Hey! Do you have any suggestions for a total newbie interested in fishkeeping? Equipment, type of fish, where to get it/the stuff? Feel free to wax as eloquent as you like!
Ok So this is a really big topic but here's the quick run down:
right off the top I'm grabbing you by the face and saying: Never ever ever ever ever put your hand in an aquarium if you have any kind of paper cut or scratch or hangnail or other open wound on the relevant appendage. Never put your hand in an aquarium and then touch your face/rub your eyes/ do anything near something that might need a bandaid. If you get nicked while aquarium water damp Go Wash that Immediately. 99 times out of 100 this will be overkill, the one time it's not will result in the worst infection in your life. We'll get to why later
Ok If you want to get into fish keeping asap and not have to think about Jack shit:
buy an Aqueon 10 gallon aquarium kit once you have it all you need is decor, food, a small siphon, chemicals, and a betta fish.
You can't buy the elements in a Aqueon 10g kit for less than the price of the kit. Try to get it on sale or online. Box pet stores mark up their prices big time to make their sales look like a good deal. You might be tempted to get the 5 gallon kit. or an even smaller kit marketed at bettas specifically. Do not do that those are traps. Tldr bigger water to fish ratios are Infinitely more forgiving and way easier to maintain.
The decor you'll need is about 5lbs of any substrate you like the look of, just get it from the aquarium section and rinse it off before adding it to the tank to reduce cloudiness. The substrate is Not skipable. It is absolutely vital to have some and I personally recommend sand. and Whatever fake plants or little statues you like. Avoid sharp bits and consider the humble and Cheap polyester flowers at your local craft store. As long as they are just regular fabric or plastic with nothing that can come off of them or be pokey then they're good. Make sure the fish still has places to swim and like, be a fish. Don't over crowd things.
Some fish food. You need to get simply the cheapest shit they have and also separately a small jar of something with a betta fish on it. Your jar will almost definitely out live your fish even if they live to a record age, so don't feel like you need to get anything big.
The chemicals you need depends entirely on where you live. Get some test strips and test the water straight out of your faucet. You want about a pH of 7 for a betta. if it is not 7 pick up something that will either raise or lower it to 7. You will also need a dechlorinator or "water conditioner" if you're on city water.
Don't buy the fish yet, just go home and get the tank set up. Substrate should go first, then tap water, don't bother doing anything with it besides checking the pH and adjusting as needed by following the directions on a bottle of pH 7 or something similar. Then add the heater and filter. plug everything in. Do Not add the decor.
Now dump some of the cheap shit fish food in, like a half tablespoon or the likes, just enough that the tank looks visibly dirty but not like, Covered you know? Ok now fuck off for a bit.
The tank water will get really cloudy and murky and it's going to be gross as fuck and maybe smell a Very specific kind of bad. Ok. Then it's going to clear up and you're going to add a little bit more, a bit more than a pinch. And you're going to do that twice a week for two weeks to three weeks. Until the water stops being foggy all the time. Once a week use the siphon to lightly suck up any big or especially gross pieces and drain away like 25-30% of the water. It doesn't have to be precise. Replace it with more water and check the pH to make sure it doesn't jump or drop too much.
This is because keeping aquariums is actually like 80% about keeping gallons of bacteria alive. Your fish will expell waste in a number of ways. Your filter will catch large particles and the carbon in it will remove certain chemicals. The rest of the filtration actually comes from the bacteria in the water eating and processing the waste which is why it's important to have it set up Before you bring home a fish. The store will have little jars called shit like "quick start" or "bacteria boost" or something else. These are almost always not worth the money, be patient and just cycle the tank as described.
Ok now use a test strip. There will be color coded squares and instructions on the bottle on how to read the strips. The only thing you care about right now are the ones corresponding to Ammonia, Nitrates, and Nitrites. These all need to be basically 0. If they are not just keep nurturing your bacteria water and test again next week.
Once you get them into the realm of good enough add your lovely decor to the tank, and go pick out your pretty betta fish. I recommend shopping at locally owned stores as much as possible but also it's your money. I recommend finding an individual who is alert and swimming around doing betta stuff even if the sickly looking ones are tugging at your heart strings. Depending on the shop someone might try to sell you a few females in a bundle deal as a sorority, this is also a trap. Do Not Do That. get 1(one) fish. Singular.
When you get home Do Not Dump Your Fish In The Tank. Take the bag or cup or whatever and set it in the tank so it is floating nicely. This will let the temperature the fish is at come up to match the aquariums instead of just shocking them. Ok. Now find a decently sized bowl. A bowl that you'd use to like eat soup out of. and gently transfer your fish and all the water in its packaging into the bowl. Your buddy might be freaked out so have something to loosely cover the bowl on hand. Ok. Now add some water from the aquarium to the bowl. Less than 1/4 of the amount currently in the bowl. now set a timer for like 10 mins and chill out. Ok now add a bit more water to the bowl and set another 10 min timer. And just keep doing that until there's more tank water in the bowl than original water. And Now you put the fish in the tank by gently dumping it and the water from the bowl into the tank.
Congratulations on your fish. Feed them every other day with the food that had the betta on it. Their stomach and mouth are very small so only feed them about a grain of rice worth of food. They won't mind if you leave for a weekend but try to not go more than three days without feeding them. Their life spans are wildly variable based on how well bred they were and how well taken care of they were before you bought them. This fucker might live a year, it might live 8. Cherish it either way.
Do those 25-30% water changes weekly, test with the strips and chemical appropriately, rinse the filter cartridge monthly, and replace it completely every 3 months. and replace the heater every year
If you want to actually understand the science of what any of that was about:
That stuff about keeping wounds out of the bacteria water (this is only one of the infections you can get, they all suck)
How to clean an aquarium in detail
More stuff in case that's your thing
How to do planted tanks/ how to pick plants for a tank
Stock recommendations for: 10g, 20g, 29g, 55g
Just the aquarium co-op website bc tbh I've linked it 1 million times for a reason
If you have any specific questions I'd be glad to answer them but yeah that's the run down.
