This is part one of a multi-part series. See the full series parts here:

• Stage zero – the beginning
• Stage two – adding plants (live) and plant matter (dead)
• Stage three – adding oxygen and adding fish

Let us continue …

Stage one – initial setup:

The tank:

Frist thing first really is a tank. Obviously.

I looked around and found some 10L tanks on eBay that seemed reasonable and not too expensive, and (most importantly) of a size I could place in our small apartment – I had a space that it could go nicely with easy access and view (why get a tank if you have to hide it somewhere you can hardly see the fish – that’d be silly). The one I bought was $30 free shipping (and arrived well packaged and safe and sound despite being pure glass etc.)

It is a glass tank – you don’t want plastic … over a time period plastic can and will leach into the water. Fine for a drinking bottle of water that’s not really gonna do that in its time frame but not for a fish tank. Glass is an amazingly non-reactive material (that’s why we use it so much) so it won’t leach or perish or anything. You probably already knew that.

The substrate:

“Substrate” is just a fancy word for the ground at the bottom of your tank. Per the “Father Fish” method you want dirt of one inch thickness topped with sand of two inches. There are many reasons for this – watch the videos for details. There are also variations of advice in the videos – as they are done at different times and different contexts or emphasis. Here is what I got from them and did.

Dirt:

While initial videos just mentioned grabbing some soil out of your home garden or back lawn or something, later videos suggested a mix of types to give it some more substance and to help it last longer.

Content:

• Peat moss (which is not moss at all – it is dirt! Go figure!)
• Potting soil
• Actual dirt from your garden, ground, nearby source

Sort I bought a small bag of peat moss and a small bag of potting soil (the potting soil came in variations for different usages and had various slow release nutritional aspects etc. – I just choose the one that seemed maybe the most suitable … I don’t think it really matters.

For this 10L tank I used:

• 2 cups of peat moss
• 1 cup of potting soil
• 1 cup of actual dirt

Seeing as the peat and potting came in kg bags even at the smallest I could get, I have plenty left for a number of later tanks! But it all only cost me about $20 and $10 of that was postage … so yea, nice and cheap.

Preparation:

Put all 4 cups of soil into a bowl or buck and pour in quarter a cup of water and stir. The water will all be soaked up in the soil. Add another quarter cup of water or so and mix that in. Continue with this until you have a nice mud pie … you don’t want any excess water but you don’t want any dry soil either. Its very very reminiscent of mixing flour and ingredients for a cake! In fact I mixed mine in a baking bowl – just don’t be tempted to lick the bowl when you are done(!) and make sure you give it as good wash before you use the bowl again to bake an actual cake or whatever!

Usage:

Put the mix into your tank and smooth it down so it is even throughout. My mix was the exact right quantity for about 1″ thickness – different size tanks or even different shapes may of course have different requirements … don’t fuss to much – just mix up some mud and make sure you have a decent thickness (you don’t want to go much more or less than one inch but you don’t need to be perfect or anything … eyeball it, you’ll see when its about right.

Sand:

Next you need sand.

Content:

I bought some sand on eBay that was local river sand. There are many choices and supply options. It doesn’t seem to really matter. I got river sand as it seem appropriate and the sold it in small quantities. It cost about $10 for 2kg plus another $10 in postage. You can probably find cheaper options but I was happy with this.

Note that it is lucky I got the 2kg option as it *only just* was enough to give me about 2″ coverage above the dirt – I poured in every grain of it! So you may want to get a bit more the 2kg.

Usage:

And that’s all you do, just gently pour it on top of you dirt mud-pie like pouring icing on top of a cake (I don’t even bake – where are all these cake metaphors coming from! Lol). Even it out so it is reasonably flat and same thickness across the whole tank and you are done – don’t get too fussy, you’ll move a bit when you are adding rocks and plants and stuff later – so again like the mud, just eyeball it … you’ll see and get it right.

Water:

Yep, water. Who’d have seen that coming! Lol.

Content:

The “Father Fish” videos are quite interesting about the water. Basically just use local (tap) water. You are (most likely) buying your fish locally so your water will most likely be same as the water the pet shop has. There are all sorts of things about Ph levels and chemicals in the water and everything but unless you water is not fit for human consumption or something its likely fine and the main advice is just let you fish get used to it.

Change of water type rather than what the actual water type is seems to be the big issue – so just use local water and stick with it and then the fish wont get a shock of different water every time you do something/ clean the tank/ add new water etc.

Usage:

Father Fish suggests put a plate or bowl on the surface of the sand substrate and pour your water – gently! – into that. The idea is to cause a little disturbance of the sand and underlying dirt at all. If you are like me you’ll rush at one point and stir up a bit of sand – just stop and go calmer and all will be fine.

Inanimate items:

For aesthetics and to add some variation to experience for your fish you can add in your inanimate (not alive) items if you wish. I for instance found a great little dead branch like a piece of drift wood and two excellent rocks – a flat one like a plate and a more boulder like one with a flat bottom that’d sit on the plate rock nicely. They look good, and give the fish something to dart around and even hide under in the space formed between the two rocks (place is another surface for little plants and things to grow on or whatever).

I make sure to get rocks. Not plastic. Not man-made brick. Actual real world natural rock. You don’t have to but for the “natural” setup and look I think this is best. Or no rock at all if you wish.

The end:

That’s all for this section of my blog – for more info see the upcoming additional ones:

• Stage two – adding plants (live) and plant matter (dead)
• Stage three – adding oxygen and adding fish

This is part zero (the intro) of a multi-part series. See the full series parts here:

• Stage one – initial setup
• Stage two – adding plants (live) and plant matter (dead)
• Stage three – adding oxygen and adding fish

So in the words of David Bowie “I’m an absolute beginner” – as far as having fish as pets in a tank etc. This blog is my first attempt to capture this while it’s all new and fresh.

Stage zero – the beginning:

How it started:

I got into this viewing (somehow) some “Father Fish” videos that came up on my YouTube feed. I liked his story, his attitude, and the natural and (more or less) self-sustaining concept for the tank – we don’t have pets of any kind because they need 24/7 care and if we are out often or go away etc. can be a problem (sure, you have places for cats and dogs to be looked after but its expensive and time consuming and I’d just rather not). So these videos sparked off an interest and it seemed simple enough (nothing worth doing ever really is!) so I thought I’d have a go.

The attitude:

A slight divergence here, but like everything is life, you attitude/intention/desire/goal for anything affects how you do it and what it is.

Like everything on the internet people get so fanatic about “their way (the right way!) to do something” and Father Fish had obviously had quite come of those people commenting on his videos.

The thing is one-size-does-NOT-fit-all – almost never for anything. There is almost always (not always, but very often) several ways to do something and none of them are wrong and one is not even necessarily better than the others … its all about context: what are you doing and why are you doing it?

So this guide is for people like me – an absolutely beginner who want to try this “natural” fish tank method. If you are an experienced fish owner and your tanks are totally different … well good for you! If your fish are happy and you are happy then I tip my hat to you and say “jolly good”. If you just want a goldfish (or whatever) and a simple arrangement then buying a tank and supplies from a pet-shop and doing it the classical way is absolutely fine. If this “natural” method will only give you a tank for a couple of years and then will need redoing from scratch as the nutrients and stuff finally run out of this limited eco-system … well then so be it, I am not trying to build a tank to last a century … 6 months will please me, 12 months I’ll be ecstatic (maybe I wont’ even want a tank after 12 months … doing a small and simple one like this gives me a chance to find out (that said I am already wanted to get a bigger tank! I think I am hooked. Lol)).

Budget:

Related to the above is also budget. I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on this – I run a tight ship and I don’t have cash to just splash out on a full professional super everything setup.

This “natural” method seemed a way to do things a bit on the cheaper side.

As it turns out, it does … but you’ll still need to spend some dollars – not a super lot but not an insignificant amount either. Nothing worth doing in this world is simple (see above) and also nothing is free – every choice you make has its cost in cash or time or how close the result is to what you dreamed etc. etc. But budget is a factor in deciding on this method.

Choice:

I went for this “natural” method also because I really love the aesthetics of it. When I went into a shop to actually buy my fish I was struck with the sterility and somewhat life-less-ness of their displays.

Aesthetics is of course a very personal choice and your mileage may vary! But I put not only real plants in there but a couple of real rocks and a bit of driftwood (for aesthetics much more than any other reason!) and when I put the leaf litter in (see Father Fish videos for details) which was just for nutrients and micro-biology aspects it turned out I instantly fell in love with the aesthetic affect of it … it just looks (to me) like a snippet of a scene from a David Attenborough video of some “Life of Fishes” series – lol.

I also note while I was buying my fish a mother came in with her young daughter and enter up buying a tank and a plastic “Sponge Bob Square Pants” pineapple house for the fish to swim through etc. Did I chastise her for it? Of course not! See “Attitude” above. Her needs and wants were totally different that mine – and frankly giving her daughter exposure to some living creatures in a way that would engage her attention and maybe help spark a life-long affinity for mother natures marvels is, to my mind, the most important goal of that setup. It is all about context. Her way was probably right for her needs, my way for mine – as long as the fish are OK the rest is really moot.

Equipment:

So what are you gonna need? (Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?!?).

Shopping list:

For fuller details see the later sections but as an initial heads up you will need:

Tank:

• a safe stable place to place your fish tank where it can remain and be viewed well and accessed easily and has safe access to power outlets nearby (or at least within extension cord reach)
• a tank
• dirt
• sand
• stream or creak sourced dead leaves
• optional some aesthetic feature objects like rocks (1 or 2), piece of driftwood etc.
• a least temporarily: a bowl to mix your dirt in and a cup to measure you dirt with and a spoon or something to mix the water into the dirt – but you probably have these lying around at home already
• a small wish net/scoop for transferring your fish from shop nag/container to your tank or moving them out of your tank
• a pair of long stainless steel – or something else that won’t rust – tweezers to aid in planting plants into the dirt/sand at the bottom of the tank (super recommended!)

Electronics:

• a small air pump with tubing and “air-stones” (which are little “stones” that the air is pumped through to produce streams of bubbles)
  • optional, but probably really mandatory – you probably want a spare/backup air pump in case your existing one fails (from my experience you may have like 2 days worth of oxygen in your fish tank at any given time – if you pump fails and oxygen stops you may not have enough time to get a replacement pump before your fish start dying (you can try manual oxygenation … I did … I found it time consuming and of some value but ultimately a failure – for the low cost of a pump – even if you buy a facing main pump and just get a cheap backup to last you while you source a new pump would seem to be much better than no spare pump at all))
• optional but you probably want a small lamp or other light source – possible to aid in plant photosynthesis but mostly just to add light so yo can see inside your tank and see your fish better
• optional but needed if you want tropical fish and that is a tank heater – you can get ones with built in thermometer that’ll detect the water temperature and turn on and off as needed to warm it up
  • optional, but probably really mandatory (if you are going tropical fish/got a tank heater) – you probably want a spare/backup tank heater in case your existing one fails (as I have gone for cold water fish I have no experience with this, but the logic is same as for the tank oxygenation pump above – have a spare, even if a cheaper lesser quality one, to at least give you something sufficient to hold you (and you r fish!) over until you can source a new replacement unit.
• you’ll probably also want an extension cord and/or a double adapter etc. for your light/pump and possibly also heater, etc.

Fish:

• fish suitable for your water temperature and tank size and water oxygenation etc. or suitable size and quantity (for a small tank which you first one will probably be, a limited number (no more than 10 I would say) small fish ( 1-2cm fish mostly with maybe a couple of 3 to 3.5cm ones)
• some fish food (just one smallest container of goldfish flakes should suffice, your fish are small and you intent the natural tank function to also have food/ be self sustaining so not much is needed)

That’s quite a shopping list – considering we are going simple, natural, and self-sustaining! You also don’t get it all before you start (especially not the fish) but get it and do it in stages (a) set up the tank, (b) add the plants, and then (c) add the fish.

Non-shopping list:

Here are a few items not to get:

• Plastic items – do not get a plastic tank, do not get plastic/fake rocks or other tank ornaments
• Fake plants – do not get plastic or other material fake plants – you want real live ones
• Filter – you do not need a tank filter – you are going for natural filtration. However as you do not have a filter you are gonna (as above) need an air pump (a filter normally acts secondarily as a water oxygenator by stirring up and moving the water – it is water motion on the surface of the water (and not air bubbles in the water despite that’s is what you would likely first think) that oxygenates the water and keeps your fish alive (unless you have awesome plants producing the full oxygenation needed for your tank … that seems unlikely at least initially.
• Chemicals, cleaners, algae scrapers.

Cost:

Here is a summary of about what it cost me to start up:

ITEM	AUD$
– tank	$30
– dirt	$20 (much spare for later tanks)
– sand	$20
– plants	$15
– fish scoop	$8
– tweezers	$12 (part of a set)
– air pump	$30 ($15 each – super cheap on eBay!)
– lamp	nil – I already had
– heater	nil – I am going cold water fish
– extension cord etc.	nil – I already had
– fish food	$6
– fish	$80 (initially $50, but I lost 3/4 of my first fish and had to replace them)
TOTAL	about AUS$225