Beginner

I have been contemplating a fish tank.

• How should it be mounted? Outdoors or indoors?
• If indoor mounting is preferable, what size area should be allocated for such a tank?
• What will it require of facilities like electricity, running water etc, or is it a self-sufficient system?

Offered by Jan.

I do not have experience in this but do have experience in keeping tropical fish for years now in a large nearly 2 meter wide aquarium and I have read during and before these years a substantial amount of articles, books and magazines on the topic of keeping fish. I am absolutely no expert in this field of aquaculture.

There is no way to use the rainwater or water from rivers or pools in the aftertime, as it will be poluted and thus in the food chain (it might not kill the fish but it might kill you) will prove dangerous. So the aquaculture needs to be inside, away from the rain. And because this is for personal use only and not commercial, this will be feasible. I would think you must need a couple of tanks for the fish and the plants/filtration. Some space for the pumps and a means to provide electricity to the pumps. You need spare parts for everything that can break down in time. You need books on the subjects of fish-health and disease, fish farming etc. I can imagine this would take the space of a very large living room about the size of at least 8 x 8 meters.

You need the water to be pumped, and this takes electricity to drive the pump as the water needs to be flowing constantly in this system where a lot of fish are in a closed system of water. Next to the pumping the rest of the system can be made self-sufficient to the extent that the water flows from fishtank to plant-tank, gets filtrated and the plants grow (you can mix this and grow your food plants in the fish water) and the water gets returned to the fish tank after a final filtration through another tank of sand and other filtration materials that can be cleaned now and then. You need to feed the fish, or the fish eat something else that comes from within the system.

Offered by Michel.