Are you over medicating your fish?

The idea behind this post comes after reading several boards on various fish and aquarium forums across the great wide web. I’m always coming across posts that start off like this: “I recently set up a new tank and now I think all the fish have ich”. Or, “My fish has fin rot what can I do?”. Then you see all the responses from the others on such and such medicine and such and such treatment. Why do we think medications will fix our shortcomings as aquarists?Let me start this off by stating that while I’m all in favor of using medicines and other treatments in the right situation, I really do feel that most of them are misused and they are used much too often to treat our aquarium fish.
Take fin rot for example. Fin rot can usually be “cured” by simply providing a good diet, clean, frequently changed aquarium water and any fin nipping tank mates. No medicines are necessary. Bada-bing, poof - fin rot gone.
Ich is another easily preventable disease, but one that will benefit from using medicine to fight this fish disease in a quarantine tank before introducing it to your main tank and infecting ALL the fish in the aquarium. Developing a proper quarantine protocol with ALL new fish is an absolute. The aquarist can watch for any signs of infection and/or disease and treat if necessary in the quarantine tank. It’s too bad since this disease is so easily prevented and often fatal for our fish.
Ok, by a show of hands please, how many of you use a quarantine tank? Not many I see. It’s too bad, because you really could make it easier on yourself and your wallet by using one for you new fish friends. One of the best things you can do for your fish, aside from using a quarantine tank, is to do those partial water changes on a regular basis. Our aquariums are enclosed systems and they can quickly become polluted. Frequent partial water changes dilutes the levels of pollution in our tanks and can keep the fish from stressing. Once stressed, their immune systems may be lowered making it easier for them to contract a disease, fungus or other problem.
So, if you discover a problem with your fish such as fin rot or a fungus remember back to when your last water change was… Has it been awhile? Try getting and keeping the water cleaner before resorting to using medications.
Sorry for the rant, but I get tired reading about how much money gets wasted on all these fish medicines!

Aquarium Test Kits

A very important part of keeping fish in aquariums is testing the water periodically. There are many different types of aquarium test kits out there and it can be confusing in deciding which ones to get and what to test for in your fish tank.

If you have a newly setup fish tank, you will want to get and test for at least the following:
Test Kits For Freshwater Aquariums:

• Ammonia - the first stage of the nitrogen cycle, this will kill your fish if they are exposed long enough to it. You need to test for ammonia and if you get even a low reading on the test kit, partial water changes are required.
• Nitrite - will show up in the second stage of the nitrogen cycle. This too will kill your fish if they are in it long enough. Again, partial water changes are required.
• Nitrate- the third stage of the aquarium cycle is nitrate. While not as damaging as ammonia or nitrite, nitrate at high enough levels is not good for your tank’s inhabitants. To get rid of nitrates you can do water changes, get a denitrator (expensive) or use more live plants in freshwater tanks.
• pH- is needed to determine which types of fish will go well with your water without using any commercial additives and to periodically check to make sure nothing is too out of whack with the system. Accumulating organics tend to drive pH down, indicating that you may be overdue for a partial water change.

Test Kits For Saltwater Aquariums:

• Ammonia - see above.
• Nitrite - see above.
• Nitrate- use more live rock and deep sand beds in saltwater tanks, grow macro algae in a refugium or sump.
• Calcium- you will need to test for calcium if you want to grow the purple and pink coralline algae (may need lower lighting levels too) and if you want to keep calcium needing organisms such as clams and corals.
• Phosphate- can be a limiting factor in algae blooms/growth. Keeping phosphates near zero can be hard to do because it is introduced into the tank in many ways such as through foods and top-off water. If you have problems with phosphates, consider using Reverse Osmosis water and feed the fish very small quantities at a time. Test your activated carbon for phosphates too before using it.
• Alkalinity- can be a very important thing to test for to make sure that the buffering capacity is in an acceptable range, which is 2 - 2.6 meq/L.
• Iodine- a pet peeve of mine is to hear about folks dosing iodine without testing first. How can you possibly know if you’re dosing too much or even if you need to dose it at all without a test kit?
• Silicate - the accuracy of these test kits have been questioned and it is not all that necessary, although it can be a factor in algae growth (diatoms).
• pH - needed to make sure that the pH is staying within an acceptable range. I would really recommend getting one of the digital pH meters. Test your aquarium in the middle of the day and then again first thing in the morning. Chart your readings to get a good understanding of the system fluctuations. Too much of a swing could indicate something that needs fixing.
• Dissolved Oxygen- is a test kit that is not really needed in my opinion unless you’re walking a fine line with an overstocked aquarium. If you have adequate surface agitation and you use a properly sized protein skimmer on your tank, dissolved oxygen levels should be fine.
• Hydrometer - The hydrometer will measure specific gravity and it should be in a range of 1.021 - 1.025.

1 Inch of Fish Per Gallon of Water Rule

The 1 inch of fish per liter of water control


As a frequent browser several fish and aquarium forums, I often come on a lot of things about me go "make Huh?". You'll also see this one inch of fish per liter) of water rule (or guideline to some of the fish and aquarium-represented sites in the network. Let's talk about why this rule does not hold water.

Size Matters (fish)

While this rule for some of the smaller species of fish available to us to work, it does not work for the majority. You see, growing fish. Most of the fish that we are receiving, held by the local fish and when we have young people through its current size when purchasing if you are the rule, we are definitely problems as they grow.

If your bearing 10 liter tank with ten, 1 inch Oscars, you will soon need either a Rogaine, Excedrin, a new tank or all of the above. Oscars may be, for example, grows to over 12 inches as adults! So if you have a constant flow of fresh water aquarium, give this 10 gallon tank and under the assumption that they were not together (NOT!) And assume that they would fight to live to maturity, you may have 120 inches of fish in your 10 liter tank. Just a bit crowded.

I could see where you could use this rule to say, 5 - two-inch neon tetras in a 10 liter tank. This would be my opinion, still overcrowded, even if water to ensure optimal conditions. It is definitely not as bad as the Oscar-scenario. Look at the size of adult fish potential purchases before buying, to see if they go well in your aquarium.

View Aquarium Shape

We must also remember that large fish need more oxygen dissolved in the water than smaller fish. Big fish also produce large quantities of waste. Leave us a 10 liter tank, for example again. A 10-inch Oscar produce significantly more waste than 10, 1 inch neon tetras. During the same 10-inch Oscar too much dissolved oxygen as the need tetras. If you shaped molded a 10 gallon rectangular tank, it would be better than a 10 gallon tank large hexagon. The rectangular tank is taking place to ensure a larger surface area for gas exchange. Carbon dioxide is passed, the water and oxygen enter the water at the surface of the tank. That is why you are here, sometimes people favor more surface agitation in heavily stocked tanks. This surface agitation allowing gas exchange.

Fish Temperament is also important to

If you are on your 10 gallon aquarium with 3 Neon Tetras stock (approx. 6 cm for adults) and 1 Convict cichlid (about 4 cm as an adult) they recommended was in the 10 inches by this silly rule, and you can believe it is to go in order and to receive this combination. Well, how many Convict cichlid keeper would you say these 3 Neon Tetras probably not long for that setup last. If they have not eaten, they can be harassed to death by these cichlid fighting. Although holding only one in this tank, it can limit aggression, I would be willing to bet that the neons would not last a month in this tank.

These were just some of the things I thought I'd throw it to those who use this rule to have their tanks in stock. I hope you can say that it does not take the best rule, and that it really works only for the small fish species that stay small. But even then, why make more work for yourself exhausted with water changes in your tank? Stock on the bright side and make less work for you. Your fish can behave very differently even more space and less competition for aquarium food.

SEA WATER

The main difference between fresh water and sea water is that the latter contains a great
many salts which give it certain specific characteristics, and these must be understood by
any aquarist who wishes to keep marine fish.

TEMPERATURE
The temperature of tropical sea water
varies little over the course of a day, or
even a year. Furthermore, marine fish are
generally more sensitive to abrupt
changes than freshwater fish. The temperature
in an aquarium must, therefore, be
fairly stable, remaining at around 25-26°C.

SALINITY
The most important salt found in sea
water is sodium chloride (NaCl), widely
used for domestic and culinary purposes,
but there are plenty more.
The salinity of water, i.e. the quantity of
salts in the water, is expressed in 0/00 or in
g/liter. The mean salinity of the Earth's
oceans is around 350/00, or approximately
35 g salts/liter.
Whatever its salinity, sea water boasts one
remarkable property: the proportion of
each element is constant.
Desalinated water does not therefore contain
less of one or more salts, but the
combination of salts is present in a lower
concentration.
The salinity of sea water varies according
to longitude. It is at its highest in open
seas in the tropics, it is lower near coasts
and after heavy rain, and it is at its lowest
near the poles (due to the influence of
melting snow).
 
DENSITY
In marine aquariums, it is not the salinity
of water which is measured, but the density
(often expressed as specific gravity,
S.G.), which can be calculated according
to the following formula:

you need to know about loaches ?

The first loach I am going to talk about is the clown loach (Chromobotia macracanthus). These like to be kept in groups peferably 4+. These are sold small and rarely ever bigger then 3″. Once they hit the 4″ they grow very slow, 1″ to 1″ and half a year. I would recommended them growing out in nothing smaller then a 75 and need to be a 125-150 when full grown.  They grow to somewhere around 14-16 inches long and when mature the females get more plump. As like most loaches they are snail eaters. They like blood worms and insect larvae.  A more smaller species is the yo-yo loach (Pakistani). These are ideal snail eaters and will eat everyone in your tank. They also do good in groups 5+. They are planted tank friendly and are very nice fish. The top out at around 6 inches and pretty peaceful. They don’t get along with shrimp and will eat them (watched first hand). They like well oxygenated water and don’t mind currents.  This is one of my favorite loaches, and Its called the Horseface loach (Acantopsis choirorhynchos). I have kept these in groups 3 to 5. They can be territorial so i recommend 1 loach per 35 gallons and add another 10 gallon for each additional loach. They need to be kept in sand, they like to hide and play in it. They also need lots of hiding spaces and need to fed at night. They enjoy any type of live foods, and might have to ween off of them. I feed my NLS, live and frozen brine shrimp. They prefer lower PH (6.0-7.2).  The smallest of the loaches is the Dwarf Loach (Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki). No reason should they be kept in groups under 7 loaches. They are one of the most social fish and need the groups. They are a bit pricey so i would save up before buying them. They like to be kept in lower ph (6.0 range) and  could be kept as high as 7.5.  Kuhli loachs (Pangio kuhlii) is a nice little fish. they need hiding spaces and like groups of 4+. They should not be kept in anything smaller then a 45, do to the activeness at night. They accept wide variety of food and range of water quality. There are

What Freshwater Aquarium Fish Can I keep Together?

Many people ask us a lot of questions about:  what fish can I keep in my tank so no body will fight with each other? The answer is simple, there are many of compatible fish and today we’ll try to answer this question. If you have freshwater aquarium fish than we’ll give you a list of fish that can and can’t be kept in one tank,ok?  So lets start from cichlids and one of them is none agressive – Angelfish. Ok so lets see you have Angels, if you didn’t know they also belong to cichlid family, BUT they are not aggressive as their relatives. Angels can be easily kept with community fish like guppies, mollies, red sword tails, glownfish, catfish, cory fish, etc. Angelfish are peaceful and won’t make any problems for you unless you’ll have guppy or moly fry, than they’ll think that it’s food and they will definitely eat them.  Now let’s go to agressors. Under this goes African cichlids that are semi aggressive and more aggressive fish like Oscars, Jack Dampsey, etc. All of them must be kept away from community fish like we showed before and from others that aren’t that aggressive.  If you’ll have something like medium guppy and medium African cichlid in one tank than African one will start nipping your guppy and we’re sure you don’t want to see something like that. Please avoid that. Cichlids with cichlids, community fish with community fish.  If you have BETA fish in bigger tank than just bowl, than you’ll be able to have also red sword tails, black/silver mollies, angels, cat fish, cory fish, and other friendly fish. Please avoid all kinds of barbs because they’ll nip your beta and other fancy (with long fins) fish.  Goldfish can be also kept with community fish that we indicated above.  We hope it was useful for you to read this article and If you have any questions about aquarium fish keeping

Betta Basic Care Sheet

Betta Splendens (pronounced BET-uh)  Temperature: 75 to 82 degrees  Housing: . A heated 2.5 gallon tank is recommended for a single betta, though the bigger the better. Because they originate from the slow moving water of rice paddies, a strong current, either from a filter or a bubbler will blow their long fins around and cause them unnecessary stress. As they take oxygen directly from the air, the width of the container is more important to the fish than height. Your fish will also appreciate at least a couple of hiding spots, such as caves, rocks, and other décor, and hardy live plants such as java fern, which also look great in a tank setup. Depending on the size of the tank, water changes will have to be done weekly. For a 2.5 gallon, 100 percent of the water should be changed weekly. In a bigger tank, such as a cycled 5 or 10 gallon, 20 percent water changes can be done weekly.  Diet: Bettas are carnivores, and should be fed mainly on a pellet diet, which can be supplemented by a variety of other foods, such as live/frozen/freeze-dried brine shrimp, daphnia, blood worms, as well as live fruit flies, and fruit fly larvae.  Tankmates: Bettas should NEVER be kept together, as they are highly territorial and will fight each other. However, they can be kept with other peaceful species, like cory cats, ottos, white cloud minnows, and African dwarf frogs. They should not be kept with large or aggressive fish such as cichlids, angels, and danios, or coldwater fish, like goldfish.  Lol, thats my first attempt at writing a caresheet, and if you see something wrong or want to add something, please let me know!  Article written by Bettaholic