Tropical Fish Central

I returned from my yearly trek to the shores of Panama City Beach a few days ago.  Each year, I see a lot of wild life in the ocean, both on the beach out in front of the condo, and out around Shell Island, where we rent pontoon boat with a few other families and have a day at sea and on the island.

This year I bought an underwater camera and a mask and snorkel before heading down.  I chose the Pentax W90 from Amazon after a lot of reading.  Below are the pictures and video I took on the trip…

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It is obvious to most people that aquarium filters capture the gunk suspended in the tank’s water, leaving it looking clear.  This is called mechanical filtration.  Filters perform a much more important function, however, called biological filtration.  As discussed in the post on cycling an aquarium, fish produce ammonia both directly and through the decomposition of their waste.  Ammonia is toxic, but the cycling process builds up a colony of bacteria that consume the ammonia to produce nitrite.  The nitrite is even more toxic than ammonia, but is also consumed by bacteria to produce nitrate, which is much less harmful.

Filters perform the important task of moving water that contains ammonia and nitrite past the colonies of bacteria.  Insufficient movement of water can result in a toxic build up of ammonia or nitrite, which can’t be processed quickly enough.  This mostly happens in tanks that are overstocked with fish or over fed with too little filtration and water movement.

The “Python No Spill Clean and Fill” is a remarkably useful tool for aquarium owners.  The Python attaches to the end of a sink faucet, and has a gravel vacuum head on the other end.  The Python empties the aquarium and any sucked up debris straight into the sink’s drain.  Then, by turning a valve, the python can refill the aquarium.

For more information, watch the video located on this page.

Pythons are available at most online and local aquarium stores.

Canister filters are self-contained filters that have hoses pumping water between the aquarium and the filter.

A UV filter is a device that exposes water flow to ultra-violet light.  UV light, in the proper intensity, will kill microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, algae, and parasites present in water.  For aquariums, there are generally two types of UV filters:

• Those with an integrated pump or requiring a dedicated pump to push water through the UV filter
• Those that attach to the output of a canister filter.

UV filters can be quite effective at:

• Eliminating “Green Water” algae
• Killing off internal and external parasites, including Ich.
• Preventing  bacterial infections, particularly in tanks that are not kept clean.

I took a few pictures and videos of my pond after returning from lunch today

Here is a picture of my gold and black koi:

Here is a zoomed out shot of the pond fish:

I own a very small and not often visited tropical fish forum.  I thought the name was clever, etc.  At some point, someone posted a question asking if goldfish are edible.  Disturbingly, this have become the #1 reason people come to the site – referred to the site by searching to find out if they can eat their goldfish.  Here is a snapshot of the awstats search keyphrase list:

Again, this isn’t a huge forum, but 4 of the top 7 search terms are about eating pet fish.  Looking at the longer list, there are 7 more phrases about eating goldfish.

Can someone please tell me why do so many people ponder whether it’s OK to eat their goldfish?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I really want to know.

I posted before about converting a 55G tank to African Cichlids.  All is going well, but I happened upon a few concerning articles, specifically this one about keeping Mbuna cichlids for beginners.  As it turns out, I managed to buy two of the three fish that the author strongly cautions against.  I have a bumblebee and two Kenyi (male and female) in a tank with apparently far less aggressive cichlids – Acei, zebras, rusty and others.

A forum member pointed me to a very good resource for getting into African cichlids.  The “Cookie-cutter setup for 55G” recommends a configuration for the tank and some solid options for stocking with fish.  I wish I had found that about 3 weeks ago.

Hopefully this will help someone else avoid the apparent mistake I have.

So, what to do with my bumblebee and kenyi???  I don’t know yet.  I am planning a very large African tank for my basement, and possibly they will end up there.  Otherwise, I will take my own advice on what to do with unwanted fish and put them on Craigslist as free to a good home.

I had a chance to visit the Tellus Museum in Georgia this weekend with my oldest son for cub scouts.  There were a number of very interesting fossil displays.  Including on named “The Terrible Fish”, pictured here:

It’s hard to get a perspective of how big this thing is, so I took a short video:

Next, I saw the jaw of a Megalodon:

For perspective, I am 6 feet tall, and could have walked through the mouth without needing to duck my head.  Simply massive.

And then there is the thing nightmares are made of…

The Xiphanctinus:

This thing looks truly terrifying in person.  The tag for this guy says that some fossils of Xiphanctinus are found with intact, large fish in it’s stomach.  I took a video of him and his display mate, the super turtle Protostega:

As I mentioned in my 55G disaster post, I decided to convert the aquarium in my family room from a community tank to African cichlids.  The ph of my water is somewhat low (~6), and African cichlids like higher ph, in the 7 to 8 range.  A good way to do this is with argonite sand.  The problem is switching from the gravel that was in the tank to sand.  Because I am impatient, I had already bought a few assorted African cichlids, so emptying the tank was not an option.

I thought for a while about the best way to do this.  It seemed to me that a hose siphoning into a bucket would be the most effective – simply vacuuming up the gravel, leaving a bare bottom and sucking up any nasty chemicals that may have built up along with it.  After thinking about it more, that seemed like a lot of work.  So, here’s what I did instead:

Phase 1: Removing the gravel

I got my handy 5G Home Depot bucket and my largest fish net (about 6 inches across).  I started at one end of the tank and scooped up as much gravel as I could, dumping it in the bucket as I went.  This was pretty fast and effective, but there was quite a bit of gravel left in the tank that I simply could not get with the net.

Phase 2: Cleaning up the mess

I took my “Python no-spill” water changer and removed the gravel vacuum head (the clear plastic tub part) by unscrewing it behind the valve.  I attached the python to my sink, and took my large net and placed it directly under the python’s discharge, to catch gravel that came through, so it would not go down my drain.  I turned the water on high to get the most suction.

At the tank, I used the bare of of the python hose like a vacuum, sucking up every last bit of gravel and waste left, leaving a very clean tank bottom.  All of the gravel I vacuumed up ended up in the net in the bottom of my sink.  I simply dumped the net into the bucket and had cleanly transferred all of the gravel from the tank to the bucket.

Phase 3: Rinsing the Sand

I rinsed 2 20 pound bags of argonite sand very well to remove the fine sediment that would could the water using a bucket in my kitchen sink.  This took a looong time.

Phase 4: Sand in the tank

I scooped the sand into a cup, and then lowered the cup into the tank, until I had transferred all of the sand.  Much to my dismay, the water was still turned milky-white, despite my rinsing efforts.

Phase 5: Water changes

I reconnected my python’s gravel vac and performed 3 75% back-to-back water changes to get rid of the cloudiness.  This was pretty effective.

Phase 6: Finishing touches

I had some drift wood in the tank previously, and arranged it to provide a bunch of hiding spots.  I also bought a few pieces of rock, and used some stones to create a few other hiding areas.

Here is the result: