Finally! Starting up an aquarium / tank

Yeah, I know I should have posted this about a week ago, but I've been lazy lately. But now it's on its way! Go me!

First of all:
You have to purchase an aquarium or a tank as some people say. You can either buy a brand new tank or you're buying a used one. If you're buying a brand new one, you've have to wait about a week before plants and fishes can be put in the tank. Of course there has to be water in the tank and the inflater has to be running.

But if you're buying a used one you can pretty much start it up as soon as you get home. But how do I do that? That's what I'm going to show you now.

 

First: You have you're used tank where you want it to be. Then what do you next? Well, take a bucket of clean fresh water and an unused sponge. Now you start to clean the whole tank with the water and the sponge. Rub every small green spots you can see on the glass, if there's any small green spots at all.

Done? Then we go to the next step!

 

Water at the bottom of the tank? Wipe it away with a towel or something else you can use.

Now prepare the gravel or sand. Wash it as carefully as possible. Filtrate it if you think it's necessary. Just remember to use a fine filter if you have very fine gravel or sand. Or you'll end up with a nice plug of gravel or sand in you pipes. Belive me, it's not fun!

Oh! And remember to use the finest help you can find to keep an
eye on the fish in the buckets/plastic bags/whatever you use.

Now that you have filtrated your gravel or sand, it's time to fill the tank up. If you don't have a hose you can use 'cause it's cold outside or you just don't have one, a good tip is to use 10 gallon buckets or any other size of bucket. Just remember: the smaller the bucket is the longer time it takes. When you've filled the tank with water you can start the inflater to get the water going and the particles to stay in the filter.

Wait to about the next day to stop the inflater again. Now you take out the filter inside the inflater and clean it under running water in the sink until the water is clean. I mean, when you twist the filter. The water that's coming out of the filter is in the beginning brownish looking. So when the water's clean again, you put the filter back into the inflater, and back down in the tank again with the inflater going.

This picture is taken the same night I filled the tank up. This picture is taken about an hour later after the tank was filled up. Since I had a tank going before this one I took some water from the other tank and put into this one. Thus why I already have the plants in it. 

This is the day after. It takes a few days
before the "fog" dissappears,
so it's alright for it to look like this. 

Yep! You're right! You need a guard for the fish.
And not just any guard will do. A cat is the finest guard
you can find!

The fish was alright in the bucket during the night.

But you can't say the same thing for my poor shrimps....

The tank became a little foggy again. I wasn't happy with the way the plants were planted.

A gigantic Vallisneria gigantea is planted infront of the inflater.

Since I hate to see the equipment its place was kind of sealed.

Still a bit foggy, but it's okey.

You know, the most funny thing about aquarium is the planning and design stage. With design I mean the layout in the tank. How much gravel do I need, where to I want this plant and so forth.

One of the gourami. Unfortunatly this male was a bit terrytorial when I got the golden ones. He kind of killed his mate and the golden male, so now it's just him and the golden female left. But they're a lovely couple!

I don't recommend you to mix these Convict cichlid with shrimps. The shrimps were gone the minute these fish saw them. And I'd say I wouldn't have any plants with the at all since they dig. At least the grown ones did. This little fry ain't doing that for a while but he or she will be doing that soon.

Here are both of the gouramis. They're beautiful, aren't they?

These Pomacea bridgesii are quite fascinating. They seem to disappear constantly. When I count them I only find two out of three each time. So when I look for the third I either find it behind the inflater, in some plant or behind something else that seems impossible to hid behind. These three are at least 3cm over the shell and, if I read right, becomes 15cm when they're grown! Now, that's a snail!