Tropical Fish Care

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Fish Care.........Choosing Fish

Inform Yourself

You must LEARN about what you want. Research, ask people, ask pet store workers. But don't believe everything. People may give you different answers. Compare those answers with ones on-line.

Choose an aquarium

Decide what kind of tank you can have. What size will fit nicely in your home? Ten gallons are common and will allow you a good amount of fish.
2 gallon hex can hold only 2 fish usually but are great for desktops!
Also, water weighs a considerable amount. I believe it is a pound a gallon. You need a stand that can support the weight of your tank.

Fish require as a general rule, an inch of fish - a gallon of water.

Importance of Clean Water

The water from your tap has chlorines and chloramines which must be neutralized by an additive you can buy at your pet stores or online. I used to use Ammo-Lock, but now I use Kordon's Amquel+. They also remove heavy metals.

Fish Size relative to Tank Size

Fish grow just like babies. A ten gallon may be nice your fish for a while but could grow out of it. Find out your fish's maximum size.

I knew a person, who unwittingly put 16 fish in a ten-gallon aquarium! If the fish were just 1 inch, he overstocked (overfilled) the aquarium by 6 gallons! In truth the fish he put in were over an inch and some would reach a maximum of ten inches!

Cleanliness means no sick fish

Fish poop in their living environment. This adds to dirty water - not just the "dirt" we can see, but the chemical make-up can become dangerous for your fish. Also, the food that is uneaten, rots in the tank and adds to it. Therefore the water should be changed once to twice a week, but only partial water changes. I change 20% of my ten-gallon tanks every two weeks. Remember every time you add new water, you must treat it to make it safe. Fish can get sick and they do in bad water conditions. Disease like cloudy eyes, to fin rot and dropsy. More about them later.

Your tank once filled and treated will go through a cycle. You want to "run" your tank with aeration and filters without fish. You can buy bottles of beneficial bacteria to start up your tank. People also use hardy fish to 'cycle' a tank.

The early tank will have high amounts of ammonia. Ammonia is toxic to fish. Then there will fluxuate with some other bad things and then level out. This website will explain it better.

Your tank will most likely need:

Aeration- that is oxygen circulation.

You need an air pump and tubing with a bubble stone at the end.

Heater -these are usually and best if fully submersible.
Filtration
- Undergravel filter
- Hanging box filtration
- Internal Filtration
Tropical fish vary in temperature preference, but mid-seventies is a good start.
Filtration is important for mechanical purposes- physically straining the 'poop' and other debris and chemically - catching the bad chemicals, like ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.
Undergravel filters consist of a plastic board that has holes in it. Gravel is placed on top and tubing in placed down tubes to it. The idea is that the bubbles rising up, suck water through the holes in the gravel to underneath the plastic plate. In that area good, beneficial bacteria will grow and help get rid of ammonia.
Rear hanging box filtration is a powered filter that hangs off the back of the aquarium. It has a tube into the tank which sucks up water and filters it through a replaceable media. I use this method most. I usually replace my filter media every 3 weeks. I think this method can handle more stress, more fish, more waste etc. However whenver you change the filter cartridges - there goes the beneficial bacteria and it has to grow up again.
Internal filters work the same way as hanging box, however they are inside the aquarium, submersed. Personally I have never used them because I do not like wasting tank space with them. It also looks unsightly.

So, you're still interested in fish, eh?-->

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