Fish Tanks

Have you ever wanted a pet but you couldn't have one? Perhaps because you live with your parents or you landlord doesn't allow dogs or cats. There's an easy solution! Fish are low-maintenance, friendly pets that you could have without breaking the rules. And your landlord shouldn't have any qualms about them either.

I'm here to tell you the reason why you would or wouldn't want to have a pet fish or several pet fish! My partner and I have several fish tanks in our house. We have a 75-gallon, and 65-gallon, and a 10-gallon currently set up and established with fish. I'll explain how to get your fish tank established later on.

Pros of having a pet fish: You don't have to take them for a walk! When you have dogs, you have to take them out to get exercise, and you have to play with them regularly. They need a lot of love and attention. You have to let them outside to go to the restroom even when it's 14 degrees outside, like it is where I am now. I also have a dog, and I am not crazy about having to let him out when it's so cold. Another good side of having fish is that they don't run around your house, they don't accidentally knock over your christmas tree, and they don't bark at every little thing that goes on OUTSIDE your house. They have their fish tank, and that's as far as they go.

Cons of having fish: you do have to clean the fish tanks out. Our bigger fish tanks are cleaned out less often than my 10-gallon, so they're a little easier and less maintenance. My partner cleans them out about once or twice a month. I clean mine out about once every two weeks, but I'm also a little OCD.

Okay, so another pro, there are SO MANY different kinds of fish. I'm not even going to get into how many different kinds because I don't think any of us have the time to go through it. In our 75-gallon tank we have sharks, not saltwater sharks like what you find in the ocean, but they are still sharks nontheless. We have a Columbian shark, which looks KIND of like a catfish in the face area, but swims like an actual saltwater shark. We also have a rainbow shark, and a red tail shark. We have two angel fish — those are interesting little guys. All of these fish will be pretty large when they're full-sized. In my 10-gallon tank, I have a divider and two male Betta fish. They're easy to take care of, and they're pretty friendly as well! And they're extremely gorgeous fish — definitely my favorites, by far.

In our 65-gallon, we have two Oscar fish. Now, these fish are irritating to me. I'm not crazy about them myself. They're moody and they're dirty, but they are also extremely playful fish. These are the kind of fish that will play with ping pong balls. They'll completely jump out of the water to get food out of your hand. Right now, they aren't full size either, but they will be in a year or so, and we'll have to move them into a bigger tank sooner rather than later. We have a 120-gallon tank that hasn't been established yet. We need to reseal it before putting anything in it, I am NOT about to have 120 gallons of water flood my house.

Water changes are a little more difficult on the larger tanks, because you have to use a siphon to get everything off the bottom of the tank, the waste and excess food that the fish don't eat. Then you have to refill the tanks. We're currently using a 5-gallon bucket to carry water from the kitchen to the fish tanks, and that takes several trips. We have a python that you can connect to your sink and the hose is long enough that you can fill them up that way, but we need to find an adapter to connect them. Once you have the tanks filled back up, you need to put water conditioner in the tank, or Stress Coat. Our tap water has a lot of chlorine in it, and it's not good for the fish at all. Stress Coat also adds a layer of slime that coats the fish and protects them whenever they get hurt or stressed out and it calms them down. That's not the technical term, but I'm sure you get the gist.

Feeding your fish is fairly easy. We feed ours in the morning and at night. And after we feed them at night, we switch the lights off so they have a down period. They need rest just like us humans do!

Introducing just a couple of hardy fish (like gold fish) and then waiting is the time-tested way to culture beneficial bacteria in a new fish tank. These first fish you introduce to the tank will produce ammonia, which beneficial bacteria will eat, causing the bacteria to grow and multiply. This is how you establish your fish tank, and whatever you put in your tanks after that will be good to go! It takes several weeks to finish establishing your tank and you'll need to have a test kit on hand to make sure that everything is set up correctly, and once all the ammonia levels and everything else are at a correct amount, you can start picking out what fish you want! Happy fishing!