2. Getting Started. The first few days of starting a Fish Bowl, Aquarium, or Pond are the most risky and stressful for the fish. Reduce this risk by following the advice given in this site.

3. Change 20% of the water twice a week. Use bottled drinking water for Fish Bowls and tap water for Aquariums and Ponds.

4. A least once a month give your fish's home a good cleaning.

5. Twice a day feed your fish the correct floating food, so they get plenty to eat. Be sure all the food is eaten, and none of the food is left to pollute the water.

6. Every day look carefully at your fish for Signs of Stress and Disease. If you see Signs of Stress and Disease, immediately give your fish the Recommended Treatment.

7. Also carefully look at your water. If the water is cloudy, foamy, or smelly, take immediate corrective action.

Each of these seven essentials of keeping fish is explained and then discussed in greater detail below on this page.

1. Match the Fish with an Appropriate Home.
Fish are hardy and have the capacity to adjust to many changes in their environment. Fish show Signs of Stress and Disease, when their environment lacks something essential such as oxygen, or their environment has an excess of something intolerable such as fish waste.

With good planning and systematic maintenance the fish's environment can be controlled and most fish problems can be avoided. Click here for information about how to recognize Sign of Stress and Disease in fish.

The most important factor in successfully keeping any fish is to match that fish with an appropriate environment, which has enough space, the proper equipment, and compatible tank mates.

There are two ways to match the fish and it's home. Choose a group of compatible fish first then get an appropriate home for that group of fish, or choose the home first then get an appropriate group of fish for that home.

For example, if you decide you want a Fish Bowl, then click here to learn more about Fish Bowls including the fact that bigger is better when choosing a Fish Bowl.

After reading about Fish Bowls, if you decide to get a large 1.5 gallon Fish Bowl, then click here to read about good fish for Fish Bowls. Suppose you decide to get one Male Betta or one Female Betta, a few Ghost Shrimp, and a couple of Live Plants for the Fish Bowl.

These are appropriate inhabitants for a 1.5-gallon Fish Bowl. Ten small goldfish are not appropriate fish for a 1.5-gallon Fish Bowl. In fact one small goldfish won't do well in a Fish Bowl, because that one goldfish, given the proper care and feeding, will quickly outgrow the Fish Bowl.

Click here to read the page titled How to Choose a Fish Bowl, Aquarium, or Pond. It will help you choose from the following list,

• Fish Bowls
• Cool Water Aquariums
• Warm Water Aquariums
• Ponds

Any of these four choices can be an appropriate home for some fish and an inappropriate home for some other fish.

After you choose a home for your fish, decide which fish you'll keep. Click on topics listed just below to help you choose the appropriate kinds of fish for the home you've already chosen for your new fish.

• Good Fish for Fish Bowls
• Good Fish for Cool Water Aquariums
• Good Fish for Warm Water Aquariums
• Good Fish for Ponds

Or if you prefer, find the species of fish that you want to keep on our Price List, where you can click on more links and read the comments in the paragraphs titled "Appropriate Home" for those fish.

Using this method, you pick the fish first, then use this web site to find out if you need a Fish Bowl, a Cool Water Aquarium, a Warm Water Aquarium, or a Pond for the species of fish you've chosen.

For example, click here to go to the page with information about Puffer Fish. When you get to that page, scroll down to the paragraph titled "Appropriate Home" and read about the size of the aquarium, about the equipment you need, and about adding some aquarium salt to the water.

The first Essential of Keeping Fish is to match the fish with an appropriate home for that species of fish, and this website contains the information you need to match the fish and the appropriate home for those fish.