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Selecting the Aquarium Stands
Selecting the right Aquarium stand can be as important as the aquarium itself, just imagine filling you the aquarium and the stand giving way. An aquarium stand needs to be sturdy and strong but still look nice at the same time.
Don’t use an antique furniture or regular furniture as an leaks will soon destroy the antique table and normal furniture will easy warp under the weight of aquarium. So its always best to use the aquarium stand that comes with the tank, as the stands been designed to cater for the weight and at the same time the design of the stand will match the size and deisgn of the aquarium tank.
Make sure your freshwater aquarium fits its stand correctly. If the edge of the tank hangs over the stand, the stand is too small and eventually can cause the aquarium to wrap or break.
Wooden Cabinet Stand
These types of stands will have built in cupboards below which is excellent to hide all the pumps and other equipment and other gadgets that comes with freshwater aquarium hobby. Only problem is they may warp if not the correct cabinet for the aquarium and will cost a little more than a normal cast iron stand.
Despite the disadvantages mentioned they still are the best stands to have as they look good, are very stable and come with shelves to store away all your equipment.
Wrought Iron Stands
These types of stands come as wrought iron or angle frame. Angle frame stands don’t look nice and will leave nasty marks on your carpet from indentations and will leave rust stains if they get wet compared to wooden cabinet that will spread the load and not leave such a bad mark on your carpet.
Wrought iron stands look slightly nicer than angle frames and are one of the more common designs for stands in the market.
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D.I.Y Stands
There are a few stands that come flat packed that you can assemble yourself with some ease, but these types of stands are generally not as strong as pre-made aquarium stands that you can buy.
Alternatively if you go down to the hardware store and buy your own quality oak or other premium materials and build you one yourself. Best to test out your stand before adding the aquarium, this can be done by loading it with other items to simulate the actual weight of the tank.
What kind Aquarium do you want?
You are setting out on the freshwater side of the hobby or why else would you be here…right? This site wll go though the processes to set up your aquarium, but before we go to far into freshwater aquariums lets have a quick glimpse what you may want move into after you mastered the basic freshwater aquarium guide.
The aquarium hobby has three basic systems:
- Freshwater System
- Saltwater System
- Brackish System
The fish, plants, equipment, tanks and management will be different for each type of system. We will discuss over the next few articles a brief overview of each type of set up and give you ideas of initial set up cost, difficultly level, space considerations and availability of speices.
Freshwater Systems
freshwater aquariums are the most commonly practiced hobby and ideal for a beginner for a few reasons:
A freshwater system is not quite as expensive as a saltwater aquarium- Saltwater aquariums require additional equipment and genrally larger tanks.
- Freshwater fish are generally cheaper than marine fish- its always better to work wth less expensive fish an buying exensice fish and lsing them.
- Freshwater fish are generally more ready available from most aquarium shops than the marine fish- Marine fish are more sensitive to water conditions than freshwater fish which can have a more varied water conditions and still survive.
- Generally freshwater fish breed more easily- you may have the opportunity to sell yout fih back to your local fish shop.
- You can have more fish- With the same size tank you can keep more freshwater fish than you could mariine fish.
Freshwater systems can come in two types either tropical or coldwater.
Freshwater Tropical Aquariums
A freshwater tropical aquarium offers huge numbers of variety for both fish and plants and will give you endless ideas for your aquarium. Most tropical fish are easy to keep and very inexpensive which is why they are ideal for the beginner hobbyist. There is plenty of ready available kits for sale at your local fish shop which will include, tank,hood,light,filter and heater but these sets will exclude fish,plants and gravel but can be brought seperately.
Freshwater Coldwater Aquariums
These fish will come from colder waters than there tropical cousins, kits can be brought much alike the tropical kit, but they will not have any heater. Tanks or ponds will need to be larger as the fish are largr and consume more oxygen.
When keeping freshwater coldwater aquariums the room temperature they are kept in is important, as a warm room will heat up the tank. Generally getting fish for this setup is difficult except for goldfishsoyou may have to source though the internet to find the fish you want.
Marine Systems
The saltwater used for these type of aquariums is normally made form combining freshwater and a manufactured salt. A good filtration system is required in marine tanks as the fish require higher oxygen levels and lower ammonia levels.
Its recommended before you start out with saltwater aquariums is that you have basic knowledge with freshwater aquariums, you can actually go straight to saltwater aquariums but they are expensive and a little mistake could put you off aquariums for good.
You may want take a look at Saltwater Aquarium Guide to have a better understanding of whats required.
Brackish Systems
The brackish aquarium is the least popular of the three types of aquariums because they are hard to find at your local fish shop and generally they are more expensive than freshwater fish.The water in a brackish aquarium lies some where between the other two in terms of salt content.
The equipment is the same as a freshwater aquarium system but the plants are different as they need tolerate a brackish system.
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