STEP 7: Add water to aquarium. To avoid messing up your gravel and plants, you can place a plate or saucer in middle of your aquarium and direct water flow onto plate. Use room temperature water when filling. To remove chlorine and chloramine, use something like Tetra AquaSafe for Aquariums. Don’t completely fill up aquarium until you are sure of layout of your decorations. Otherwise, when you place your arm in to move stuff around water is going to spill over. Doh!

STEP 8: Set up equipment. Install your heater but don’t plug it in until thermostat in heater has adjusted to water temperature. This usually takes about 15 minutes or so. Hook up your filter and any other equipment you have, then top off aquarium water to just under hood lip. Place your hood and light on aquarium and then check your power cords to be sure that they are free of water. I would also recommend using a drip loop on all of power cords to be extra cautious. Plug all of equipment into a power strip and then “turn on” aquarium.

STEP 9. Wait, wait, wait and then wait some more. I know, you want to add some tropical fish. But, in order to do this right you must wait until your aquarium has cycled before adding any fish. There are ways of speeding up this process. Check out nitrogen cycle page to learn more. If you must use fish to cycle, try to get a hardier species like zebra danio or cherry barb.

STEP 10. Add tropical fish. Only add one or two fish at a time. Adding a couple tropical fish at a time gives your filtration system time needed to take on increased biological load that new fish introduce. When you bring fish home let bag float in tank for about 15 minutes so that fish can become acclimated to temperature and pH of aquarium water. After 5 minutes of floating bag you should add some of aquarium water to bag so that fish can become acclimated to pH level in aquarium. This will help reduce amount of stress imposed on tropical fish. Stressed tropical fish often leads to dead tropical fish! Don’t feed your tropical fish on first day. They probably wouldn’t eat any food on first day anyway. Let them get acquainted with their new home.

STEP 11. Get ready for regular maintenance. Be prepared to spend some time once every week or two to clean your tank. Performing regular water changes will reduce nitrate levels and keep your tropical fish happy and healthy.

For more tropical fish and aquarium information, please visit FishLore.com - Tropical Fish & Aquarium Information.

So step one into understanding our pets is to unconditionally accept them into our homes. Having several, large canine companions, (whom all live indoors with me), I've learned to recognize and distinguish types of body language and visual dialogue that speaks volumes. When our dogs live indoors with us, we can interpret language of love. Not only do we see their personalities unfold before our eyes, we learn to be intuitive to each of our pets' needs, similar to our own.

From experience, I can literally close my eyes and distinguish each dog's presence simply by touch and sense. Why? Because by having them alongside me, I've learned their individual motions, breathes, sounds and feel. And in turn, they present their comical and goofy sides, their playfulness and their unconditional love for us.

When we invite our dogs into our lives - truly into our lives - we discover a world of fascination, innocence, inspiration, laughter, amusement, and an indescribable love. So how can pet owners learn to better understand their dog's behavior? Give Beethoven a bath, bring him inside and watch how his character evolves. The more time we spend one-on-one with our dogs, better we are able to recognize specific traits and how to employ gentle behavior training techniques.

Having seven huge dogs, I've come to terms that dogs are one of life's most precious gifts. They are here for just a little while. When we take time to get to know them individually, we gain more than just a pet; we gain a friend for life.

© 2005 - Why Don't I Understand my Dog? By C. Bailey-Lloyd aka. LadyCamelot Public Relations' Director & Staff Writer www.holisticjunction.com www.mediapositiveradio.com