The Discus

The Discus is known as the "King of the Aquarium". Perhaps the most beautiful of all tropical fish, the Discus is also one of the more difficult tropical fish to keep and is not recommended for beginners.
They require excellent water conditions, frequent water changes and higher water temperatures than most other tropical fish. Most successful keepers house them in a species only tank because of the high water temperature requirement. There are many color varieties to choose from with many more being introduced all the time. If you are interested in this fish, be prepared to spend some jack on this one of a kind tropical fish.

The Yellow-head Jawfish

The Yellow-head Jawfish is a wonderful looking fish with a bright yellow head and a white or light blue body. They like to burrow in the substrate and prefer a deeper sand bed with crushed coral and various grades of sand, at least 3 to 5 inches. They have the incredible ability to quickly dart back into their burrow tail first when spooked. You usually won't see them swimming around alot. They like to hang vertically above the burrow or in the burrow with only their yellow heads poking out. It's really neat to see a colony of them in a tank hanging vertically above their holes watching you. They should do well with other peaceful marine fish and you should be able to keep multiple yellow jawheads in the same tank, provided that there is enough territory for each. However, the different jawfish species may not co-exist peacefully in the same tank. They have been known to jump out of tanks when first introduced, so you'll need a good tight fitting hood with no possible escape points.
The Yellow-head Jawfish is primarily a carnivore and need meaty foods in their diet. At first, you may need to deposit the food near the burrow opening to entice them to eat. After they become acclimated they may become less shy and may come out of the burrow to eat. Be warned, they may nip at and eat small crustaceans.
They seem to be fairly disease resistant but you still need to take proper pre-cautions and use a quarantine tank before introducing them into your main tank.
 

Dwarf Gourami

More Common Names: Blue Dwarf Gourami, Sunset Gourami, Powder Blue Gourami, Neon Dwarf Gouramis

Originating in the waters of India, the Dwarf Gourami is not only beautiful but they can be particularly hardy as well. The male is more colorful while the females are less colorful. Usually the female Dwarf Gourami is gray in appearance. There are a couple of color varieties including the Blue and the Flame Red.
They make a great addition to a fully cycled community tank and are easy to care for. They should accept most fish food including flakes, freeze-dried, frozen and live foods.
If you notice the coloration on your dwarf gouramis starting to fade, try supplementing their diet with freeze dried blood worms or live foods once in a while. They are not picky eaters.

Be a Responsible Fish Keeper

If you spend any amount of time browsing the fish forums you will soon come to the realization that there are many pet fish keepers that are totally unprepared and not very responsible when it comes to keeping aquariums. It’s unfortunate that fish are not afforded the same level of care as other pets such as dogs or cats.
Many people think less of fish for some reason. Maybe because fish is a part of our diet? I don’t understand why they don’t care more deeply for the animals they are keeping. So, what does it mean to be a “responsible fish keeper”?
To me, being a responsible aquarist means:

• Taking the time to research all the fish and invertebrates you’re interested in keeping before buying them.
• Not keeping fish in bowls or other small containers with no methods of filtration or temperature control.
• Not buying a small tank for a child and assuming that they will be the primary care giver of the fish and aquarium. Although I think keeping fish can be a wonderful learning experience for children and I think it can help instill responsibility in them, realize that you (the parent) will be the primary care person for this tank. Children lose interest quickly and while they may be very interested at first, they will often forget about the tank after awhile.
• Understanding that this is a long-term hobby. Many species can live for a very long time. For instance, Goldfish can live for many years (10 or more years) if kept in optimal conditions.
• Keeping fish in adequately sized tanks. How many posts have you read about hobbyists keeping a common pleco in a 10 gallon tank?
• Not overcrowding! I understand the temptation to get “just one more fish” and I have to fight it myself. But understand that it is better for your aquarium’s inhabitants and better for you in the form of less maintenance. Less fish in your tank equates to less bio-load, which means less dissolved organics which means less water changes. Speaking of water changes….
• Performing regular partial water changes. Probably the best thing we can do to keep our systems stable is to perform small and frequent partial water changes. You want to use decholorinated water (either tap or reverse osmosis water) that has been adjusted temperature wise to your tank water. This is especially important in overstocked tanks or aquariums with no mechanisms for nitrate reduction.
• Don’t believe the rule that fish will regulate their growth depending on the size of the tank they’re kept in. They may grow more slowly, but it is not directly caused by the fish tank size. It is cause by the amount of dissolved organics and other pollutants that quickly accumulate from the bio-load in the tank. Fish that are kept in optimal conditions will continue to grow to their adult size in favorable aquarium conditions.
• Knowing about the aquarium nitrogen cycle. Although it may take a tiny bit of effort understanding this cycle, this is really basic stuff here. This would also mean not subjecting fish to the rigors of cycling a tank. Some species such as zebra danios are hardy, but they still suffer when subjected to ammonia and nitrites in the first stages of a cycle. There are many products available containing the bacteria needed to speed this cycle up and their is no reason anymore to subject fish to this.
• Using a quarantine tank for several weeks to monitor your new fish before introducing them to your main aquarium. This gives them time to adjust and you can improve their health by feeding them high quality foods before introducing them to the competitive environment in the display tank. Fish disease may show up in the first days or weeks and having them in quarantine prevents the spread of this disease to the other fish and you can easily treat them in the qt tank. It is also more economical to treat them in a smaller volume of water.
• Knowing what you’re buying. This holds especially true for saltwater reef tank keepers. Many corals can be easily fragged and aquacultured. Some species of fish, such as the neon goby and clownfish can be aquacultured as well. We need to encourage this activity and support those dealers that sell aquacultured species.

It’s really not difficult to be a better, more responsible fish keeper. It just takes a little work on your part to take the time to read and research your animals and understand some basic aquarium concepts. It also good for your karma.

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