HOW TO GET STARTED WITH AN AQUARIUM 10 THINGS YOU NEED

Welcome to a new video everybody, I hope you're doing well. Today we're going back to the basics again. A question I get asked a lot is, what do I need to get started with aquascaping? So today we'll go over 10 things that you need if you want to get started with this amazing hobby. But that's not everything, I'll also give you 5 things that are optional but you might want to consider as well. So let's get straight into it. First thing on the list is of course the aquarium itself. Although it's very obvious that you need a tank to get started, choosing the right aquarium can still be somewhat challenging. How big should it be? Do you go for a rimless tank or a tank with a lid? And what about glass thickness and clarity? Hopefully I can guide you in the right direction with a few tips. First of all I think it's important to choose an aquarium that fits your home and fits your budget. So start by looking around your living room or office or wherever it is that you're planning to set up a tank and find a suitable spot. And as a general rule you want that spot to be away from any windows because too much daylight and direct sunlight can cause algae issues. Once you've found a perfect spot you can get a better idea of the size aquarium that can fit there and my advice to beginners is always to start with a small tank. Nano tanks are a great way to get a taste of the aquascaping hobby without spending too much money. And if I would have to pick one size I would suggest something around 45 centimeters. If you go smaller than that your options for choosing fish will become more limited and if you go bigger the initial startup cost will be much higher. Then there's a choice of going for a rimless tank or a tank with a lid. Myself I only have rimless tanks but sometimes I really wish they had a cover. Although rimless tanks are very stylish they do have a couple downsides and the main things that bother me sometimes is the enormous amount of water evaporation and the occasional fish jumping out. The reason I don't have any tanks with a lid is just because they're usually complete systems with filtrations and lighting already built in and most of the time the light is barely enough to grow plants and the filter just takes up a lot of space inside the aquarium. So I prefer rimless tanks just so I can choose my own light and my own filter. The next thing on the list of things you really need for your aquarium is a light and because we are focusing on aquascaping and planted tanks in general the light is actually very important. Most common aquarium lights these days are all LED lights. These are much more energy efficient and easier to control compared to the old T5 and T8 tubes. With LED lights you usually have two varieties. LED lights with just white LEDs or LED lights with RGB LEDs. The white LEDs are usually only dimmable and the RGB LEDs usually offer some color customization so you can change the colors to your liking. Now I don't want to make this very complicated so instead of confusing you with Lumens, Kelvins and Spectrums I'm just going to recommend two brands that I and many other people had a lot of success with that are pretty much available anywhere in the world and both of these brands offer a variety of lights that suit pretty much all budgets. The first one is Twinstar and with this brand it's very easy to figure out which light is for you. They basically have four different models B, C, E and S. With B as the cheapest model and the least powerful and S the most expensive and the most powerful. So if you're a beginner or you're going with a low tech tank the B series is perfect. If you want the best of the best you can go with the S series. If you want something in between you can choose between the C or the E series. Also all models are available in many different lengths and with different mounting options so they fit on pretty much any size aquarium. The second brand I recommend is Chihiros. Chihiros also has a lot of different models for both high and low budget and what I really like about Chihiros lights is that they can all be controlled via an app which works really really well. I'm thinking of making an aquarium light buying guide so let me know in the comments if that's something you would like to see. Number three on the list of things you need is a filter. Now it is possible to set up a plant tank without a filter. I currently have one myself but this is not something I would recommend if you're a beginner. When it comes to filters you basically have three options. An internal filter, an external filter or a hang on a back filter. Let's go over these one by one. An internal filter is kind of the simplest option and there's a few things I like about internal filters. One, they're cheap especially compared to external filters. Two, they're very easy to clean and three, they're placed inside the aquarium so there's no chance of any leaks but the fact that they are inside the aquarium also means they're very visible and they take up some space as well. An external filter is probably the best option and what I like about external filters is they're external so you can hide them in the cabinet or something. You can only have the inflow and outflow visible inside the aquarium. They also offer a lot more space for filter media so they need to be cleaned less often. There are a couple downsides to external filters. They're bigger so they need to be hidden somewhere and if you have a cabinet that's easy but if your tank does not sit on a cabinet you're basically screwed. Now because they're bigger they're also more expensive and another downside is because they're external there's always a chance that it starts leaking but I do have to say that in all the years that I've been using external filters I never had one that started leaking. Then the third option is the hang on the back filter. Depending on the size of course these are very affordable. If you like to keep it simple these are a nice option. The only thing I do not like about hang on the back filters is that they usually don't have a lot of space for filter media and you can't really change the direction of the flow. The next thing you need is a substrate. Our goal is to grow healthy plants and healthy plants need to grow healthy roots. So especially in a planted tank or aquascape a good substrate is quite important but I do have to say that most plants will grow just fine in pretty much any substrate. I just have a few things for you to keep in mind. Me personally I'm a big fan of using aquasol and in my opinion this is the best substrate for a planted tank. Aquasol is a complete substrate that doesn't require any rinsing beforehand, contains a ton of nutrients for the plants and in general is just very easy to work with. It also lowers the pH and makes the water slightly more acidic which is really good for plants. It is however a bit more expensive than most other substrates so if you're on a budget this might not be an option for you. Besides providing nutrients to the plants the substrate is also home for a lot of beneficial bacteria and this is something people often forget. If you have a healthy substrate with a lot of beneficial bacteria you'll be rewarded with a very stable aquarium with crystal clear water. So how do we provide for these beneficial bacteria? Well simply by choosing a substrate that is not going to compact over time like sand. It's very difficult for fresh water to flow through sand and provide oxygen to the beneficial bacteria. So to sum up I would suggest a relatively coarse substrate in the areas where you're going to keep a lot of plants. If you want to use sand use that in the open areas where there will not be many plants. Number five on our list is hardscape. Hardscape is what we call the natural materials that we use to create our layout so basically rocks and wood. It's definitely possible to set up a tank without hardscape and with just plants. This would be labeled as a Dutch style tank but I decided to keep hardscape on the mandatory list because most beginners do not go for a Dutch style aquascape. When it comes to hardscape it's good to be aware of certain yeah let's call it side effects. For example rocks might alter your water parameters and some types of wood will release tannins or grow some mold in the beginning. With rocks it's quite easy to pick out the ones that have a negative effect on water parameters. Any rock with white veins will release minerals over time and increase the water hardness. The most popular one is the serious stone and other common ones are millennium stone and geo stone. If you want to be absolutely sure the rocks that you're using do not alter the water parameters you can drop some vinegar on the rocks. If you see a reaction you can be certain the rocks will release minerals. With wood it's a bit tricky because often the same wood is sold under different names but the most common type of wood used in aquascaping is spider wood. When using this type of wood for the first time it will grow a layer of mold for the first three or four weeks. This mold is not harmful for fish, shrimp and snails but it can cause melt to sensitive plants. Lastly I would always recommend to buy your hardscape in a shop rather than collect it from nature. In general the hardscape materials that you buy in a store are safe to use underwater and will not start rotting over time. The next thing that is absolutely mandatory in a planted tank is plants. If you're a beginner and you have never bought or grown aquatic plants before I have a few tips for you. First of all I would suggest to leave buying plants till the very end. Whenever I start a new aquascape I first collect and set up all the equipment then I start working on the hardscape and when all that is finished I make a list of the plants I want to use and then I go shopping. Now I think one thing that beginners struggle with the most is finding the right plants that will suit their aquarium and will actually start growing properly. For that you just have to do a little bit of research. Luckily these days that's actually very simple because there are a lot of websites where you can just search for plant information based on the difficulty level or position in the aquarium. For example let's go to the website of Dennerle plants. On top we have the plant section so we click on that. If we then scroll down a little bit we see the search option. So let's say we are setting up our first aquascape we're not using co2 so we're looking for an easy plant for the foreground. So we click on difficulty select easy then we click on usage and select foreground. Press search and we get a bunch of different results. So all these plants are easy to grow and are suitable for the foreground. Of course it depends a little bit on the size of the aquarium but this way you can make a good plant selection before you go and spend your money. Because if there's one thing that's super frustrating is when you see all those beautiful plants that you bought and spend a lot of money on slowly withering away because they are actually not suitable for your setup. Another question I get asked a lot is how many pots of plants do I need. Of course this depends a lot on the size of the aquarium or kind of layout you're going with and if you're using regular pots or in vitro pots. I would always recommend to buy in vitro pots just because they usually contain a higher quantity of individual plants. And as a general rule one in vitro pot is enough to plant one palm size area or an area of 10 by 10 centimeters. So if we take a standard 60 centimeter aquarium with a footprint of 60 by 30 centimeters we would need 18 pots to plant this aquarium. Of course this is just a guideline and you can always use less or more. Number seven on the list of things you need is inhabitants. Before we can add fish, shrimp, snails or anything else for that matter we need to make sure that the aquarium is cycled. An aquarium that is not cycled will usually contain traces of ammonia and nitrite and both of these are highly toxic to our inhabitants. To get rid of these toxic elements we need beneficial bacteria. These bacteria will convert ammonia and nitrite into nitrate which is not toxic and actually a great fertilizer for plants. But getting enough of these beneficial bacteria just takes a bit of time usually around two to four weeks. Of course there are ways to speed up this process but this is not something I would recommend if you're a beginner. If there's one thing this hobby requires it's definitely patience. So use these two to four weeks to gain more knowledge about the inhabitants you're planning to keep. What kind of food do they eat, what temperature do they prefer and where do they come from in the wild. Once you figure out these things you'll be much better prepared. You'll be able to take care of them in the best possible way and just in case you don't know yet which fish you want to keep I'll link a video in the top right corner and in the video description about my 15 favorite nano fish. Besides the fish it's also good to consider an algae cleanup group. Especially in a planted tank you will get algae at some point. My favorite algae eaters are otocinclus, amino shrimp and cleatfin snails. On number eight we have plant fertilizers and here I would always recommend a combination of liquid as well as substrate fertilizers. Substrate fertilizers will either be sold as capsules or tablets and these can be added in the very beginning when you're preparing a substrate. If the aquarium is already up and running and you want to add more nutrients to the substrate you can do that by inserting the capsules into the substrate with some tweezers. When it comes to liquid fertilizers you have a few options. You can use your complete liquid fertilizer. This is one bottle that will contain all the macro and micronutrients that your plants need. So phosphate, nitrate, potassium, iron and trace elements and this is what I would recommend for beginners. Or you can use the micronutrients and macronutrients separately or you can buy every single nutrient separately so you have full control over the plant growth. This is definitely not something I would recommend for beginners. Personally I'm a big fan of having a lot of nutrients in the substrate and very little nutrients in the water column. The main reason for that is algae control. Having a lot of nutrients in the substrate can't really cause any algae issues while having a lot of nutrients in the water column can definitely cause algae issues. So if you want to know exactly how I dose fertilizers in my tanks I'll leave a video on the top right corner of the screen as well as in the video description. On number nine we have time switches. Now it doesn't matter if you use the old-fashioned analog timers or the fancy smart sockets the important thing is that you have consistency in your aquarium. The two main things that should be controlled by these switches is your light and your CO2 if you're using that of course. These two things you want to automate so every day you have the same number of light hours above your tank and the same amount of CO2 going in as well. I have all my lights on an eight hour photo period and they switch on at 1 p.m. and switch off at 9 p.m. You can go for a longer photo period up to 10 or 12 hours but this depends on your light intensity. My lights are all quite powerful so I only keep them on for eight hours. Number 10 on the list is just a combination of small things you need for your aquarium mostly just to help you with maintenance. Starting with the hose in the bucket for your water changes. This is still my preferred way of doing water changes on small tanks. Simple but effective. To clean the glass I use three different tools. One is an algae scraper, two is a sponge with a soft and a rough side and three is a toothbrush for the difficult to reach areas. To help you with maintaining the plants I recommend a good quality plant tweezer as well as some scissors and when you're filling the tank back up you want the water to have close to the same temperature. So the next thing you need is a thermometer and the last thing you need is a fish net. Obviously for catching fish but also great for scooping out the plant trims. So those were the 10 things that you absolutely need if you want to get started with your plant tank hobby. Now let's look at five things that are optional that you might want to consider as well. By the way it was definitely optional but highly recommended is liking this video, subscribing to the channel and turning on the bell notifications. Oh totally free and only takes a second but it really motivates me and him to make more videos The first thing on the list of mandatory things was the aquarium itself. Now what's optional but very good to have is a cabinet or a stand for your tank. This way you have a place where you can hide the equipment, your tools and everything else. The second thing that's optional in my opinion is a test kit. If you're absolutely certain that this hobby is for you and you can see yourself being busy with the aquarium hobby for many years to come, by all means buy a test kit. But if you're a beginner and you're just getting started I don't think you need one. Of course it would be good to test the water for ammonia and nitrites before you add any livestock but most local fish shops offer this service for free as well. The third thing that's optional is a heater. Whether or not you need a heater depends on what fish you want to keep and your room temperature. If you're planning to set up a shrimp tank you probably don't need one but if you're thinking of keeping a betta fish you definitely need a heater so this one is optional. On number four we have CO2 injection. CO2 is definitely optional but if you want to grow beautiful and healthy plants it's also something that's really going to make a big difference. If you're completely new to CO2 injection I'll leave some videos in the description to help you get started. And lastly on number five we have a surface skimmer. If there's one thing everybody suffers from in this hobby it's that filthy oily layer on top of the water surface. This is completely normal and can't really cause any harm but it does look a little bit unsightly especially in a rimless aquarium. If you have an external filter you can buy an inflow with a skimmer attachment or you can buy something like the Eheim skim 350. So now you know everything you need in order to get started but maybe you still need some inspiration. If so click on this playlist and if you need some more help with choosing the right CO2 system I suggest you click on this video right here to go to my CO2 system buying guide. Wait what do you mean your CO2 system buying guide?