Have you ever wanted to set up an aquarium in your community? 

Get your residents involved in setting it up and participating in the process. 

How to choose a saltwater or freshwater tank?

The first decision you’ll need to make is whether you want a freshwater or saltwater tank. To help you make a decision, you can buy (or borrow from your local library) a book like Aquariums: The Complete Guide to Freshwater and Saltwater Aquariums.

After you’ve made up your mind about what type of tank environment you want, you can decide size, placement, fish, décor, and your daily maintenance schedule.

Getting residents involved

In addition to helping make decisions about what type of fish to include, you can involve residents in polls to determine tank size, placement, and other variables. 

Plan to set up and prepare the tank over a few days. Once installed, the tank needs to reach the proper temperature and water quality for your chosen fish. 

Image source: Pixabay

You’ll need to leave time to ensure that the tank systems are working well before you purchase and add your fish. 

Installing your aquarium

For those interested in physically helping set up the tank, you can involve residents in many ways:

•Assist older children and teens with installing the tank pump and cleaning systems.

•Have residents add gravel.

•Have residents add tank safe statues and other decorations.

•Enlist the help of long-armed residents to add any plants.

•Helps older children safely add the fish.

When considering a theme that will have massive crowd appeal to both current and potential residents, consider putting together a Bikini Bottom themed aquarium, or even a Super Mario themed tank.

Resident-made decorations

In addition to the themes mentioned above, you can allow residents to create a collaborative mural behind the tank.

Image source: Ben Crothers

You can either hire a local mural artist to coordinate a professional (and more permanent) project or have residents create a fish mural on rolls of paper for a more temporary solution.

Image source: Pinterest

You can also paint and decorate the lid of the tank itself as a fun collaborative community project.

Welcome party

Throw a welcome home party for your new fish residents! 

Image source: Pixabay

After the fish are safely added to the tank, throw an ocean or freshwater themed party to announce their arrival. 

***BONUS*** Encourage residents to name the new arrivals and hold a vote to decide their new names. 

You can pass out goldfish cracker snacks, watch fish-themed movies (Finding Nemo is always a crowd favorite) and participate in fish-themed crafts. 

Have a great time welcoming your new community residents. Pretty soon they will feel right at home.

UPDATE: Thinking more about our fish, we thought it would be fun to personalize them a bit more! So beyond just naming them, go one step beyond! Take a picture of each fish, add their name on the picture, frame the pictures, and then hang them around the aquarium! That way, people can look for specific fish, rather than just see a school. You can then use those pictures in your social media and use them as mascots in other ways!