Aquarium Supplies -- Keep Your Fish Happy

I had the opportunity, some years ago, to babysit my son's aquarium while he was overseas for three years. I approached the task with some discomfort, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Below the fold, some aquarium supplies to make your aquarium experience a lot easier. These items will serve you well and make great gifts for someone who loves fish.

Clearly (heh) the first requirement in keeping your aquarium healthy, and the fish happy, is water clarity and purity. Green water is just nasty. A good filtration system is just what you need.

Filters are either internal (shown left) -- hanging on the tank wall, with the supply water being pumped through the filter container -- or external, that is, with the filter canister placed outside the tank and connected by hoses.

The internal filters are very convenient and relatively inexpensively priced, and are well-suited to the smaller aquarium sizes. Given the size of the filter containers, perhaps the size of a fist, the filters are very easy to handle; even the little ones can be tasked to take responsibility for the cleaning and/or changing of the filter media.

The external canister filtration systems are generally larger in size and are suited to larger tank sizes -- in the range of several hundreds of gallons -- and those aquariums requiring larger gallon per hour filtration throughput. These systems are somewhat more sophisticated and are probably not very kid-friendly. Just sayin'.

Water conditioners and testing equipment -- your fish will be happier if you take some reasonable care in purifying and stabilizing the water in your tank. Among other items, chlorine, heavy metals, ammonia, and pH fluctuations are all detrimental to the health of your critters. Tap water, while very suitable for us to drink, is not the best environment for the fish.

Aeration bubblers -- fish like to breathe, and since they get their oxygen from the water, aerated water is important. Hence the bubblers, an important part of fish health.

Tank heaters -- the little guys in the tanks like to operate in a fairly narrow range of temperature in the water column. A good tank heater is essential to their well-being. Thermostatically controlled, you can set it and forget it.

Aquarium tank lights -- you want to be able to see your fish at night, don't you? Lights generally are on the underside of your tank cover -- don't want those little rascals making a jump for freedom now, do we -- and can be on a timer, or you can just make it dark with a manual switch. Your choice.

Finally, testing equipment -- if you don't know the condition of your tank water, you won't be able to diagnose, and fix, the water conditions that may be making your fish ill. Get a good testing kit, use it regularly, and you'll be happy with the results. So will your fish.