I worked from home this past Wednesday, following my normal routine – get up early, go to the gym, come home and get on a conference by 8am. Somewhere between calls, I make the rounds to turn on my aquarium lights and feed the tanks. When I walked into my family room and turned on the light, I saw a horrific sight… Nearly all of my fish were laying dead on the bottom of the tank. That was heartbreaking. My prized 4 year old angelfish, named “Tailfin” was among the dead.
There was no indication of what happened – the fish were fine when I had turned the lights out the night before. 3 young angels and a pleco survived, so whatever happened could not have been totally devastating.
I perform 50% or larger water changes weekly, and have for years. I vacuum the gravel thoroughly each time. It had been 3 days since the last water change.
Here is my theory on what happened:
The day before, we lost power in our house for about 20 minutes. Not terribly long. I have battery powered air pumps that turn on when the power goes out. All of them came on, except one – the one in the 55G tank where the fish died. I replaced the batteries, but it didn’t work. I noticed that if I took the hose off, it would very slowly work. I hooked the hose up again and had to go take a phone call for work. In the mean time, the power came back on. When I finished the call an hour later, I walked into my family room and the battery powered air pump was pumping normally – because I had forced it on whilest trying to get it to work earlier. I turned the pump off and didn’t think about it until the next morning, when I found all of the dead fish.
Upon inspecting the air pump, there is a think tar/oil like liquid that appears to be oozing out of the air outlet. My suspicion is that water from the tank had somehow siphoned through the air line back into the pump where it sat for many months. The reason the pump didn’t work at first was that it was gummed up with this likely concoction of water, oil, rust, etc. Eventually, the pump pushed the goo out and up the air hose and into the tank.
What I can’t reconcile is why the fish did not start having trouble the night before – 9 hours after the pump was turned off, and presumably after the goo was put into the tank.
So, that was extraordinarily sad for me, and I will try to learn a lesson from it. I have decided to re-populate the tank with African cichlids, using the opportunity to try something new and challenging.
The primary reason most freshwater aquarium fish die is poor water quality. The main causes of poor water quality is:
Insufficient filtration
Insufficient water changes
Insufficient removal of fish waste
Too many fish for the size tank
The major problem with water quality problems is that fish don’t obviously die directly from poor water quality. They die from opportunistic diseases that take advantage of a weakened fish, such as:
dropsy
internal parasites
bacterial infections
fungal infections
etc
Many fish-keepers will attempt to treat the apparent disease with antibiotic, anti-parasite or anti-bacterial medications, but not the underlying cause – water quality. Indeed, particularly in the US where antibiotics are readily available, many new-comers make a bad situation much worse by treating a tank with medication that kills off the colony of beneficial bacteria, leaving the tank uncycled.
It has been my experience that, in nearly all cases, fish that are showing obvious signs of illness will not survive despite the best effort and intention. To be sure, there are many astute and experienced fish-keepers who can nurse a sick fish back to health, but such experienced people also know that prevention is far more effective than a cure.
Good Practices For Maintaining Fish Health
Filtration
Ensure the aquarium has proper filtration. A rule of thumb is hard to come by, as there are a number of variables, such as volume of water, number and types of fish, amount of food used, etc. Generally, I double or triple the manufacturer’s filter recommendation. For instance, if a filter is rated for a 55G tank, I will use two to three of those filters on a 55G tank. That might seem excessive, but it does ensure good filtration and provides some ability to ride out the failure of one filter.
Water Changes
As with sizing filters, there is are a lot of variables that go into how much and how often to perform water changes. Internet forums are full of recommendations… from 20% per month to 20% per week. There is a sizable contingent of well intentioned people who insist that anything more than 20% per week is harmful to the fish. I do not subscribe to that way of thinking – fish will not suffer from having too much clean water. I perform 50% changes weekly on my tanks with good results. It’s a lot of work, but the Python makes it manageable.
Removal of Fish Waste
Some fish waste is dissolved or suspended in the water and is removed through water changes. However, far more of it hangs around in the form of poop at the bottom of the tank. Tanks that have gravel on the bottom make this situation hard to see, and without a thorough cleaning of that gravel, bad things can begin to happen, even if the other suggestions are followed. First, I would strongly recommend most people to skip the gravel, unless there is a particular need. Spend the money on pieces of drift wood or similar things to cover the bottom. These can be moved around when it comes time to clean. Regardless, the fish waste needs to be pulled out weekly as part of the water changes. A gravel vacuum, like the Python, can clean both bare bottom and gravel bottom tanks. Bare bottom tanks have a distinct advantage in that it’s easy to see the waste and see that it has all been sucked out. In gravel tanks, a thorough cleaning of all the gravel is needed to ensure getting most of the waste.
Too Many Fish
Again, there is not a 100% reliable method of determining a safe number of fish for a tank. It is safer to start out with fewer fish, and add incrementally over time.
Early on, I made the jump from hang-on-the-back (HOB) filters to canister filters. They are much more powerful and can be mostly concealed in cabinetry. I standardized on the Rena XP series of filter, and now have 3 XP2’s, 2 XP3’s and an XP4 across 4 tanks.
I started out with a pretty standard media configuration that looked like this:
Maybe the pretty fish you bought has gone on a rampage and killed many of its tank mates. Maybe the fish has grown too large for you to house. Maybe you just don’t want it any more.
You don’t want to flush him, but what do you do?
There are a few primary options:
If the fish was purchased recently, check with the shop to see if you can return the fish for a refund.
Contact local aquarium shops to see if they will accept the fish.
Advertise the fish as available for free to a good home on Craigslist.
Post the fish as available for free to a good home on aquarium forums.
Yesterday was my day for weekly aquarium maintenance. I had drained one of my 55G tanks down about half way and noticed that my Rena XP 2 filter was barely trickling out. I keep the filter in a decorative box next to the tank, so I unplugged the filter, disconnect the input/output hoses, and take the filter to my sink. In the process of disconnecting the hoses, I had to wrestle with it a bit, because of the angle that the hoses come through a hole in the back of the box. This is important.
I cleaned the filter, hooked it back up, and saw that it was pumping a good flow again. Satisfied, I closed the box, and went to dinner with my family, who have been staying with us for the holiday, at Macaroni Grill. Read more…
Years ago when I first got into keeping aquariums, I had zebra danios and Angelfish. Over time, the danios died off, but I kept going with angels. In fact, I have a 4th generation spawn of angels in my 10G fry tank.
I had been thinking about adding some dither fish to the 125G tank in my bedroom to distract the 4 angels in it from constantly beating each other. Zebra danios are good for that – they are very active swimmers and big enough and fast enough not to be anyone’s lunch. So, I went to my local Petsmart last weekend to get some zebra danios. While there, I saw that they have glofish and decided that I’d like to buy those instead of the normal danios. Now, for those who don’t know what glofish are, they are a Zebra Danio genetically altered to contain a genes that causes bio-fluorescence. The fluorescent genes was originally added to the fish to detect pollution. So, basically glofish are a brightly-colored zebra danio.
Knowing that zebra danios like to be in groups of 6 or more, I bought 7 – at $5 each. I took them home, floated them for a bit, and released them into the tank. Immediately my 4 angelfish begin hunting the glofish, snapping at them. One by one they disappeared. One was left alive, and I found the remains of two more. But, the other 4 I am afraid were tasty and expensive snacks. It would seem that the colorful glofish remind them too much of their natural prey.
The remaining glofish swam the tank for about a week. I felt bad for him, and figured that the angels were probably accustomed to the colorful fish now. So, I bought 12 more. Immediately on release, they start getting hunted again. This time, I netted all of them out and put them into a 55G tank with bandit cichlids and a firemouth.
I now have 13 glowfish zipping around a different tank than I had intended.
Glofish are quite pretty, but they do not mix well with angelfish.
A bowl does not provide a proper environment for any kind of fish. Bettas and gold fish are both commonly kept in bowls. though both suffer from it.
The Problem With Bowls
There are a few major problems with bowls
Bowls generally do not hold much water. The small volume of water results in quick changes in water parameters like temperature, ph, ammonia, nitrite and nitrates, which can stress the fish.
Bowls do not have filters which allow for efficient cycling of ammonia produced by the fish.
The geometry of bowls generally provide a small surface to exchange Oxygen and CO2 between the water and the air.
If I Don’t Use A Bowl, I Won’t Have Space Or Money To Keep A Fish
Using a bowl and knowing that it’s not appropriate for fish is like adopting a dog knowing that you have no where for it to run or play – making it live in a cage. Fish are live animals that have specific environmental needs to keep them healthy. If you are unable to provide the right environment for a fish, you should not be keeping fish as pets.
Much like my other post on keeping goldfish in a bowl, the answer is “yes”, a betta can live in a bowl, just not for long and not happily.
The problems with a betta bowl
There are 3 main problems with bowls for bettas:
Bowls are generally quite small. A betta, just like any other fish, should be kept in a larger volume of water than a bowl can provide to prevent the rapid build up of toxins and organic compounds from the fish and fish food.
Bowls are not heated. Bettas are tropical fish. They need the water to be between 76F and 82F, which is generally not achievable, at least steadily, without a heater.
Bowls are not filtered. Filtering provides a mechanism for the nitrogen cycle to process ammonia and nitrite. This is generally off set with frequent changes of the water in the bowl.
Why do stores sell bowls if they should not go in a bowl?
Simple: stores sell betta bowls because people buy them. Unlike many other pets, there isn’t a big industry built up around preventing abuse and neglect for pet fish. And the reality is, it keeps people coming back for more. If you buy a bowl and a betta, the betta will live for some period of time – 6 months, maybe even a year or two. After that, you’ll come back to buy another betta. Additionally, selling bowls really expands their customer base. Relatively speaking, there are not a lot of people who want a big aquarium in their house, but there are many more that find a decorative bowl acceptible.
1 comment - What do you think? Posted by
admin -
June 26, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I had ordered many dwarf cichlids in the past from TwoFishGuyz, an online fish store, and had a lot of luck with the fish they sold me. I went to their site about 3 weeks ago to check if they have some of the more rare/colorful apistos, and sadly, the site just gives an error. At the time, I thought it was probably a temporary issue, but after 3 weeks, I think it’s a safe bet that the store is gone.
Update:
Two Fish Guyz was apparently bought out by Discus Hans USA. It appears that they won’t be offering dwarf cichlids any longer.
