That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

Hey, Eileen here. Ever have a certain look or item in mind for your home or wardrobe or aquarium, and were not able to find just what you wanted? Ever decide to just make it instead? Despite the huge selection of aquarium ornaments on the market today, this DIY approach is what many aquarists are beginning to turn to when the ornaments in the stores just aren’t personal enough for their own unique tanks. So, how can you get in on the action to make your tank truly your own? Here are a few tips to making your own aquarium ornaments or using non-aquarium items to personalize your aquarium.

Silicone Sealant is Your Friend

Silicone aquarium sealant can be found in almost any fish store and is usually available in clear or black. Sealants designed for aquariums are safe for fish and aquarium tankmates when fully cured, but stay away from other sealants like those used for bathroom or hardware applications. You can use sealants to make caves from pieces of rock or rubble, glue shells, stones or other decorations together, or even to cover things like PVC or plastic “caves” with substrate or rocks to form a more natural-looking hideaway.  Note: The tank in these photos has a custom background created by arranging and attaching layered slate with black silicone.  The effect of the rock wall is rather permanent, but impressive as it adds dimension.  This background was applied before the tank was set-up.

Think Outside the Box

Most rigid plastic toys, ornaments and figurines are safe for aquariums as long as they are not painted and do not have any sticker decals on them. Make sure the object is well-cleaned and any stickers or adhesives are completely removed. If you aren’t sure if it is painted or printed, try soaking it in water for awhile, then try to scrape the color off with your fingernail. If it comes off, it isn’t safe for your aquarium. You’ll also want to make sure any small pieces are removed or firmly attached with an adhesive like silicone sealants, and make sure nothing is small enough for your fish to eat.

A lot of ceramics and pottery like coffee mugs and flower pots are generally safe for aquariums, too. This is a great way to get your companies logo in that aquarium you have set up in the lobby! If a mug or plate or bowl is safe for food use, you can generally use it in your aquarium. Decorative pots that are only partially glazed or have fragile artistic glazes are not safe enough for aquariums. To see if an object will last in your aquarium, you can soak it for a few weeks in water that is the same conditions as your aquarium (or better yet, is at the extremes of your aquarium as far as temperature and pH). If it is unchanged in color, texture and strength at the end of a couple months, it should be safe to use as a decoration. Completely unglazed terracotta pottery is also perfectly suitable for aquariums.  These items can make excellent caves and breeding shelters for fish like cichlids and gobies.

Some of the only artifacts leftover from ancient shipwrecks are pottery and glassware. It may look different and become completely encrusted with corals or algaes – especially in saltwater aquariums, a problem all of these ornament ideas – but glass is very durable (which is probably why most aquariums are made from it as well).  Decorative glass bottles can be found in craft and antique stores and even very well-cleaned beer, wine and condiment bottles can be made into aquarium décor! As with the other materials listed, you’ll want to make sure there are no labels or adhesives left on the glass or bottles you decide to use and the glass should not be painted – if the glass is colored, make sure it is the glass itself that is colored, not a glaze or paint over it. You can also fill a light-colored bottle with small objects, ornaments, beads or substrates and seal the top closed to form a decorative glass “bubble” within your tank.

Cues from Nature: the Good and the Bad

Using natural items can be good and bad. In general, avoid the temptation to use something you’ve picked up off the ground since it is difficult to tell what chemicals or foreign substances may have leeched into it. Things like seashells and coral skeletons that can be cleaned VERY, VERY thoroughly in very hot water are usually safe, but avoid organic matter like starfish or wood that can decompose when put back into the water of your aquarium. Wood ornaments created for aquariums are usually safe for freshwater aquariums since they’ve already been cleaned and treated, but wood from the forest behind your house or that you’ve found at the shore is usually not a good addition to a home aquarium. If you aren’t sure if an object like a shell will affect your water quality if it is submerged, soak it in water with similar conditions to your tank and monitor the changes in color, smell, and chemistry of the water over a few weeks.  Most shells are not suitable for freshwater aquariums except african cichlid or brackish set-ups, as they may raise your pH.

The Don’ts and Disclaimers

Of course, there are always disclaimers. These tips are just to give you an idea and starting point for your own creativity.  Always make sure any non-aquarium ornaments you re-purpose for your aquarium are very clean and are safe for your fish, inverts and water chemistry before adding them to your aquarium, especially in extreme aquarium conditions like saltwater aquarium, low pH/acidic aquariums, high temperatures and sensitive or very aggressive animals. Make sure all objects are free from chemicals and sharp edges are sanded down or covered with silicone to avoid injuries to yourself or your aquarium residents. When in doubt, feel free to ask and we’ll be happy to help you figure out if your new decorating idea is a safe one!

These are just a few ideas. Be creative and let your personality shine through into your aquarium.  And, don’t forget to show us the pictures of your new, unique aquarium!

Visit the next blog in this DIY series, “Aquarium Decoration Ideas – Fish Bowl Designs & DIY” for more tips, tricks, examples and ideas!

Read even more in Part 3 of our DIY series, “More Decoration DIY: Materials and Aquarium Suitability”!

Hey, it’s Eileen again! Last summer, I posted a blog on artificial reefs and their wide range of uses and designs, but an English artist is taking this concept to a whole new level!

Jason de Caires Taylor, an underwater naturalist and diving instructor with over 14 years experience underwater, has created magnificent underwater sculpture exhibits.  The exhibits are located in Grenada (Moilinere Bay) and the United Kingdom (Canterbury and Chepstow) with a sister exhibit on land in Crete, Greece. His exhibits highlight the underwater environment and its ability to change and adapt. Instead of scrubbing each bit of algae and growth from the artwork, it has become part of the exhibit.

As the underwater life reclaims each piece of Jason’s artwork, it helps illustrate his point on the resilience and adaptability of his exhibit. Most of his sculptures are of human figures, a truly haunting picture as the sealife starts to overtake them. His latest sculpture is incorporating a collection of glass bottles with messages submitted by the public and divided into categories like fear, hope, loss and belonging. Another project to be installed in Cancun incorporates propogated corals and over 400 individual sculptures.

Check out the gallery on the artist’s homepage and don’t forget these pictures the next time you are scrubbing the algae off your ornaments!

It has been a long-understood fact that the tranquility of aquariums has been known to help relieve stress and lower heartrate and blood pressure in some. As the biomedical field continues to grow and become more important to advancements in health care, the methods and options used by research also continue to expand. During this expansion, aquatic and marine organisms are becoming important in making advancements towards the health of all of us. Some of the fish and invertebrates you have in your home aquariums may someday help to save your life. Here are just a few of the organisms researchers have turned to:

Zebra Danio (Danio rerio): This fish is one of the most widely-used by researchers. They have become model organisms used for genetics research, neurological and other medical research, environmental studies and even organ and tissue regeneration. Specific genes have even been identified in different color pattern mutations. One of the most brightly-colored community aquarium fish, the popular Glo-fish, is a variation of the Zebra Danio that was original spliced with jellyfish DNA to create a fluorescent fish used to detect pollution and toxins. Zebra Danios are even on the very short list of animals that have made a trip into space!

Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus): The Horseshoe Crab is right next to the Zebra Danio in terms of the number of studies it participates in. They have compound eyes that have become important in vision research and a substance found in their blood known as Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) can help researchers detect bacteria and pathogens in medications and human tissue. LAL is collected in much the same way a person donates blood and the crabs can be released after collection. You can read all about them here.

Mussels: Mussels, the clam-like bivalves popular in aquariums and seafood restaurants alike, are already helping to heal wounds and have established their staying power in the medical field with their…well, staying power. Mussels used very thin filaments known as “byssal threads” to attach to hard surfaces. The adhesive that they use to attach themselves to surfaces is similar to the “Krazy Glue” and superglues that we all use to piece together broken mugs at home, but is much more effective in the salty, wet environments where the bivalves live. This adhesives is also extremely strong but still flexible. Researchers at companies like Johnson and Johnson have developed glues from the byssal thread compounds (warning: some graphic surgical images) that help to seal wounds and reattach bone fragments without the use of foreign materials like stitches and sutures.

Mantis Shrimp: This notorious group of invertebrates has earned a bad reputation in the aquarium industry as the secretive live rock hitchhikers known to pick off tankmates or even break aquarium glass, all while earning a following with a select few as an original showpiece. Among researchers, their powerful strikes and extremely complex eyes have made them the subject of many studies. The strike of a mantis shrimp is one of the most powerful and fastest strikes in relations to their size and researchers have studied their mechanics to discover how this power is possible. The eyes of the mantis shrimp can convert polarized light wavelengths and function over almost the entire light spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet, a feat our own eyes can’t even come close to. Their ability to convert and filter light across this spectrum has led researchers to look at mantis shrimp as the next step in optical devices like CD and DVD systems. While most of the research on mantis shrimp still seems to be focused on the “how’s”, it is only a matter of time before scientists discover how we can use what the mantis shrimp teach us.

Platies and Swordtails (Xiphophorus sp.): These two groups of livebearers are very popular, bright little community fish but recent research has given them a much more profound meaning. These livebearers are some of the first subjects to prove that some cancers like certain melanomas are actually hereditary and can be passed to offspring. Some of the dark pigment cells in these fish have been known to multiply out of control and form cancerous tumors. Remarkably, some of these fish can actually continue to live and thrive even with these tumors – and they can reproduce and pass this condition on to their young. While some forms like the popular Mickey Mouse Platies can form melanomas in the spots by their tails, it is more apparent in fish with a lot of black in their coloration. Scientists are working to understand how this condition is passed and how the fish can continue to live with it.

Corals: In addition to providing some color to the Zebra Danios already mentioned, some corals are giving biomedical scientists some inspiration in designing medications. Scientists have recently discovered capnellene, a compound found in a species of soft corals that can be used as a painkiller and may provide relief to those suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and other neurological conditions. Some of the same fluorescent proteins used to color Glo-fish are also being applied to some cancerous cells, allowing researchers to much more easily track their spread.

This is just a small sampling of how animals that have long been popular in the aquarium trade are being used to improve health and medications for all of us. As we as aquarists work to keep our own aquariums alive and healthy, those same fish and invertebrates may be working to save our lives as well.

Thanks for reading,

Eileen

Eileen here. We’ve all heard some of the general “rules of thumb” for stocking an aquarium: an inch of fish per gallon, one fish per gallon, more fish = less aggression and countless others. So, what works best? There are several approaches that can help make stocking an aquarium easier.

Research, research, research!!

It’s no secret that I for one am a big fan of research. I’m not talking in depth taxonomic studies or long term observational studies, just a little planning and reading up on what you would like to keep. We get a lot of questions like “I set up a tank, now what can I put in it?” or “I bought this pretty yellow fish, what can go with it?”. You may be able to save yourself some time, frustration and possibly disappointment by planning out what you might like in your tank before setting it up or buying any fish for it. It also helps you decide what you would like to put in it down the road. That way, you will be able to decorate and filter your tank in the best way for what you’d like to keep and you’ll avoid getting those impulse-buy tankmates that eliminate any chance of having that special fish you’ve had your eye on for months.

Along these same lines, be sure you are aware of the behavior of each item you choose and its requirements. There is nothing worse than bringing a fish home, only to learn that you have to spend more time preparing its food than your own, or finding out that it is a known predator of that favorite fish you already had. A few basic aquarium fish books can help a lot with the basics and can even help you find fish you never even knew existed. You could try shooting us a blog question, email (marinebio@thatpetplace.com) or giving the store a call at 717-299-5691 if you’re looking for help in this regard too.

An inch per gallon? Only sometimes

This is one of the most common stocking “rules” we hear but is often misunderstood and misused. Let’s compare a few common groups of freshwater fish: tetras, goldfish and cichlids. First, the “inch per gallon” or “fish per gallon” rules have to take the adult size of the fish into consideration. Sure a fish might be one inch when you buy it, but if that fish grows into a footlong adult? That changes things. Then, what about the body mass of the fish and the waste it produces? Six little one-inch-long tetras will certainly affect an aquarium different than a six-inch-long goldfish. Goldfish just produce a whole lot more waste, eat a lot more and have a lot more mass and size behind that six-inch-length than all of those little tetras put together. Next, what about the behavior? That same six-inch goldfish is going to have a far different temperament than, say, a six-inch Green Terror cichlid. Two six-inch goldfish could be perfectly happen in a well-filtered 45 gallon aquarium; the two Green Terrors may well try to kill each other. So do we throw out the “inch per gallon” rule altogether? Not necessarily. It is fine to use as a very general and basic guideline for small fish like tetras, danios or livebearers if you take their adult size into consideration, but don’t take it as gospel if you are keeping anything larger.

Zone Defense: It works in sports, it works in aquariums

When stocking your tank, keep in mind that all of the fish won’t be spending all of their time in the same area of the tank. Looking at your aquarium from the front, you can divide it horizontally into 4 zones. The middle two zones are where a lot of fish hang out. In freshwater, this is where you’d find tetras, angelfish, barbs, and some cichlids. In saltwater, this would be your tangs, damsels, clownfish, and some groups of wrasses. The top quarter section is more of the top dwelling fish. In freshwater, these are fish like hatchets, killifish, rasboras, and mollies and in saltwater, this would be some cardinals and dartfish gobies – fish whose mouths are more on the tops of their heads and point upward for those prey items on the surface. The last section, the one on the bottom of the tank, is home to the bottom feeders – catfish, blennies, loaches, and gobies. Some saltwater fish and freshwater cichlids that spend a great deal of their time in and around rockwork also would count towards this group.

Stocking an aquarium with all three sections – top, middle, and bottom – in mind will help you make the most of the space you have. Instead of having a lot of fish that hang out in one of these zones, choosing fish from all three can give you a more complete look to your tank and can help spread out the activity and aggression throughout the whole tank.

The more, the merrier? Or one big spotlight?

There are two big ways to plan an aquarium – having an active tank with lots of activity and schools of little fish, or have a showcase item like a big saltwater angelfish or showing cichlid and build the rest of the tank around it. Both can be stunning in their own way but take some planning. Having a tank full of different schools of little fish can be interesting and active. You can have a higher number of fish this way but there isn’t one big thing to focus on. Or, you can have one big fish like a Discus and complement it with just a few other little fish for some subtle activity and to help with clean-up. Some of the most interesting tanks can be species-only tanks. These tanks have just one kind of fish like an aggressive cichlid or a saltwater oddity like a frogfish, and nothing else. These are the true “pet fish”. They can be fascinating but aren’t as diverse as community aquariums.

Biotopes – a little piece of nature.

Some of my favorite aquarium have been biotopes. These are tiny pieces of a specific environment where everything in the aquarium is designed and chosen around that location or habitat. For examples, a Caribbean biotopes would have only fish and invertebrates chosen from the Caribbean, so a fish from the Indo-Pacific would not be chosen for this tank. This is how most public aquariums are designed and is one of the more collector’s approaches to aquariums. Instead of relying on the impulse buy, this method is all about planning and choosing the perfect addition for your little slice of nature. Much better than a postcard for remembering that trip to Hawaii!

These are just a few approaches to choosing the next addition to your favorite aquarium. Feel free to share your own and never be afraid to ask if you aren’t sure if what you want is right for you!

Eileen here. Some myths and legends are universal. Almost every country has some version of a “bigfoot” legend. Nessie is one of Scotland’s biggest celebrities. People are abducted by aliens and UFO’s are spotted in the sky around the world. What does the aquarium hobby contribute to this list?

“Fish only grow to the size of their aquarium.”

Like most of those other stories, this one likely started because people saw some truth behind it. They saw their fish grow large in relation to their aquarium, stop growing, then die. But, just like we now know that the Earth is not flat and we will not fall off the edge of it if we sail too far, we now know that the size of an aquarium does not dictate the size of a healthy adult fish.

The most common victim of this theory is the  comet goldfish, the fish often sold as very inexpensive feeder fish or won in carnival ping-pong ball toss games. People win the fish or buy them as inexpensive pets, not knowing that the tiny fish they took home should be able to become an 8-10 inch adult with a lifespan of 10 years or more if well cared for. “Goldfish bowls” are sold almost everywhere that carries fish supplies. Small aquariums – 10 gallons or under – are often sold with pictures of small fancy goldfish on the box so it is no wonder that people may be unaware of the problems they are walking into.

Keeping any animal, fish or otherwise, in a habitat that is too small for it causes a number of problems that might not be obvious at first. The fish people win at carnivals or purchase as small juveniles might be fine for a short time in a small aquarium, but as the fish grows, so does its requirements. Looking at the same situation in terms of a person instead of a fish, it becomes more obvious. An infant, for example, doesn’t require much space for his needs to be met. He can feed and exercise within the area of his nursery and regular cleanings can keep his nursery healthy. But, as the infant grows into a toddler, his needs also grow. He requires more space to exercise so his muscles develop properly. He is growing and needs more food and so produces more waste as a result that the same regular cleanings the infant received cannot control. As he grows through his life, that boy can certainly grow into a man if never let out of the nursery that he was kept in as an infant, but that man will not be as healthy as he could be. His hygiene and development will have suffered from being kept in a confined space and not allowed to flourish and develop properly and he will probably not live as long as a man whose environment has been allowed to grow with him.

The same happens when a fish is kept in a small tank. As the body of the fish grows, so does the amount of waste it produces and the food it needs. This can affect the water quality of the aquarium and lead to disease caused by high ammonia levels, high nitrite levels, low dissolved oxygen content, low pH and other incorrect parameters. Just as a person kept in a small space cannot grow properly, the fish would also physically not be able to grow to its full size. Its body and skeletal structure may be stunted by the lack of space and ability to exercise and swim as it should, but the internal organs often continue to grow at a normal rate. The internal damage this causes, in combination with water quality issues, will lead to a premature death.

While a small tank can certainly affect the size of the fish, it is not the way that we once believed. There is no internal sensor in a fish that can detect the size of its environment and adjust its growth accordingly. The fish we keep are  just as dependent upon us as small children to give them the proper care needed to keep them healthy so it is up to us to be aware of what their needs are and to do our best to make sure those needs are met throughout the fish’s life.