There are many various ways that you can place an inhabitant from the aquarium shop's bag or cup, into your own aquarium water. These are normally broken down into two main methods, one where you slowly add your aquarium's water to the plastic bag or cup, or the other where you float the plastic bag or cup inside of the aquarium's water and then release them into it.

There are three distinct different zones where all inhabitants are classified within as they will most likely tend to be visible in these areas. By stocking your aquarium to have all of these zones filled, you can make an aquarium look completely stocked full of active fish when in reality you are still within or below stocking limits.

In a closed environment, such as your aquarium, many things such as fish waste, excess food, decaying plant matter (if you have live plants) will build up toxins inside of the water. Since there is no big water to dilute such factors, we must make sure that we create and have a stable biological filtration to break down toxins happening at all times. There are three common stages to this biological filtration, in which different types of beneficial bacteria eat only a specific type of toxin that is created naturally.