Summertime, and New Tanks

It has been awhile since I last posted. I have been extremely busy since Graduation from Catawba College. I started a full time job the day after Graduation and I have been going ever since. I have not stopped keeping fish, that is not possible at this point. My Mother's birthday was the beginning of June, and so I bought her a birthday present. If you're smart you probably know what it is. Yep, That's right. I bought my mother a 45gal long, fish tank from GlassCages Inc. The only thing I forgot was to ask her first, cause the day I ordered this huge tank, she comes home with a 75gal, long fish tank from Animal Jungle. That's right, a 45gal, and a 75 gal. in the same house! Not to mention the 3 tanks we had to start with.

Don't panic. I'm not, yet. We rearranged the living room, which hasn't been done in prolly 10 years or more, and managed to make some space, although not enough space to put these tanks anywhere yet. My father is thrilled, because he now has to go through the process of building a unique stand to place these tanks on.

The fact that these tanks are so large also plays into where they will be placed. I'm sure this hasn't been mentioned yet, so I thought I would write about that today. Most people have relatviely small tanks, under 30 gal. is considered small. Anything above that, is medium to large. The wieght that these two tanks we have recently purchased is going to come into play when deciding where we put them in the house. The pressure the amount of water in each tank places makes these tanks apply an extreme amount of pressure. Our most obvious choice for where to place these tanks is in the living room, above where the fireplace used to be. The foundation of our house is most solid there, so all the wieght from these tanks will be held best there.

The downside, Dad has to build the stand, to hold one tank over the other. Both tanks are 48in. long, about 4ft. The 75 gal, is a little bit wider and taller, than the 45gal. but not by much. This should prove to be a fun adventure, I'm not sure how long it will take to set up these tanks, but needless to say my whole family is excited about it.

Now we have to decide what types of fish to put in it, and we need to buy some decor for both tanks!

FUN STUFF!!

Topic Fish: Angelfish

If you've kept up with my blog from beginning to end you might remember hearing about S.D. my silver angelfish that I bought last summer with my mom. When we bought S.D. he was about an inch tall from fin tip to fin tip. Now he spans about the width of my fingers, about 3.5in. I can hardly believe how big he's grown. 

Growing fish is always an aqaurists entertainment, however when your fish outgrow your tank it becomes a problem. With Angelfish its easy to tell when they need a new crib so to speak. The bottom fin starts to curl up. If they can't be placed in a larger tank, usually just taller, then this curling of the fin will become permanent.

Angelfish can grow to be about 12inch tall, and come from the Cichlidae family of fish. Angelfish are often available with stripes running vertically down their body. Marble Angelfish are also available, with a splash of colors. They tend to be a predator type of fish, S.D. chases the tiger barbs, and zebra danios that we have all the time. 

One thing you should remember when thinking about an Angelfish are the type of fish you already have or may want. Due to the long flowing fins that Angelfish have, any aggressive tankmates may be inclined to nip their fins, you must keep this in mind when picking future fish. 

You must also be willing to purchase more than one Angelfish.  This is due to the fact that they form long-term relationships where each individual will protect the other from threats and potential suitors. Breeders have experienced the remaining mate rejecting and or refusing to pair up with any other angelfish, after the death or removal of  their mate.

Spring Cleaning Round Two

In case you didn't know, having an aqaurium with a filter does not excuse you from the responsibility of changing the water. Most goldfsih bowl owners know this is a basic for keeping fish. It's the same with a tank or aquarium that has a filter, or an algae eater, the water still should be changed periodically to keep the tank fresh and smelling clean.

After you have vaccumed your tank, you will need to put new treated water back into the tank to replace the amount you took out while cleaning it.

Here's how you should start. The water you pour into your bucket should be an apporpriate temperature. Remember you don't want to shock your fish with a drastic temp change, so run a thermometer under the water. When the temp is just right for the type of fish you have, and only 1-5 degrees different than the water already in the tank, fill up the bucket.

The next step after getting water at the right temperature is to treat it. Untreated water could harm your tank environment. You don't want to have difficulties with Nitrates, and your pH balance should be very similar to the pH balance of the water in your tank.

You can use a standard Start Right disk, or liqiud. There are also perfect pH tablets available. Place these into your 'new' water. After these items dissolve you can pour the treated water into your fish tank.

You should also pour a few drops of 'Stress Coat' in the tank so that your fish are calm and won't freak out while the tank itself is adjusting to the new water.

Spring Cleaning

Now that spring has sprung I thought it would be a decent time to explain how to clean your fish tank. Yes, you have to clean your fish tank.

First your going to need a few items, if you don't already have them, here are a few of my choices.

Fluval 11059 Edge Gravel Cleaner                                                                     Hagen Gravel Vaccum

Available at Amazon.com                             

                                                                                                                      Available at Petsmart.com

The next item you will need, is a large bucket of some description. The most important thing to remember is to make sure this is your 'fish bucket'. Food containers are great to use because they won't have any elements leftover in the bucket that could potentially contaminate the water, and thereby causing the fish harm. Make absolutely certain, any liquids such as bleach, or vinegar, anything that would harm your fish, hasn't been in the bucket you plan to use as your 'fish bucket'. This is crucial.

Now that you have the proper tools you are ready to begin cleaning your fish tank.

First you need to create the suction so that you can suck the dirt out of the gravel. 

To do this, you should place the tube end of your vaccum hose into the tank, like the picture on the left.   You should only insert the tube into the top of the tank, make sure you don't have any fish go inside of it.

  

Lift the tube out of the tank, make sure you have a decent amount of water inside. The water should trickle down the hose. 

 Begin moving the water so that it wants to go down the hose, but keep the other end lifted up high so that it doesn't leave the hose yet. Remember you are trying to create a suction. This is really much simpler than it appears. It just takes alot of practice.

 

Continue this process, until you think you have a decent amount of water.

Once you can place the hose into your bucket, and keep the tube in the fish tank your suction has been created. Your vaccum will continue to siphon water out of the fish tank. Now you can begin cleaning!

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You should move your vaccum tube around the tank carefully keeping the edges of the tube in the gravel so that the water taken out is also removing dirt buildup in the bottom of your tank

You should be able to see the dirt move, as well as the gravel should be stirred up also.










If you have small fish you should be especially carefull and keep your eyes open to make sure that you don't suck them up accidentally.







Continue to siphon out the tank until you have taken about 1/4 of the water from the tank out.
I will continue on the next post on how to fill the tank back up properly.

A vote for Fish: By Joy

Fish can be a fun hobby for the entire family.  Think of the fun of owning a pet and multiply by 5 or 10 maybe even 20.  Depending on the size tank you have you can have lots of little pets to enjoy watching.  The time spent together as a family deciding which tank.  Where you will place it in your home, as well as the fun of decorating the tank.  You and your loved ones can take special trips to plan the types of fish to have in the tank.   By going to the library and checking out books on fish.  Let’s go to the pet store to see the different varieties in living color. 

 Think of all the wonderful hours you can spend sitting in front of the tank watching them swim and chase each other.  While sitting and observing the conversations that can come up, such as why does that big fish pick on the littler ones?  This may lead to something in your child’s on life. Someone at school that they have witnessed being bullied or experienced themselves.  But, have been unsure how to bring how to talk about.  Keeping fish is a great past time that can be shared and enjoyed with your family and friends.

The joy of keeping fish started for me as a child watching my older brother and my mother.  They had a beautiful two gallon all glass tank with bright yellow rocks and black mollies.  The colors just jumped out at you.  They even had a tank for the mommies to stay in so the other fish wouldn’t eat the new babies.  The bright guppies were my mom’s favorite fish.  She and my brother would discuss which male had better colors over another.  Then to decide which female was easy, they all ways choose one that was already expecting.  My brother had four tanks in his bedroom upstairs and it was neat to watch him cleaning tanks and talking to me about the fish. 

The best hobby is keeping fish.  So why don’t you try a tank or two yourself.  It’s really easy!

Aquarium Harmony

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing the types of fish to stock your aquarium. To start out with lets focus on the appearance of your tank. Some fish tend to stay near the bottom of the tank, these are typically your corydoras, catfish, and a few cichlids.

 

Other fish are schooling fish, they tend to stay near the middle of the tank, such as rainbow fish, tetras, barbs. There are lots of different types of tetras and gouramis, they tend to vary between middle and top water habitats, depending on the species.

The top level habitats are best for schooling fish as well, such as hatchetfish, danios, rasboras. There are a few livebearing fish that like the top level also, the most well known would be the guppy, there is also the sail-fin molly, and black mollies. Before you get your heart set on black mollies you should probably know they require alot of attention and specific water requirements.

This leads to how to chose the types of fish you should have in your aquarium.  How much time do you plan on investing in taking care of your fish and their home? You are their sole provider of their needs, if there is something wrong with any aspect of their environment you are responsible. Some fish are much more hardy, and require less attention. They are able to adapt to water changes, and differences in temperature. Other fish, are much more needy, they require specific temperature, the right pH levels, dH levels, nitrates, ammonia. All of these things must be taken into account when choosing the type of fish you want to include in your fishtank.

You will also need to determine if the fish you choose require the same living conditions. Fish that like cooler temperatures aren't going to thrive in a tank that is warmer, because you have fish that need a warmer climate. This also includes the aspects of water dH levels, (how soft or hard the water is), nitrate levels, ammonia levels, pHs. So many factors can vary in an aquarium, and fish are susceptible to these conditions.

Another aspect of choosing fish, will they get along. It's not a good idea to have an aggressive fish in a tank with docile fish. Certain species get along better than others. I personally have found that the order in which you place the fish into the tank, has alot to do with how they behave. It's almost territorial. HINT: Place your more docile fish into your tank first, then the more aggresive fish will be less likely to dominate and terrorize them because they weren't there first. This will only be effective if your fish are likely to get along in the first place.

Feeding Fish

I was trying to think of what you all needed to know the most. I realized I haven't really covered the basics on how to take care of your fish, now that you might have them. I also had a comment that triggered a memory of mine from a long time ago.

This particular memory took place back when my mother was really into her aquariums and I was much younger, as I recall we had at least three at the time. One day my sister and I were playing in the home office, where my mom kept her largest tank, a 30gal tall. She had beautiful fish in it, one of them was a tetra that she had kept for 8 years. There were baby snails, and even a baby plecostomus. She was amazed that she had kept the tank in such wonderful condition, to be able to have her fish lay eggs. We'll this particular day that my younger sister and I were playing, being the know it all older sister that I am. I decided that it would be ok for my sister to feed the fish. Mind you, I'm about 4 and my sister is 1, but just barely. She climbs ontop of a chair, and proceeds to dump the entire contents of the bottle of fish food into the tank. If you know anything about fish, then you know this is extremely bad. The fish exploded, because they ate their fill.

Sometime after this, mom's fish tanks all dissappeared, and life went on. Now having grown up a bit, and having more time to devote to such things, my mother and I started another aquaruim over this past summer. With her expierence, and my interest, in the past 9 months since we started that aquarium, we now have 3 total in our house. We don't really know when to stop.   To summarize I've made a bulleted list that you should consult when in doubt about your fish feeding habits.

The Basics

• Feed Fish only the amount of food they can consume in a few minutes time. This is the rule regardless if you have 20 fish in a tank, or 2. You should only give them the amount of food they can consume in a minute or two.
• You shouldn't feed your fish very often. Once, or twice a day is a plenty. I generally feed my fish in the morning and at night. My mother feeds hers when she gets home from school. This is because the more food that is uneaten in the tank the more problems you will have keeping your tank established correctly.
• Correct Food! Fish don't all eat the same thing. Vary their diet. Their are different types of fish food for the different types of fish, bottom feeders generally need to be fed tablets once a week. Tetra has lots of different food options, most of which help keep fish colors vibrant.

    The point, is that we don't feed fish more than what they can eat in a few minutes time. I generally fed my fish a tiny bit once in the morning and once at night, my mom feeds them once in the afternoon when she gets home from school. If you feed your fish at generally the same time everyday, you'll notice their behavior patterns recognize when it's time for lunch. I swear my angelfish stares at my Mom when it's 3pm and he hasn't eaten yet. Oh, and we never let my sister feed the fish, even though she's older now and completely capable, Mom doesn't want to risk losing her fish!

Splish Splash

Now that we've covered the basics about how to establish a fish tank, we can get on to the most exciting part. Putting fish in your tank! Some people like to have tanks with only one or two species in them, others like to keep community tanks. In case you didn't already know, I love community tanks. I have so many different types of fish in one tank, its a huge habitat. I love having different types because it makes my tank interesting to look at. Let's cover how to get the fish safely from the water bag at the pet store, to your Established Tank.

1. Place the bags of fish into your tank (Make sure your tank has been established for at least 72 hours)
2. Be patient, you must allow the temperature of the water in the bags to coincide with that of the temperature in your tank. This is a gentle process, it produces much less shock than if you were to pour the fish into the tank immediately. I suggest about 35-45 min. of waiting time.
3. Open the bag and carefully pour the fish into the tank,  including the water that is in the bag. This helps balance your tank, and keep your fish stable.

Now that you have placed fish into a new tank you must keep your eye on them. Watch them more frequently in these first few hours and days than you do at any other time, if something goes wrong you'll be able to notice this due to their behavior. Some fish even change colors when they aren't feeling well.

Well I hope your fish enjoy their new home!!

Establishing your Fish Tank

Since I already have my fish tank established, I turned to my friend Lori, or rather she turned to me. She has just purchased a starter kit and asked me to help her get everything set up, so naturally I jumped at the opportunity.

Rinse Rocks

We got to her apartment and immediately washed the gravel, and by wash I mean we rinsed every batch of rocks with hot water before we put them in the tank. This helps to clean off any dirt particles, or anything that would've been on the rocks from packaging and shipping. It helps to establish the tanks own ecosystem by doing this.

So we put a bucketful of rocks in the sink and rinsed them off, then transported them to the fish tank. This is a tedious process and gets very boring very quickly. Lori had decided to use all one color gravel for her tank. My mom and I have a healthy batch of rocks, from my mom's previous years of keeping fish, so we tend to mix colors. The colors of your rocks don't really make a big difference, Lori has black so I suggested bright colored fish, yellow and orange just to be aesthetically pleasing. 

Feng Shui

The next thing we need to do is place your aquarium. Lori had a handful of objects to put in her tank, some live plants and a dragon with an air-attachment.  I have never personally had an aquarium with live plants, my mom and I are working on this together. Lori and I read the instructions and planted them in the rocks as instructed, after she determined where she wanted them in the tank. So far as tank placement, be as creative as you want. The fish are usually most content in places that look more natural, lots of foliage and hiding places. If I know I'm getting frogs, I tend to place rocks against the glass so they will hide behind the rocks, but I will still be able to see them. So while arranging your aquarium, keep in mind the type of fish you would like to get and what their natural habitats would look like.

Waterfall 

 After you place your plants, or ceramic devices you can start pouring in the water. The best way to do this is to have help.

    You need to break the fall of the water so that plants (especially live ones) aren't disrupted. The rocks can move due to a huge fall as well, usually creating a hole. Landscaping the rocks is always a great idea, but wait until you have fill the tank about halfway before doing so.

Waterfall Effect - Break the fall of water

Pour the water into the tank and break the fall of the water with your hand. Typically this is another long and tedious process, as you need to fill the tank all the way to the top.  That is if your tank is standard, if you have a bowl, or any curvature in the vertical sides of your tank then you need to leave a significant amount of space for air. Most goldfish bowls only need to be filled part the way to the top, leaving about 1/4 to a 1/5 of the top of the bowl empty. This creates more air for the fish, due to the surface area of the water. In a tank such as the one Lori has, she will have plenty of surface area, not to mention the air she will be pumping into the tank through her dragon.

Electrical Objects

After we filled up the tank the last few things to do are set up the heater, filter and air pump. I had already connected the dragon to the air pump. You will have to cut the tubes to an appropriate length for the area you need, depending on how far you are placing your pump from the tank. Heater's are usually simple enough, but don't plug it in until you have enough water in the tank. If you don't the glass might shatter, most modern heaters have a built-in detector and won't turn on without the pressure of water on them.

Drip Cord- notice the loops!

Lastly the filter, my filters are older, but Lori has a newer model. I was extremely nervous because this filter is actually inside the tank! Electricity and Water! My mind was blown, but one very important thing you need to do with this type of filter is make sure you have a drip cord. It's very simple, tie a loop in the filter's electrical cord before plugging it in. Trace the cord from the tank down, if you think water could drip straight to the outlet you didn't do it right. The drip cord, should prevent water from running straight to the outlet. 

This may seem really overwhelming, but it's very simple. Here is my short version of how to establish a fish tank.

5 Easy Steps to Setting up a Fish Tank

1. Rinse Rocks - wash your gravel for particles 
2. Feng Shui - arrange your tank decorations in a natural way to make fish happiest 
3. Waterfall - Fill your tank and break the water fall
4. Electrical  - connect the Heater, Filter, Air- pump necessary Don't forget the drip cord!
5. Hood  - Most fish tanks come with a hood to keep the water from evaporating and stuff getting inside, find a good lid or hood and a light.

NO FISH - This is essential you must leave your tank empty for at the very least 48hrs, it's best to let it sit as is for three or four days.  

Now enjoy your tank! I'll be discussing types of fish that can live together next time!

Welcome to the Fish Tank!

Welcome to All About Fish! I have just recently started my own fish tank, and had it for about a year. I have my mom helping me with everything, and I am enjoying my new hobby greatly. It's a lot of fun, and a lot of work, but I thought I would share my knowledge to help any other new beginners.

Now it's time for some introductions! I currently have a 10 gallon freshwater tank complete with rocks, fake plants, filter and a 900 whisper air pump, which is connected to a castle and an airstone which I have placed in a sprite can, ceramic of course.

My 10 gallon Fish Tank!

 My tank is home to 10 creatures, an angelfish named Silver Dollar, or SD, the plecostomus named Leviathon, or Levi, a loach who I call Slytherin. I also have a tigerbarb named Leroy after my favorite character from NCIS, and two zebra danios also named for NCIS characters, Kate and Ziva. My favorites are my frogs, Mcgee and Dinozzo, again with the NCIS theme, I'm a creature of habit. Last but not least are two bloodfins, I inherited these recently from my mother so they aren't named yet but I'm sure I'll find inspiration maybe this time from a different t.v. show.

I plan on posting an article soon about how to set up a fish tank. Feel free to comment and let me know if there is something you would like to know about keeping freshwater fish.