Freshwater

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Part III: Water, Chemicals, and Plants
6. Wash and add your substrate.
Wash gravel with clear water. You can use a colander to rinse the gravel.
Set the colander over a bucket and rinse the gravel under water until the
overflow is clean. This will remove dirt, dust, and excess dye.
Slope two inches of gravel so that it is about one half an inch higher in
the rear.
7. Add a bio-wheel filter.
Place the filter on the tank by hanging it on the outside of the rear glass.
The intake tube should hang inside of the aquarium. Rinse the filter pads
under clear water and place them in the slots inside the filter. Place the
bio-wheels in their marked slots. Do not plug the unit in yet!
8. Fill the tank up 2 ⁄3 of the way with water.
This will allow you to arrange the gravel if it has moved during filling
and provide enough water to add decorations later.
Pour the water into the aquarium by letting it splash on top of a small
plate that is resting underwater on top of the gravel. This will make sure
that the water does not move the gravel and decorations all around
while you are filling the tank.
9. Add decorations.
Add rocks, driftwood, plastic plants, and other decorations.
10. Fill the aquarium.
Add water until the aquarium water is at the same level as the bottom
edge of the aquarium frame that wraps around the top of the glass.
11. Add declorinator to the water.
This is not always needed with two-day wait time on fish, but it never
hurts to add it anyway.
12. Plug in all the equipment.
13. Add water to the bio-wheel unit if it is not self-starting to start it.
14. Check the pH and adjust as needed.
15. Put the hood and lights on the tank.
16. Let the tank run for 24–48 hours and retest pH. Adjust as needed.
17. Put in your starter coldwater fish.