This is going to be a little messy since I'm bad at organizing information since I have a habit of rambling, but here we go. This is just some basic information that you need if you want to keep fish, but some of the most important.
Cycle your tank! Cycling is the process of establishing beneficial bacteria in your aquarium. The largest colony will be in your filter. Fish produce waste which produces ammonia, that ammonia is very toxic to fish. Some fish can handle very small amounts of it, some can't even stand .25 ppm of it and will die after a bit. It "burns" their gills up, hindering their breathing until eventually they can't breathe anymore... Even if a fish survives the cycling process, they could still have permanent damage. So anyway, a type of bacteria (used to know the names, not anymore. Whoops!) converts that ammonia into nitrites as a byproduct. The nitrites are still very harmful to fish, but not quite as harmful as ammonia. So how do we get these new toxins out? Another bacteria will convert them into niTRATES which are nowhere as harmful as ammonia and nitrites. They can still be harmful in elevated numbers (it's usually best to try to keep it under ~20ppm) but ammonia and nitrites should always be kept at 0 once cycling is finished. Nitrates are removed with water changes.
So how do you cycle? There are two main ways, fihless and cycling with fish.
Cycling with fish: By cycling like this, you get a small amount of fish in your aquarium before you even cycle. They cycle your tank for you. Most people don't know about fishless cycling so they do it this way. But if you do it like this, you run the risk of fish dying and/or living the rest of their lives with permanent damage.
Fishless cycling: Better then cycling with fish... Well I think, and you should too. It involves manually dropping ammonia into the tank daily for a certain ammount to cycle the tank. This method keeps less fish from dying and living healthier lives, and you can also fully stock the tank once you're done-- Usually the amount of ammonia you put in the tank is way more than the fish you get will produce. I can't explain it very vell so I'll link you to this page.
http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htmI use ACE pure ammonia (10%). Make sure the ammonia you get doesn't foam at the top when you shake it. That means there are surfactants in the ammonia which are poisonous to fish.
So how long does cycling take? Depends. Usually about 2-4 weeks. You can speed it up by increasing the temperature into the upper 80s, but I wouldn't do that unless you're fishless cycling.
Now... the equipment you need!
The tank- There are two types of aquariums going around these days; acrylic and glass. Acrylic scratches easily but is much harder to break and with acrylic, you can get rounded off edges or a "bowfront." It's also more expensive than glass. The other type is glass, which has been used for much longer than acrylic. It's very hard to scratch glass aquariums but they can break if you're careless and accidentally hit em with something. They're also a bit less clear than acrylic due to the amounts of iron in them, but that doesn't matter much seeing as the difference isn't easily noticed. Glass aquariums also cost a bit less.
The filter- There are many different types of filters. Undergravel filters are one of the most common but not the best. They can aslo cause problems by trapping gases in the gravel which can harm fish. Canister filters are your best bet. Here's a link.
http://www.fishlore.com/Filtration.htmThe heater- Heaters aren't quite as necessary as filters unless you're keeping fish like discus, which you definitely shouldn't be if you're only a beginner. If you're sticking with beginner fish, a heater isn't completely necessary unless you live in a very cold or hot place (in which case you need a chiller). You want a reliable heater but not too expensive. I prefer hagen's submersible heaters.
Lights- Lights aren't necessary for fish per se, but are if you keep live plants. It's best to research the needs of certain plants since some need high light, some low light, etc but on average, ~2-3 ppm is good enough.
Siphons are used for water changes. Test kits aid in cycling by telling you the amount of amm/nitri/trates are in the water. They can also test other stuff like ph, gh, kh, phosphates, etc etc. The only ones you REALLY need are ph, ammonia, and nitrites. Nitrates too if you don't mind a few extra bucks.
So what are some good beginners fish? There's a few, but I've found zebra or leopard danios are absolutely invincible. I once made a mistake where my ammonia was up to 4ppm for a few days and 8/9 of them survived!
Alright, I may add more later but I'm already getting a bit bored, haha.
razz Hope you learned something! Thanks!
A few helpful websites are fishlore.com and aquaticcommunity.com
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