Keeping tropical fish

by Walter Spanner

 

Water in my opinion, is the most important part of the tank . If the water is not right then the fish will suffer and will get diseased and then you will really struggle to cope running the tank set-up. When we aquarists are running a tank set -up we are looking for things like pH (which tells us how alkaline the water is ) where we are looking for a reading of somewhere in the region of 7.5 or a little lower. Then we ago on to look at Ammonia, (which should always be 0) except when starting off a new tank. Ammonia is very toxic to fish and it builds up, if only a small amount for long periods the fish will become diseased or die.

 

We go on to check for Nitrites (which should always be 0) as again over long periods the fish will suffer. We also look at one other chemical, Nitrate. This is not so crucial as the other two (Ammonia, Nitrite), but this needs to be kept in check as this will cause problems if they get too high. A reading of 10-20 is not uncommon. So you are aiming for as low as possible with this one.

 

If any of the chemicals that I have been mentioned above gets out of hand and your fish are suffering, then the only thing to do is to do a 25%-50% water change, to get the levels down. Do water changes every day or other day, depending how bad it is, and carry on doing them until the levels have dropped to an acceptable level. We could go on to look at other chemicals that we aquarists look for, but that comes latter as it can become too complicated to look into this all in one go. So starting off with these above will put you in good stead to running a successful tank.

 

Fish.

Adding fish to your tank is the interesting bit! It isn't much of a problem providing you only add a few hardy fish at a time. Start off with a few hardy fish like Barbs, Guppies and Swordtails. When adding them, float the plastic bag which they came in open in the tank, so as to warm it up to the same temperature. After 5 minutes or so add a small amount of tank water to the bag, then add some more 5 minutes later, until the bag is almost full . Then after the fish have got use to the water slowly let the fish out of the bag and they should be off exploring there new home. Keep an eye on them over the next few weeks and do daily checks on the water (pH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates .) just to make sure that the water levels do not change too much.

I will go into detail the type of fish that go together now (community fish) so you should be able just to go to the pet shop and just ask for the fish you want. Some pet shop owners give out the wrong information and find that when they get home with there new fish they don't fit in or get aggressive with the other fish . It is not the fault of the fish as this is there normal way in life. You cannot expect a fish from one county to get on with other fish that is from a country from somewhere across the world. So be careful out there.The fish listed that are suitable for community tanks are:-

 

Bristle -Nose Catfish. They can get a little aggressive with one another, if there are 2 or more, in a too small tank. They are bottom feeders, and you won't see much of them as they mainly come out at night when the lights are off. Having said that, mine have proven me wrong at times!

 

Corydoras Catfish. These are very peaceful and are also bottom feeders. They always seem to be busy.

 

Tetras. Always a good starter fish. Does not bother any other fish in the tank. These swim mid-way in the tank.

 

Loaches. These also are bottom feeders and will not bother any one else in the tank.

 

Mollies. Again, these are very good starter fish and are peaceful. They will swim about mid-way in the tank.

Swordtails. These also are also good community fish, not bothering other fish. These will swim mid-way in the tank.

 

Platies. Again, very nice peaceful fish. Swim mid-way in the tank.

 

Rainbow fish. Due to their size, they look aggressive but they are not - that's what I think anyway. You should only have these in a large tank, as they get too big for small tanks.

 

Silver Sharks. These are my favourite fish, nice and peaceful and although they are peaceful they get very big. Not recommended for tanks any smaller than 5 feet long. They start off really small and I think that is the down fall of many fish keepers as they look in the tank at the shop and see these small sharks and think that will be ok, but I can assure you that they can get as big as 14 inches long!

 

If you ever get a chance to watch your fish when the lights go out, then you will be surprised after a little while, on how much activity that goes on in the tank.

Walter will be pleased to answer readers fish keeping queries.

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