Video:Pros and Cons of Mini Aquariums

Transcript:Pros and Cons of Mini Aquariums

Hi, I am Dan Thornton, owner of Reef Encounters in Erie, Colorado and I am here today for About.com to discuss the pros and cons of mini aquariums.

Advantages of Mini Aquariums

The biggest advantage to a mini aquarium is really the size. You can put it anywhere. You can have mini aquariums in your dorm room, you can have mini-aquariums on small tables, really anywhere. They don't take up a lot of space. They also don't use a lot of energy. A big tank is going to cost quite a bit of money to run every month, a mini aquarium is going to be negligible; you probably won't even notice it.

Another advantage to owning a mini aquarium is the maintenance doesn't take very long. It's pretty easy to change water, verses changing thirty percent of two hundred and fifty gallons. When you get the hang of it, you can do all the maintenance on all of your aquariums in like 15 - 20 minutes probably, verses an hour, or two for a really large aquarium.

Disadvantages of Mini Aquariums

The disadvantages for a mini aquarium are that everything changes very quickly. if your heater stays on, it can overheat that water very fast, or what happens more often, is that heater breaks and it turns off, and doesn't ever turn back on, that water can get cold very fast. A lot of people will just stick with fish that can tolerate cooler water. A mini aquarium is also going to require that you purchase very small fish, and fish that stay very small. So it limits what kind of fish, and how many. If you only have two, or three gallons of water, than really you can only put two or three fish in there, sometimes just one fish that is your show fish, like a guppy or something like that.

Maintaining the mini aquarium is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is you have to maintain it more frequently. 

Thanks so much for watching. For more information on fish, please visit us at About.com.