I recently bought a very large fish tank 5ft x 3 ft x 1.5ft, I have never had fish before and need to know what I have to do to the tank in preparation for puting the fish in, also I intend on having a variety of different types of fish in the tank, what do I need to know about this?

first thing you will need to let the tank go threw the nitrogen cycle witch can tak some tiem. so get a test kit. wait a few weeks then test your water if it shows amonia then wait till the anonia goes to zero. you also shoudl add a little bit of fish food to the tank 1 time a week will it is going threw a nitrogen cycle. nwo fo rth efish. if yo uwhant fish i would say go with tropical communty fish. these fish are the easyest fish to start with. here are just a few options you have and all the fish i say are able to live in the same tank. kuhli louche shrimp snails mollies guppies pleco platies neon tetrads cardinal tetras black neon tetras dojo louch if you have no shrimp. dragon goby if you have no kuhli louch bettas. only one male if you deside to go with male betta. if u get females then you can get a few. now mollies guppies and platies will breed rather easy and they have live babbies. its really neat to c so if you whant them to live supplie the tank with alot of hornwort or other flowting plants for the fry to hide in or ther is movign the mama fish to a dif tank before she has her fry.

Congrats on a fish-friendly large tank! Larger tanks are easier to succeed with :)

pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com

First of all you should know that the main mistake beginners do, is buying all the fish we find nice without thought for what happens when they end up in the tank, and the lack of patience.

Your fish tank should ideally be set up with gravel/sand/decorations and plants and filter and filled with water and wait for at least 6 weeks (rather 7-8) before you put fish in. I'm sure that sounds awful right now, but remember that this gives you time to properly investigate the fish you should get.

Why this long wait? Your filter needs to grow bacteria that eats chemicals produced by waste in the aquarium. The deadliest one is ammonia, does not take much of this to kill the fish. Once your aquarium starts producing ammonia, ammonia eating bacterias will start growing in your filter.

So far so good, but the ammonia eating bacterias will in turn produce nitrite, which is also bad for your fish. Once you got ammonia eating bacterias producing nitrite, your filter will start producing nitrite-eating bacterias.

-this is where most people gets disasters when starting with aquariums, dumping in the fish after just some days like pet stores says, the aquarium handles the ammonia and suddenly the fish starts dying a few weeks later due to nitrite poisoning.

nitrite eating bacterias in turn produces nitrate. Nitrate can also harm your fish, but requires much higher concentrations than nitrite. Additionally: plants will eat nitrate.

So only after at least 6 weeks is it safe to put fish in your aquarium, this process is called cycling. Like Tanner pointed out, dropping in a few fish flakes is useful to give the filter something to work with. Do NOT use fish to cycle tanks as some people (especially pet stores) say, some fish most likely survives it, and it does work since fish produce waste, but its uncomfortable for the fish to be subjected to this, if potentially being killed can be called "uncomfortable".

As for "variety of different types of fish in the tank" I should warn you that the more different fish you have, the more complicated and difficult it gets, and the less chance to see the fish display natural behaviour. I recommend you try to stick to just a few types. Remember that almost all fish will eat other fish that fits in their mouth, and many fish will bite other fishes, potentially ruining their fins. You should read up on fishes you want to keep, do not take pet store advice on this. pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com

My suggestion is that you try to stick to fish from the same area of the world, and check how compatible those fishes are. There's also many guides to decorating your tank around, such as this one: http://aquariuminfo.org/aquascaping.html (hey im even gonna read up on that one myself :P)

Final advice which is a thumb rule that really worked out for me: Consider rather how few fish you can put in a tank and still be happy rather than how many you could possibly squeeze in.