That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

Please welcome Sam Yost as a blogger on That Fish Blog.  Sam has recently been promoted to Fish Room Supervisor and will be graduating from Millersville University in December with a degree in Marine Biology. 

Hello, My name is Sam Yost.  Being a hobbyist and working with other hobbyists in the trade, I have grown to understand that  keeping good water quality is one of the most important parts of aquarium keeping. If your aquarium water quality is bad, and a regular maintenance schedule is not kept, your fish will not be healthy, or will not live to their full potential.

There are many things that can happen in a tank to degrade the water quality. One of the major problems in maintaining water quality is overfeeding.  By overfeeding, a lot of unused food ends up breaking down in the tank.  It can be difficult to tell when fish have had enough, especially if there are a lot of fish in the tank, but it may be best to underfeed instead of dumping copious amounts of food. When uneaten food breaks down in the tank, it can cause a spike in ammonia, nitrites or nitrates. This spike, even if it is small, can be deadly to fish.  It may also settle into the substrate, where it can break down and cause chemistry problems, fish illness and other problems down the line.

There are several things you can do to help alleviate these overfeeding/water quality issues.

Consider what your fish need. Different fish can require different types and sizes of food, and some may require more frequent feedings than others. Generally, fish should be fed food that is about the size of their eye or smaller, or foods that can be broken easily, like flakes, that they can easily take in.

The amount of food administered should be what they can consume with in a minute or so. It is better to feed your fish several small meals than one large meal. Generally in a community, small feedings in the morning, evening and night will work great!  By doing three small feedings, there is a smaller amount of food being wasted.

Small, frequent feedings are also more healthy for the fish.  They are not eating so much that they look bloated, and the food can be used more efficiently.

You can also minimize the amount of waste that is put in to the tank by rinsing frozen food. This action gets rid of excess preservatives that are used to keep the food fresh so they go down the drain instead of breaking down in the tank.

Finally, small frequent water changes to reduce nitrates and gravel siphoning after several days can remove any waste and decaying food from the substrate.  A good, regular maintenance schedule will allow you to keep the water pristine and give your fish the best possible water quality for long, happy, healthy lives!

Thanks,

Sam

Eileen here. With all of the water changes, filter changes, feedings, testing, supplements and other changes and maintenance we do on our aquariums, it can be difficult to remember what was done and when. Some problems with aquarium systems as well as regular maintenance are dependent on what has been happening with the tanks over time, not just within the very recent past. This is just one of the reasons that make it important to keep a record of the every day maintenance of the system as well as any other events that may have an impact on the health of the fish.

Keeping records of any activity with an aquarium system is not a new idea. Almost every public aquarium keeps records of everything that goes into or out of their water – this is even required by some scientific organizations to keep the aquarium’s certification or grants. Their records and even the records kept by stores like That Fish Place/ That Pet Place are obviously going to be very detailed than the average home aquarist might need, but it is a good idea to take their lead and keep track of your aquarium. You can use a computer program like Excel or Word  if you’d like, or you can simply keep a notepad and pen with your aquarium supplies.

So what should you record? The types of events you should keep track of can be divided into a few main categories: Water Chemistry, Maintenance, and Livestock.

l  Water Chemistry recordings would be the results of any regular water tests done on your tank (pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, salinity, temperature, etc) as well as the dosages of any supplements or medications you add to the aquarium.

l  Maintenance records keep track of regular maintenance (water changes, light bulb changes, filter pad changes or cleanings) as well as any out-of-the-ordinary events like a new heater or a malfunctioning piece of equipment.

l  Livestock records help you keep track of what live fish, plants or invertebrates you are adding to your aquarium and what you are removing from the tank or lose due to deaths or illness. You can also make observations about any unusual behavior you are noticing in the livestock, symptoms of illnesses, what the fish are (or are not) eating, even their sizes from time to time to see how quickly they are growing.

l  Other events: It is also a good idea to keep track of any other unusual events that may affect your aquarium. Power outages, heat waves, cold spells, and other events that may not have an immediate affect on the aquarium can cause changes in the aquarium a few days or weeks later that can be traced back through your records. Even a houseful of guests can be important to record if it changes the activity around the aquarium or the feeding schedule of the fish.

Getting into the habit of keeping a few notes on your aquarium can make difference in the long run. After all, some of us have a hard time remembering what we had for dinner last week, much less when we last changed that light bulb, when we added that new invert to the tank or how well a certain fish has been feeding! A running record of some of these details can help refresh your memories, as well as keep track of your progress in the aquarium hobby.

Along these same lines, Current-USA offers a free downloadable computer widget to keep track of aquarium maintanance schedules. Working in conjuction with your records, the two together can go a long way toward helping you maintain a healthy system.

Until next time,

Eileen

Please welcome Eileen Daub with her first post to That Fish Blog!

As a professional actress in my free time away from That Fish Place, I’ve learned a lot from the theater world that I’ve brought back into our fish room (and vice versa….pronouncing the Latin scientific names of some of these fish really helps to untangle Shakespeare sometimes, believe it or not). One of the biggest tips that the dramatic community can give to aquarists is the theory of improvisation and “Yes, and…”, like the actors in shows like “Whose line is it, anyway?” use to think up those jokes and skits on the spot. To an actor, improv means saying “Yes, and…” to whatever someone else throws their way.

“Hey, you! You’re hair just burst into flame!”

“Yes, and…it saves on heating bills.”

“That dog there just jumped over a house.”

“Yes, and…he fetched his own ball from the gutter while he was up there, isn’t that nice.”

So, what does this have to do with keeping your fish alive and getting your plants and corals to grow? You’d be surprised. For example, our store alone currently sells over 30 products to raise pH or lower pH or raise pH but lower hardness and all kinds of things to make the number on your pH test match what your fish should be kept in. Well, instead of matching your water to a fish, why not try it the other way.

“My pH is really low.”

“Yes, and…discus, killifish, tetras, and other Amazon species love more acidic water.”

“My water hardness is really high and I can’t get the pH down.”

“Yes, and…that doesn’t work for these tetras but those African cichlids love hard water, and hard water with lots of minerals makes a good foundation for reef and marine tanks.”

Need more convincing? Ok, what about all that algae in your aquarium. Instead of scrubbing until your fingers have blisters or putting more chemicals in your tank than in a high school chemistry lab, work with it. Is the hair algae going crazy in your marine tank? Why not try a blenny, bristletooth tang, or a sea hare to help eat it up (or if you get really creative, pick up a small pair of craft scissors and make it your damsel’s new front lawn…tiny garden gnome statue optional)? If lighting is an issue, remember that fish don’t have a 9-5 schedule like the rest of us. If you are only home in the evenings to enjoy your tank, adjust the timers so the lights aren’t on when you aren’t around.

Better yet, how about those inevitable outbreaks of disease or an unpreventable accident. It happens to the best of us – I once wiped out my entire home saltwater aquarium because of an unquarantined new arrival – but the key to enjoying your aquarium instead of dreading its maintenance is how you respond.

“My tank just keeps getting ich outbreaks/bacterial infections/cloudy water/aquatic alien abductions.”

“Yes, and…now I’m going to figure out what to do about it.” (I hear aluminum foil tank covers work well for alien abduction problems. Doesn’t prevent the crop circles in hair algae though, sorry)

Very few things in the aquarium hobby are spontaneous; the cause of the problem might just be tricky to find and sometimes, we just might have to learn to adjust to and live with the problem. Ich and other parasites can be almost impossible to completely prevent, but if you’re fish seem to be especially prone, you might want to switch their diet, add supplements to boost their immune system, or avoid invertebrates and keep a low copper dosage in the tank, for example.

A favorite director of mine likes to refer to improv actors as “Chaos Surfers” – they take whatever anyone throws at them, accept it and ride it forward. I say, why stop there? Aquarists can do the same. We can take whatever our aquarium is telling us and instead of fighting against it, we can accept it and make what we have work for us. We just have to be flexible enough to realize that even when our aquarium “scene” is going the way it might have been planned in our head, what we do have is just as good in a completely different way.

Thanks, Eileen

We look forward to more blogs from you in the future!

One of the most frequently asked questions that customers who are considering their first aquarium ask is how hard is it to clean and maintain an aquarium, particularly if they’re thinking about a saltwater aquarium, because they may have heard that it is very difficult to maintain. If you have a few basic tools, and follow some simple guidelines, then keeping your aquarium clean is easy, and does not require a great deal of time.

If any piece of equipment is a “must” have, then a gravel siphon is it. A gravel siphon will remove water from your aquarium and clean your gravel at the same time. A gravel siphon is a simple device that uses a small diameter flexible tubing that is attached to a larger diameter plastic tube that goes into your aquarium. The large diameter plastic tube is plunged into your gravel, and removes water at a slow speed that will tumble and clean the gravel without sucking it out of the tank. When the water reaches the small diameter tubing it accelerates and removes only the dirt from the gravel and water. There are two styles of gravel siphon, a simple version like the Lee’s aquarium products Gravel Cleaner, that uses gravity to remove water through a shorter length of tubing into a bucket, or other container. There are also more advance cleaning systems, like the Aqueon Water Changer and the Lee’s Ultimate Aquarium Gravel Vac, that attaches to a sink faucet and uses the water pressure of your tap to draw water through a length of tubing up to 100’ with a venturi attachment that fits any standard faucet. The advantage to the more advanced system is that the flow can be reversed at the faucet end to actually fill your aquarium back up after all the dirt has been removed from the gravel. What could be easier than that! If you have a chlorinated water source you will need to add a water conditioner at the same time. Gravel siphons are available for just about any size aquarium.

One of the best inventions to come along in aquarium cleaning products is the magnetic algae cleaner for your aquariums glass or acrylic panels. With the use of two magnets, one inside the aquarium and one outside, you can clean all of you viewing panels without the need to put your hands in the aquarium. The inside magnet has a cleaning surface that removes algae from the inside glass, you simply stick the two magnets together with the aquarium glass in between, then move the outside magnet around until all the algae is gone. This is a simple device, that has dramatically improved the ease and speed that you can clean your glass. In recent years manufacturers have invented a magnet cleaning system that has a floating inside magnet, so you never lose the cleaner to the bottom of the aquarium, which was the downfall to initial models if you moved the outside piece too quickly. Floating magnets like the Magfloat and the Magnavore, are available for most sizes of aquariums in both glass and acrylic safe models.

Just as important as the gravel siphon and the magnet cleaner is following some basic husbandry guidelines to help keep your aquarium clean.  Replace your filter cartridges, or filter media, at least once a month, make sure that you are not overstocking and overfeeding your aquarium, and make sure that you keep to a schedule. Small water changes on a weekly or biweekly basis will ensure that your water quality stays at a high level, which will inhibit excess waste build up and algae growth. All of these things are easy to do, and take very little time. If you procrastinate in maintaining the tank, or wait until there is a problem, then correcting issues becomes more difficult and time consuming.

Aquarium keeping should be fun and easy, follow these tips and guidelines, an you should be headed for success.

Until Next Blog,

Dave