Fish Aquarium Tank

We have about 40 freshwater fish in a three foot tank and we feed them flake and a red gritty food that normally sinks. Our fish are no bigger then an inch long except for our two black knife fish. We normally give them about a teaspoon of each a day, is this to much?

As much as they can eat in 3-5 minutes, twice a day.

Are you having trouble finding your fish in the fish tank due to cloudy water? There can be several different reasons for cloudy water in a fish tank, so let’s take a look at the most common ones. These are debris from new substrate, bacterial bloom, chemical imbalance, or even floating algae.

Most new rocks and decorations will cause cloudy water. If this is the case then your debris should settle and go away on it’s own in a couple of days. Before adding the next decorations or rocks it best to soak them in separate water to get all the loose dirt off before addingthem to your tank.

Another problem that can come from new fish tanks is a bacterial bloom. This can cause the water to have a haze and look rather gray. This can come from overfeeding the fish or dying plants.

A sure sign of a bacteria bloom is when your water is milky and has a very bad odor. Not all bacteria are bad but some bacteria blooms can be deadly to your fish. When the nutrient levels get extremely high the bacteria go ballistic and multiply rapidly.

Be sure to remove all dead or dying plants if you have a bacteria problem. If you are changing fifteen percent of your water and using a siphon to clean debris, this type of haze will not cause the fish harm. But it is essential that you get in under control quickly.

Another thing to look at is whether or not your fish are being overfed. This can also cause the water to get cloudy. Just check the bottom of the tank for leftover food – that would be a sure sign of overfeeding.

Fixing fish tank problems like cloudy water from algae can be a pain because it will be thick and green. One of the best ways to cut down on the amount of algae in a tank is by adding algae eating fish. Keeping your lights on for long periods will encourage algae growth as well as sunlight shining on the tank so make sure to watch the amount of lighting your tank gets to help prevent algae growth.

If none of the above helps you with fixing your cloudy water problems, you should follow with a test kit. The test kit will be used to check the ammonia and nitrate levels of your fish tank water.

Once you have checked the levels, the reading for a normal level for both the nitrate and ammonia is zero. If you have something other than zero then your water quality is bad.

What causes cloudy water in fish tanks with open or semi-open style tanks? Many times these style of tanks could possibly have a stopped up filter causing debris to cloud up your water.

If you are still not sure what is causing the cloudy water in your fish tank, don’t panic. As long as your water doesn’t seem extremely bad and your fish are acting fine, give it a little time. Sometimes if bacteria is the cause the bacteria will kill itself.

This is definitely not advice for all cases. If you are concerned about your fish you should probably remove them until you get your problem under control. It is extremely helpful to have a quarantine tank just for occasions such as these. Regular maintenance will also help you enjoy your fish tank without concern.

Today I discovered eggs and one of the angel fish happen to be guarding them. My tank has different fish (3 guppies, a bala shark, neon tetras, 2 goldfish, and a bit more) plus 3 angel fish. The guarding angel fish is doing okay and the angel fish never fight any fish in the tank. Anyways the question is what do I do if the eggs hatch? They are mostly unfertilized eggs, but I pobably can't see some of the fertilized eggs. I do see some though, what do I do? The eggs are already in the tank full of fish.

as soon as they hatch watch and wait and watch your angels they will defend the eggs but watch for aggression I have two and they can get very nippy around breeding time.I recommend you read this it can be very helpful http://fins.actwin.com/fish/species/angelfish.html

again watch the aggression and I hope everything goes well and if it does and you find yourself in a bind with lots and lots, your local pet store (mostly privately owned) may take the little ones off of your hands

You need the right combination of biological, chemical, and mechanical filtration to keep your aquarium clean and healthy, and most of the filter set-ups you can buy combine more than one type of filtration. Here are the most common ones:

A “corner filter” is a box placed inside the tank and filled with filter floss or cartridges. A pump forces water through, mechanically filtering out solid wastes, and bacteria can set up housekeeping in the medium to provide some biological filtration too.

A “canister filter” is a more powerful version of the corner filter. It can be placed inside, or hang outside or underneath the aquarium, and can handle really messy fish, but you do have to clean it very frequently. Like corner filters, you can get a good colony of bacteria to settle in this type too.

A “fluidized bed filter” pumps water through a mechanical and chemical filter, then through a tube full of sand which gives bacteria lots of places to grow. It works best with very oxygen-rich water.

A “power filter” hangs off the back of the aquarium, providing easy access for cleaning and changing the filter medium. It pulls water out of the tank to be pumped through chambers for mechanical and chemical filtration, and many are set up to provide ample space for bacterial colonies to set up biological filtration too.

A “sponge filter” is a tube filled with a spongy medium for bacteria to colonize. The sponge filters water mechanically while the bacteria do their biological bit. Some newer types use two sponges, so you can change one at a time, always leaving one active colony in the tank.

An “undergravel filter” or “UGF” is a plastic plate that you put in underneath your gravel, which lets water or air bubbles trickle slowly up through the gravel to aid bacteria in colonizing the gravel. This doesn’t really do any mechanical filtering, and might have to be combined with another type of filter to remove solid wastes. This type also clogs frequently, and may need to be replaced after a couple of years of use.

A “wet-dry filter”, or “trickle filter” helps to increase the surface area that can be colonized by good bacteria. It is usually made up of a dry plastic tube filled with a filter medium (floss, sponge, paper, etc.), and your tank water is drawn up to trickle down over the medium. This gives bacteria a much larger air to water surface, and thus more oxygen.

All you need to do is find the best combination of filters for your particular livestock, keep the oxygen flowing to keep your bacteria alive and functioning well, and keep the filters clean, and you’ll have a lovely tank and happy fish.

We where planning to get other fish for my 1 comet goldfish because she seems lonley. So what fish can go with a comet goldfish? And since I feed her goldfish flakes and I add a different kind of fish, what if the fish eats the goldfish flakes?

Best option, other comet, shubunkin or common goldfish.

Dont mix them with the round bodied fancy goldfish, the faster swimming slim bodied fish will win the race for food every time.

You are going to need a big tank or a pond for multiple comet type goldies though.

Ian

I have 20 gallon community tank with a HOB filter rated for 20 gallons and a sponge filter rated for 40 gallons. Right now there are 6 neon tetras and 6 zebra danios. What else would work in there? My office manager wants a larger fish or fishes that would be more visible than the smaller fish. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

A single male betta OR dwarf gourami for the middle and a bristlenose pleco for the bottom.

The recommended pleco will grow to be about 7 inches in overall length. The betta is a very "showy" fish and will do fine in your tank provided you are keeping it heated to 78F - 82F.

Do you have any idea how many dissolved minerals there are in your water? Neither did I when I got started with my first fish tank. Luckily I lived in an area where the tap water was pretty good for my fish, but learning more about the chemistry of hard and soft water has sure helped me over the years.

First thing to know is, most tap water is “hard water”, which has lots of calcium and magnesium dissolved into it. This is good for your tank and your fish!

Hardness is measured in “parts per million” of calcium carbonate, and the “general hardness” of the calcium (gH). “Soft water” has under 135 ppm and 4 to 8 gH, while “hard water” has more than 200 ppm and 12 to 20 gH. You’ll want to find a test that helps you measure the ppm in your tank: a “general hardness kit” measures gH, although you can often get a good answer with a phone call to your water utility, whose job it is to keep track of hardness.

There’s a separate “carbonate hardness kit” that will measure the amount of calcium carbonate (kH) in the water. This usually involves a process called “titration”. You just add drops of a chemical to a water sample, and the number of drops required to change the color of the water-plus-chemical mixture tells you the kH level. There are also some kits with pre-treated paper strips you can just dip in the water, but these only tell you a general range.

The only time you really need to worry is if you’re water’s very soft, because there’s less of that calcium carbonate to buffer the normal ups and downs in your tank’s pH balance. Without that buffer, your pH can fall very far, very fast, which will at least make your fish and creatures sick, if it doesn’t kill them outright, and if it happens when you’re not at home or not paying attention, the effects can be devastating.

So what do you do if your water’s too hard? There’s several ways to it a little softer. Boiling the water is the simplest, but most time consuming. A peat moss filter or a reverse osmosis system are probably the most popular techniques. You can also find “ion exchange resins” that will help.

And if the water’s too soft? That’s even simpler – just try filtering it through crushed coral or dolomite. The minerals will start to leach into the water, so just keep filtering and testing and you’ll find you have properly “crunchy” water in no time.

Someone out there has got to know and have more experience with this than I do. I've looked all over the net and keep coming up with the same answer. Yeah, I know, Koi. We're kind of bored with the same old look though. We'd like to know what fish we can add to our fish/garden pond. Fish that can live outdoors and with Koi. Fish with color. Not plane old pond fish. Something with yellow would be great. Please Help!

Goldfish and Orfe are excelent .. hearty and can take the cold nights. — DO A GOOGLE SEARCH ON 'GOLDEN ORFE' … I think you'll like them.

The following is shamelessly cut-n-pasted (but it's rather to the point and informative):
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The humble Goldfish, bred by Chinese and Japanese fish-keepers from a dull brown wild species, is the most common fish kept in garden ponds. The Goldfish family now has more than 100 varieties, including the Common Goldfish, the Comet with its long tail, the multi-coloured Shubunkins, the oval bodied Fantails and the Veiltails with their flowing fins. Other species to look out for include the Oranda and the Lionhead. Not all these are hardy enough to survive harsh winter conditions, the best survivors are the Common Goldfish, the Comet and the London Shubunkin.

Other species you could consider include Tench and Golden Orfe. The former is a useful bottom feeder, scavenging food wasted by the other fish and so helping to keep the pond clean*. The Golden Orfe with its gold and black markings, is by contrast, an active surface feeder and an excellent display fish. However, it grows quite large so is not suitable for small ponds.
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I hope this helps !

Filters are not the sexiest part of your fish tank; most of the time, they’re the part you’d just like to forget about. But we all know that choosing the right filter, and maintaining it properly, is the key to the health of your aquarium. So let’s look at the three types of filtration systems that the average fresh water fish tank can use:

First, there’s biological filtration – that’s what we call all the helpful little bacteria which break down ammonia and nitrite into less toxic nitrate.
These bacteria need lots of oxygen, and a surface to cling to, whether that’s plants, filter media, gravel, or live rock and sand (that is, rock that’s inhabited by microorganisms). Remember that antibiotics will kill good bacteria as well as bad, so move a sick fish to a separate hospital tank before you treat it!

Biological filtration alone is enough only if you have a very small number of fish in a large water volume – if you want a lively tank, you’re going to need one or both of the other types of filter.

The second type is chemical filtration, which uses chemical reactions to remove waste substances from the water. Activated carbon, Algone (plant fibers), and zeolite clay (the type used in cat litter) can be used, and each type has their advantages and disadvantages. Carbon can sometimes leach phosphates into your tank, which promotes algae growth – look for brands that are “low ash” or “acid washed” to avoid this. Zeolite is good at removing ammonia, but can interfere with the establishment of a good nitrogen cycle, so be careful about using it in a new tank.

The third type is mechanical filtration – that’s just your basic porous filter that catches solid particles before they can go back in the water. This type doesn’t do anything about liquid or gaseous chemical wastes. These work best if the filters in them are replaced or thoroughly rinsed every two to four weeks, otherwise they get clogged, or the wastes will decay in the filter until they’re small enough to get washed back into the tank. Remember that a mechanical filter won’t affect wastes that have settled onto your gravel; you’ll need a siphon or vacuum to get rid of those.

Personally, my favorite type of mechanical filter is bonded floss – it doesn’t get clogged as easy as the other types, and you can change part of it at a time to preserve your beneficial bacteria colonies. You can also get loose floss, sponge, or paper cartridge filters. You just want to pick one that traps enough solids to keep the water clear, without getting plugged too often.

Happy filtering!

Maintaining your aquarium at the right temperature and pH balance, and including one of the different types of “algae eater” fish, will help to keep algae growth from getting out of control. But no matter what you do, there will still come a time that you need to clean the tank with your own two hands.

That can be pretty nerve-wracking if you’ve finally gotten a good balance going in your tank’s ecosystem; we’re all afraid to do something that will hurt our fish when we start cleaning.

Most important tip? Soap, of any kind, is lethal to fish, even in small doses. Don’t use soap in your tank, or on your buckets or tools! I have bought a new bucket for each tank I’ve set up, and labeled it “AQUARIUM” with big red letters so that it doesn’t get used for anything else.

Start by cleaning the inside of the glass on your tank using an algae scraper or pad labeled for aquarium use (the ones you get at the grocery store often have soap or other chemicals on them). You can use a razor blade to scrape any really stubborn residue off of glass (use a plastic tool to scrape an acrylic tank).

Next, you can take out and clean any decorations, like rocks or plants, which are visibly dirty. Just scrub them with your algae pad and rinse them under tap water. If anything needs deeper cleaning, I soak them for no more than fifteen minutes in a 10% solution of bleach (1 part household bleach to 9 parts water), scrub, rinse, and air dry them to let any remaining bleach evaporate.

Now that all the gunk you’ve removed from the glass and the plants has settled onto the gravel, you can use a siphon to suck out the debris – there are lots of different siphons available.

Then clean the light, the cover, and the outside glass with an aquarium-safe cleaner. Trust me, you do NOT want to use regular household glass or lime cleaners – buy your chemicals at the fish store and rinse very thoroughly!

Important Tip: By cleaning all the visible algae from the tank, you’ve greatly reduced the number of bacteria available to sustain the nitrogen cycle. I’d recommend that you do NOT clean the filter at the same time, because it harbors enough bacteria to get a healthy cycle started in your tank again. I always wait two to three weeks after an aquarium cleaning before cleaning the filter.

If your filter uses absorption (carbon, ammonia absorbers, ion-exchange resins), you should just replace it. If it’s a mechanical filter (ceramic rings, filter fiber, or sponges) you can just rinse it gently in water the same temperature as your tank, and quickly put it back in place – that way you won’t be killing all of the bacteria.

Finally, don’t forget to clean out all the filter tubing and other nooks and crannies with a filter brush, to keep the filter working well.