed sparingly; excess food spoils on the bottom, spiking toxins in short order.
You can start small and learn how to maintain these rhythms without breaking the bank buying too much equipment or sacrificing livestock. You may end up going large with a 100 gallon reef system down the road or you could be happy with a snug little 20g community tank… either way, it’s all the same. Make sure to leave some breathing room for the fish, know the chemical makeup, and honor the weight. If you nail the basics from day one, maybe this isn’t the only tank you’ll ever have…and that might turn into a lifelong hobby!
