Freshwater fish care advices? This vibrantly colored fish are tough and friendly but have a tendency to be territorial and hostile during mating season. Rivers are their natural habitat, so they are adept in swimming through currents. Male Cichlids are larger than females, growing to be 6 inches compared to females who only grow up to 5 inches. They will eat all types of fish food. In time you will realize that caring for a pet fish is not any easier than caring for any other pets. They also require attention, cleaning, proper nutrition, and a stable environment. If this is your first time to own a fish, do plenty of research about the fish of your choice, and be prepared to shell out some cash because their tank and accessories can be quite expensive. All efforts become worth it once you see them all set up and swimming peacefully in a tank.
Once you determine that keeping tropical fish is indeed the right choice for you, there are still other factors to consider. What do you need in order to setup and maintain your tank? What kind of maintenance is required? What and how often do you feed your fish? These are just a few of the mention questions you must answer before you can successfully cultivate a tropical fish tank. There are so many popular tropical fish that it’s hard to narrow it down to a short list, but here is a list of my favorite fish for beginner aquarium tanks: Guppy (Poecilia reticulate). The Guppy is a great first time fish because they’re easy to feed and care for. They provide some nice color and variety with their tail shapes. Guppies are also relatively easy to breed in aquariums which can be a wonderful experience for the aquarium hobbyist. Green Swordtail (Xiphophorus helleri). The swordtail is named for the fact that males of the species have a long swordlike extension to their tails. These fish are very peaceful and get along well with other community species. The Green swordtail can hybridize with other fish, however, so think twice before putting them into a community aquarium unless you don’t mind them mating. Read extra information on rainbow shark tank.
Return all the old clean decorations. If necessary, add more gravel or new decorations. Before adding new tap water to the aquarium, please treat it with a special conditioner. Everyone knows that tap water contains a lot of impurities such as chlorine, ammonia, and heavy metal salts. This water will harm the fish, so water conditioners have been developed that purify the water from harmful substances. Mix old and new treated water in the aquarium and measure its temperature. Control that the water remains the same temperature; otherwise, your fish will die. If necessary, dilute it with treated freshwater, or wait for the water to heat up and become room temperature if its temperature is lower or higher than the required level. Do not pour too much water into the aquarium; there must be space for air to saturate the water with oxygen. Carefully place the fish back. To make the fish experience less shock, you can put them in a plastic container with old water and put it in the aquarium; then, it will be easier for the fish to get used to slightly different water temperatures.
Another benefit of weekly water changes is allowing you the chance to remove debris and un-eaten food from the aquarium’s sand before it decomposes and turns in to excess nutrients in your aquarium. By siphoning and slowly cleaning parts of your sand bed each week as part of your regular reef maintenance, you will be able to remove these nutrients before they are introduce to the aquarium. This can reduce algae and some cyano from forming. This reduction of nutrients encourages the importance of regular water changes by reducing the nitrates and phosphates before they become a problem, rather than doing large water changes to remove nutrients and algae after they are a problem. Filter socks are responsible for catching food and debris before it gets in to the sump. The downside to this though is that if you don’t change your filter socks regularly, then the waste they catch simply breaks down inside the sock and the nutrients they were designed to prevent are still added to your aquarium. The key to success with filter socks is to replace the filter socks at least every other day. Every day would be better, but this is often not realistic from a time and cost standpoint. See even more info at kuhli loach.