Archive for the ‘Beginning Aquarium’ Category

We just posted two video tips on the correct way to feed tropical fish. This has been posted on the Freshwater Tropical Fish Tanks website. The site hosts both the video tip as well as the transcript of the tip as well.

Feeding Fish – Feeding Tip 1

How do I Feed Fish – Feeding Tip 2

I apologize for not keeping this blog as current as it really should be. It is not because I have abandoned the beginning aquarist, on the contrary, I have been busy building the content for my flagship website, http://www-freshwater-tropical-fish-tanks.com. I realize that most people believe that the WordPress blog is the way to go, and it is, if all that is being developed is a blog on a lot of topics that can stand on their own.

But for the past few months I have been developing a fully integrated massive website to deliver the aquatic information you need, all in one place, It is easily navigable by topic, nd you have the ability and hopefully yhe energy to giveme feedback in quite a nuberof places. We sure would like your input as to what is good and what needs to be fixed.

Take a look at it, I have just added three new pages of the response I gave to previously asked questions from people who had unique problems. I will continue to poll the questons asked from this blog, and promise to answer them when they arrive. But, I wanted everyone to know I also have a much better system over at the main website. It asks a bit more information on the tank you are worried about, and as such gives me a much better chance of giving the best possible answer the first time.

In addition, the first 11 video tips were posted a while ago. These FAQ syle videos that were developed on the various important aspects of water in the new aquarium and the changes that can occur over time as the aquarium matures. They are held on the Blueram86 Youtube channel as well as the part of the set-up series of videos found on the BlueRam Groups video channel:

http://www.tropicalfishaquariumvideos.com,

Thiosis a dedicated video site for all aquarists and the place to view a categorized collection of aquarium related videos from all public sources in a single place. You don’t have to look all over the web or even search YouTube for your preffered topic in video, they are concentrated on the pages of the Tropical Fish Aquarium Videos site.

But we are far from through. True, there are eleven water tips there, now, but the series has been outlined to offer more than 80 short videos when the we are finally finished with the set as a complete project. We encourage you to join our Facebook Page or subscribe to the YouTube channel so you are the first to know when the next set of videos arrives. They are written and will be posted in the next coming days and weeks.

I have been building a few sites recently, all have to do with my dearest passion, keeping fish alive. This blog is designed to provide a place to discuss the various changes I am making to those sites, as well as promote information to the new aquarist who needs help getting their new tank set up correctly and running without problems.

When I first decided to tackle this problem , a couple of years ago, I took a vacation and made a series of videos to show how I set up my small community tank. Unfortunately, until I found the system that is providing all the tools I need to get my main site up and running, SBI, I was unable to efficiently get those videos up and available for the people who need them.

Well, I am happy to say that I have been able to format them into flash (flv) and mount them on my video site:

TropicalFishAquariumVideos

The series includes 30 videos on the topics important to the new fish keeper interested in installing an aquarium system for the first time.  You can see these videos under the Aquarium Set Up category and in the group Beginner’s Tips.  Just the videos are there. But, if you want some written explanation of the steps that are needed, you can follow the written and embedded videos on my flagship site:

Freshwater Tropical Fish Tanks

The process is broken into a series of steps and I have entered the appropriate videos where they are required in the actual step where it is most relevant.  For the serious hobbyist, this would be the best way to understand what is happening and what to expect as the tank matures.  This is by far the most complete site and offers a small listing of freshwater tropical fish species with photo and description.  The fish list wil be growing over time, and as the species are added, I will report them here.

For those of you who want to discuss your experiences with the fish you are keeping and breeding, there is a contact form attached to every fish species.  We welcome you comments and stories about the fish you have kept.  You can add up to four of your own pictures to the area, so everyone can benefit from our shared knowledge.

Besides these two sites, there is a third site that is designed to offer social support for aquarists of all levels.  <a href=”http://www.tropicalfishaquarist.net”>TropicaFishAquarist.ne</a>t offers the ability to form networks and communities of like minded enthusiasts.

Between the three approaches to your fish tending needs, we hope that we can help everyone understand their fish and their unique needs. If we do our job right, far fewer fish will die and the strength of the hobby will build to levels of success never before seen.

I have been very busy building a new aquarium information site, and the amount of information there is massive.  Over 100 pages of content, and I haven’t even begin to add the graphics to liven up the site.  For the past few days I have been updating and enlarging my glossary for the:
Freshwater Tropical Fish Tanks Glossary Page

I know that sounds really dry and not exciting, but if you ever come across a term that you don’t know, or needs to find, try the glossary page, it should have what you need. If it doesn’t, you can always ask me to find it for you in the comments, or at the Facebook  Page for the Freshwater-Tropical-Fish-For-Novice-Aquarists page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freshwater-Tropical-Fish-Aquariums-for-Novice-Aquarists/162636910441898?sk=app_112493455447504#!/pages/Freshwater-Tropical-Fish-Aquariums-for-Novice-Aquarists/162636910441898?sk=wall

Looking forward to hearing form you.
Steve Pond

I know, it has been a while since I posted anything to this blog.  It is not like I have been ignoring the aquarist’s interests, far from it.  I found a great  website development system that has had me working every day in generating brand new fresh content. I never have used other people’s words to start with, but so far I have over 100 pages of newly written content at the site:

http://www.freshwater-tropical-fish-tanks.com

It is directed to the beginning aquarist and has loads of information on the proper set-up and installation of the equipment.  These are headings such as Set up, Equipment, Care, Water, Tropical Fish, Problems, Glossary and Resources.   It is a big site, and wil get much bigger as time goes by.  I love working on it, it is clean and easy to manage.  The block by block construction is pure dynamite.   I can’t say enough about the system. Click the link and have a look for yourself.  Only wish that I had found this site with all its web building tools when I decided to offer my knowledge online.  I would never have wasted the two years and many thousands of dollars  looking for the right methodology to get my message across.

The other project I have been working on is:

http://www.tropicalfishaquariumvideos.com

We all know that a picture is worth a 1000 words, so what is a video worth. I took some time and went through the videos on the web and organized the best into a coherent structure. Whether you want to look at some of the information on new styles of filtration, or just wonder what the actual habitat may be for some native South American Tetras, the whole range of aquarium interests is offered for free on the site.  It may sound like Youtube, and in a way it is, except the content is devoted exclusively to aquarium keepers. You can even mount your own videos up there as well to give us all a good look at what you are doing.

If you want, visit my Facebook fanpage and give me a like. This post should be automatically posted there and its is a good way to be notified when I add new content. The next planned set is a large bunch of FAQ style answers on all types of beginner aquarium topics

I know, it has been quite a while since last I wrote.In the meantime, I have written a long series of Aquarium tips for beginning aquarists who need some basic information on their new tanks. I am also going to do each as a video and put it up on the video site for aquarium videos as well.

http://www.tropicalfishaquariumvideos.com

If you prefer to see these entries on your Facebook account, I have set the RSS feed to update my Page there for Tropical Fish Aquarist enthusiasts.

Freshwater Tropical Fish Aquariums for Novice Aquarists

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freshwater-Tropical-Fish-Aquariums-for-Novice-Aquarists/162636910441898?v=app_112493455447504

Sure would like to have a lot more friends who enjoy the aquarium hobby. Take a look at the above Facebook page and the resources offered there. If you Like the pages, please give me your vote of confidence.

I know there is such a huge amount of information on the Internet that it is easy to become confused.

When searching for information on a specific topic, it is so easy to get off the original topic when following a set of key words through various articles. One of the most confusing for me is to keep my focus when viewing the offerings of the various Video sites, such as YouTube.

Technorati Tags: Aquarium Placement, Beginning Aquarium, New Tank, Novice Aquarist, video sites

In the case of a new aquarium, what is being described here is the phenomenon of “New Tank Syndrome”.  It is quite common and not particularly dangerous, but it is certainly unsightly.  Just like most other living organisms, the bacterial cloud consumes oxygen, so it is not a bad idea to elevate the oxygen content to ensure any fish are not oxygen deprived during this problem.  If they seem to be gasping, add an airstone to agitate the surface.

New aquariums start with sterile water, the municipal water supply is often treated with antibiotic compounds to kill any pathogenic organisms that might affect a human drinking it.  In effect they make the water “potable”.  Potable water is deadly to bacteria, but it is also deadly to fish as well.  In most cases the munipal water company uses compounds such as chlorine (in most cases) and chlorine when the water needs to be transported a great distance.  Although the two compounds require different doses of the same compound, once they are removed, the water is left with no living organisms alive, but the ability to support them should they arrive.  The first ones to arrive are bacteria that occupy the water column.  These are very rapid replicating bacteria that split in two on a reguular basis. This progression is termed geometric replication, one becomes two, two become four, four double to eight and so on.  Each generation roughly doubles in size.  Since the water is sterile, there are few predators or other dangers to this uncontrolled explosion at the lowest living level.

The only limiting factor to this unchecked population growth is the amount of food available.  In many cases the water from the tap has much more in it than just water and chlorine, it has plenty of dissolved organic material as well.  This is the food that the bacteria require and assuming there is enough of it available the bacterial population rises higher and higher.  In a new aquarium it takes about three days for the heterotrophic bacterial density to get so packed that the bacterial bloom can be seen by the naked eye.  It appears, as mentioned, almost as if someone had poured a glass of milk into the aquarium.  Depending on the amount of dissolved organics available for the bacteria to use, this can become quite dense and very cloudy. The unchecked growth of the bacteria in the water is termed a bacterial bloom.

As mentioned, this is a common problem for many new aquariiums where the water that has been added carried with it considerable amounts of dissolved nutrients for the bacteria to grow.  It is also the limiting factor, when the food finally runs out under the weight of biomass of geometric replication, the bacteria will die of starvation.  Depending on the situation in the aquarium, that might take quite a while if too much added food is available on an ongoing basis – the used foods can be replaced by the feeding regime of the aquarist and the the problem becomes perpetual.

The “New Tank Syndrome” will occur with or without fish.  The bacterial cells are much too small to be captured by any ordinary filter, so this is not the fault of choosing a bad filter.  If the tank clouds before you add fish, simply do nothing.  The cloud will dissipate on its own as the fight for survival at the bacterial level, one of the most fiercely aggressive levels of living organisms, occurs with each individual requiring food to survive.

Cloudy water can occur much later in the aquarium’s life cycle.  Here it is most like from overfeeding or excess organic materials accumulating in the aquarium.  Once again this is a case where the dissolved organics in the water column rise to a level where they are no longer a limiting factor, and the bacteria bloom out of control.  The most basic cure is to reduce the amount of organic material wastes in the aquarium.  Since the aquarist is ultimately responsible for what is entering the aquarium, the cure is to reduce the input.  Always examine the aquarium for dead fish or decaying material, perform a proper water change and use the exiting water to drive a gravel cleaner through the substrate to ensure the worst debris is being removed from the aquarium.

Once the aquarium is back into better hygienic shape, stop feedng the aquarium for at least three days.  Chances are the original cause was overfeeding, and this forces the fish to go looking for a meal rather than being handed one at the surface.  The fish will look harder if they are hungry and they will help clean the tank a bit.  As the three days pass, the bacteria will begin to remove the organic overload as the population continues to expand and hopefully die back again to invisible.

This is not the filter’s fault, the bacteria are much too small to be trapped by the filter media in most cases.  The only way to help the filter capture this small an organism is to make it clump together.  There are clarifier products on the market that ionically force the bacteria to coagulate into large clumps that the fiter can trap.  The problem here is that the result is a gooey mess that is quite difficult to clean away.  Whenever you decide to use a floculant – a product that clumps all particles together, you should not use standard filter materials.  The best to use if Poly Wool, Filter Floss or sometimes it is termed Angel Hair. This is a very fine threaded product that is quite cheap and is purchased to be disposed once it has been used.  It will trap the clumps quite readily, and is easy to dispose.  Don’t use expensive standard media or cartridges, you are only going to have to throw them away right after use.

One final word of warning, if you do decide to use a floculant, be very careful in your doses.  This is one product where more is definitely not better.  An overdose reverses the ionic effect and the water gets even more cloudy and difficult to clear.  It is a one time thing, not something you can depend on often.  Reducing the amount of food going into the aquarium and ensuring anything that dies is removed as fast as possible will help keep the tank clear and cloudless better than any medication or chemical treatment.

Green water is most often the result of an algae bloom.  It often has turned an aquarium into what appears a thick pea soup.  It is extremely unsightly in the novice’s aquarium, and is extremely difficult to eradicate, even for the advanced fish keeper.
Green Algae is a single celled plant that uses light to photosynthesize.  The plant itself is extremely small, only a single cell, and when conditions are right, will multiply quite rapidly.  Green algae reproduces either asexually by buds, or in a second step, it sexually combines with other cells to product new plants with full chromosome content. These in turn grow buds and the process starts all over again.  When this replication spirals out of control and overtakes an area, this is called a bloom.  The major problem is that the algae plants are so small they are rarely removed by any standard filter, and even those that are trapped tend to clog the materials, slowing the flow and allowing more algae to remain in the actual aquarium water since the intake suction is reduced to continue the bloom.
The right conditions for a bloom include adequate fertilizer and light.  In most cases in the home aquarium, even a new tank, the fertilizer needs are easily met.  The only limiting factor for plants is phosphate, and most aquariums have more than enough to support a massive bloom if the lighting is adequate.
The most important factor when green water occurs is light.  In my experience, in the great majority of the cases where a bloom occurs, natural light is allowed to strike the aquarium.  The actual time when sunlight enters the aquarium can be quite brief, ten to twenty minutes a day seems to be enough.  A very brightly sunlit room can also have the same effect.
Because of the size of the plant, and the very fast replication, eradicating an algal bloom is extremely difficult.
I do not advocate adding algicides, in many cases they may cause harm to the fish, I prefer a natural solution rather than employing strong toxic compounds.
A number of small water changes, about 10% per time spaced a day apart will dilute the cloud, but still leave it tinted green in most cases.  This can be combined with more homeopathic actions.  The most effective way is to remove the light source.  If the sun is striking the tank from the rear or side, use a background to cover and block the entry of light. If the room is very bright, draw the shades during a greater part of the day to reduce the amount of light the algae can use.  As a last resort, disassemble the aquarium and move it to a place that is much darker and use artificial lighting for the aquarium. Unless the tank is heavily planted with aquarium plants, the amount of artificial light the fish receive is not particularly important.
The above is the best way to control the problem for the long term.  Sunlight is extremely powerful, and is no friend to an aquarium.  The other area that can be manipulated and controlled by the aquarist is the amount of available phosphate in the aquarium. This chemical compound is considered to be a limiting factor, if there is not enough of it, the plants are not able to grow.  Just like reducing the sunlight limits the algae from photosynthesizing so that they starve and die back, limiting the phosphate will also inhibit the growth of algae from a metabolic constraint. At extremely low levels of phosphate, aquarium plants as well may suffer. Generally a balance exists between algae and live aquarium plants.  When standard plants are thriving, they are much better at competing for available phosphate and get what they need first, so algae often is overwhelmed.  A rooted aquarium plant is able to extract nutrients from the soil as well, so reduction of dissolved phosphates in the water column is normally not a handicap for standard aquarium plants, rather they are much better able to compete and win against free floating algae.
Introduction of phosphate comes every time the fish are fed, as it is a component of the food. Fish require some phosphate for their metabolic processes, but rarely as much as is provided in the food.  Some manufacturers have recognized this and consciously reduced the amount of phosphate in the foods they offer.  Careful feeding with low phosphate foods will reduce the amount available for algae to use for themselves.
If there is still too much, the use of a phosphate remover resin will help keep the concentration low and prevent sudden blooms of algae.  There are a variety of these products available on the market.  Most require that they be added to the higher flows of the filter and will remove a set amount of phosphate when they have been exhausted.
From a purely homeopathic viewpoint, I also use a biological sludge eliminator that helps break down the waste materials, from all sources, food, fecal mater and other decaying organic material.  These bacteria teams incorporate phosphate into their  biomass, thus preventing it from being available for free floating algae to exploit.
Sometimes the only thing that will do is a rapid fix, there are some floculants on the market that will help.  A floculant will attract the algae as well as any other suspended particles into larger diameters clumps to allow the filter to remove them thorugh its screens.  Use a polywool or filter floss in the filter rather than the regular filter materials.  It is cheaper and, believe me, you will need to discard the material immediately after use.  Poly Wool is the best trap for this treatment.  Do not overdose. The downside to these products is that the clumping action will reverse and it will be even harder to clear the tank if you do!
Algae is rarely ever totally removed from an operating aquarium, most of the time some variety is anchored to hard surfaces, but the types that produce green water are suspended in the water column.  They will gradually reduce to invisible populations when denied natural sunlight or enough phosphate to grow. Live rooted plants under artificial light have a better competitive advantage to grow and prevent algae explosions of any type.  It seems the two are antagonistic, and there is very rarely a problem with algae in a strongly growing live planted aquarium.

Water is the support system for all aquatic life. It provides the medium for movement, oxygen, toxin disposal and every other aspect of a fish’s life requirements. As such it is the single most important element in the aquarium to keep fish healthy and disease free. Its chemistry can be extremely complex if you want to make it so, but for the novice aquarist there are some simple concepts that must be understood. Water is the single most important factor in the success during maturation of the beginning aquarium.

Since water is so important, it is pretty surprising how often it is neglected by the modern aquarist. This often translates into serious omissions when advanced hobbyists discuss the new aquarium with beginners. Sometimes the all-pervasive aspect is just simply taken for granted. Local pet stores can provide quite a wealth of information on your regional characteristics. The most important of these characteristics are pH and hardness. Although in some cases these are overstressed, they do form an important aspect of successful fishkeeping for many species.

One other vital characteristic of many municipal water supplies is the type of chemical added by the municipality to make the water “potable” or fit for human consumption. Cities and towns often add chlorine or chloramine to their water supplies to ensure the safety of the drinking water for their citizens. Either chemical is effective in destroying most disease causing bacteria that could be carried in the drinking water. Unfortunately, both are also quite effective in killing beneficial bacteria that help a new aquarium installation as well. This indiscriminate destruction of bacterial strains is absolutely required to ensure the drinking water supplied to the tap is safe and harmless when it is consumed by humans.

The problem is that chlorine and chloramine are also deadly to fish. These must be removed BEFORE the water may be used to keep fish alive. There are any number of products on the market that will do the job, some much better than others. Local advice is strongly recommended in this area.

Well water may not have the toxicity added to the water by a city, but it can have other problems associated with it, most often in the form of extreme hardness or heavy metal toxicity. Often this water is softened by commercial water softeners that use salt for their softening effect. This is also a cause for concern, as the softening process can leave the water unsuitable for fish.

Making water safe for fish

Well Water

Well water provides a number of challenges to the modern aquarist. The solutions are varied. It is best to seek the advice of a local pet store expert who should have a better idea of the particular problems local well water may pose in the region. If well water is causing stress or even death for your fish, it it might be time to consider using distilled water or a commercial water treatment system to removes everything from the water, leaving it as close to pure H2O as possible. On problem with distilled or RO (Reverse Osmosis) water is that the pH may require chemical adjustment. Standard tap water is far from pure, it contains many other trace elements that are vital to fish, so the use of 100% distilled water all the time is highly discouraged.

Municipal Tap Water

Most aquarists, however, have municipally treated water delivered to the home or office. Although the assorted water characteristics vary tremendously by region, a few “rules of thumb” have provided me with success for the past few decades.

Pond Rule of Thumb # 1

NEVER add untreated tap water to an operating aquarium. Always ensure all chlorine or chloramine has been neutralized before it can contact any live fish. Follow the instructions on your chosen water conditioner carefully. Remember most preparations are labelled for US gallons.

** Be sure you know the capacity of the aquarium (in US gallons) when it is empty, in the long run this is the best quantity to use when medicating the aquarium. **

Chlorine Removal

Chlorine is essentially a gas – it enters the water and will remain there for a limited length of time. After this it disperses into the atmosphere, leaving sterile water that is suitable for supporting life. The old time aquarists knew this and always kept uncovered containers full of tap water to age in case of emergency and for regular aquarium maintenance.

[hint]

** I can’t stress the importance of regular aquarium maintenance enough **

Modern methods are quicker – use a suitable water conditioner and the prepared tap water is ready for immediate use. A common mistake made by many novices is to add the water conditioner to the aquarium directly. When this happens, there is a segment of time when the chlorine is active within the aquarium to stress and kill fish. Chlorine (and Chloramine) is an oxidizer, it will burn anything that it contacts, such as delicate gill tissue.

**

** Always prepare your water in a clean container, removing chlorine

** completely in the bucket BEFORE adding the replacement water to the

** aquarium. It is highly recommended to purchase a plastic bucket expressly

** for aquarium water ONLY. Label the bucket:

**”FOR AQUARIUM USE ONLY”

** and never, Never, NEVER use the bucket to hold a cleaning solution

** with soap!!! Soap is toxic to fish and it remains in the plastic pores to cause

** stress to aquarium inhabitants since embedded detergent and soap traces are

** released into treated water during later water changes.

**

Consider one of the many water conditioners on the market, Aqua-Plus (Nutrafin), AquaSafe (Tetra) and Stress Coat (Jungle), all protect by artificially coating the fish with a replacement compound when/if the natural slime coating may accidentally be removed by netting or other stressful situations. Slime is a fish’s natural defense against external parasites. When this protective layer is scraped away, parasites have an easy time invading under the scales and gaining a foothold. Water conditioners are especially recommended for a newly set-up aquarium where fish are added immediately. Since they must be netted and moved, a water conditioner with this feature will add a complete protective layer just when the fish need it most, during the most stressful time of their lives.

Chloramine Removal

Chloramine is deadly. It is added to the water supply of some cities where the water is transported for long distances or stored for an extended period. Two I know of personally are Edmonton Alberta (for as long as I have known the city) and Ottawa, Ontario (for the past few of years). Chloramine is used because it stays around for a long time, it doesn’t dissipate like chlorine. It MUST be chemically removed. Since it is a combination of chlorine and ammonia in liquid form, it must be removed in two stages.

Stage 1) The Chlorine bond must be broken. Almost any pure Chlorine remover can be used. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Chlorine and Chloramine Remover, Wardley’s SuperChlor or Jungle Start Right will break the chloramine bond adequately. But, in the long run, I highly suggest using the previously mentioned water conditioners with their added slime bandage and heavy metal neutralizers as well.

The only caveat for any of these products is that standard chlorine doses are not powerful enough. Normally a three to four time dosage is needed to release the chlorine and precipitate it out. Always be sure to use an adequate dose to eliminate the chloramine from the water supply, if in doubt use slightly more than the instructions require. In this case, truly it is better to be safe than sorry.

Stage 2) When the Chlorine-Ammonia bond is broken, the ammonia that was combined with chlorine is released. This toxin can kill fish in relatively low concentrations when the pH of the water is high. If the water is acid, this problem is greatly diminished, but must be factored in nonetheless.

There are a number of ways to eliminate the released ammonia in the tap water after the chlorine has been eliminated. I generally let nature take its course, relying on the natural ability of the nitrogen cycle to remove ammonia from the water column. Cycle by Hagen is always added regularly to my aquariums to ensure the maximum efficiency of the biological filtration, no matter what filtration system I am using. I have found its extremely high concentrations of beneficial bacteria (nitrosomonas and nitrobacter) reliably inoculate the aquarium and small increases in ammonia from added tap water are consumed without noticeable stress to the fish. In larger aquariums, over 40 gallons the water capacity is great enough to disperse any ammonia released from breaking the chloramine bond that it is not very deadly.

In established large aquaria, I generally ignore the added ammonia since a properly functioning bacterial filter will utilize it before it can become a stressful condition for the assorted inhabitants.

With susceptible species or aquariums where even the slightest increase in ammonia concentrations are lethal, I suggest considering adding a Zeolite filter media in the filter chamber. Zeolite products are normally marketed as Ammonia Removers and are available from a number of companies. Zeolite media acts like a resin to chemically bond with the free ammonia and remove it from the water solution. Zeolite preparations can be recharged, they simply have to be placed in a strong brine solution to force the captured ammonia from the substance. I do not highly recommend this practice since there is no physical change that identifies how charged the ammonia remover is, or how long it will continue to remove passing ammonia.

Since ammonia is released by a solution of brine water, it follows that Zeolite preparations are not at their best in marine situations. What aquarist would knowingly put a material into his aquarium that will tend to release the very poison that is being eliminated? For this reason, I personally do not recommend the above mentioned Zeolite filter materials to ever be considered for marine aquarists, they are strictly for fresh water.

Technorati Tags: Aquarium water, Beginning Aquarist, Beginning Aquarium, chloramine, chlorine, Novice Aquarist, water changes, zeolite