Tropical Fish for beginners
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Keeping fish tanks can be a great hobby, not only are they fairly easy and cheap to get started, but offer an amazing relaxing pastime. Getting started with this hobby can sometimes be a little overwhelming as there are so many options of tanks, fish and accessories to choose from and all require to be matched together well. This article is designed to give you a good overview of all the aspects you need to think about when starting your own aquariums so that you can avoid making the mistakes that others make whenjust jumping into it without a plan or basic knowledge you need to keep the fish happy and alive.
The main types of fish you need to decide between are: Marine, Tropical, Cichlids and the obligatory goldfish. Each type comes from a different region and needs to be cared for differently so you will need to choose wisely. The type you choose will largely affect the type and size of tank and accessories that you require to house them. Lets take a look at setting up a tropical fish tank and the requirements
Some of the best beginner types of fish to keep although not uninteresting nor unchallenging, are Guppies and Mollies. Many people start with these types of fish for good reasons. They are relatively good looking and interesting fish while being fairly hardy and resistant to poorly looked after fish tanks, They are fairly cheap to buy. and are tropical fish which can be the easiest yet most beautiful type of tank to set up. Both types of fish are live bearers meaning they are quite easy to breed.
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make when selecting their equipment and fish, is the size of the tank relative to the amount and size of fish. It can be so easy to start with a small tank and slowly buy more fish until there are just too many fish for the tank and filtration to handle. The other common problem can be trying to mix the wrong types of fish together, weather that be agressive fish or just fish large enough to eat the smaller ones. Make sure when purchasing you tank, you know what type and size of fish you want to keep and that you allow for expansion.
Apart from the tank, there are a few other bits and pieces that are essential to purchase when setting up your tropical aquariums. You must have a good biological filtration system to remove waste from the water and convert bad chemicals to remove the impact of these on the health of the fish. You must also have a good water test kit to check if those chemicals are at the right levels for fish to stay healthy. You must also have a heater when keeping tropical fish to ensure their water is kept at the right temperature and finally a few cleaning implements such as a gravel cleaner siphon will help to keep it healthy and clean. You should also keep some chemicals that can fix certain water conditions, like Ph up and Ph down to adjust the Ph, and a good water conditioner that removes chlorine, chloramines and ammonia before adding new water. As a guide when keeping Mollies and Guppies, the Ph should be around 7.5 and temperature of around 25 c.
Some fish are very difficult to breed and even experts will struggle to provide the optimum habitat for this to occur as it would in the wild. Mollies and Guppies however are not so difficult. These fish are livebearers and are like the rabbits of the fish world. the beauty of being livebearers is that when they give birth, the fry are ready to swim, eat and hide from predators, so they often survive unlike many that are laid as eggs. If you want to breed these fish the first thing to do is provide plenty of hiding places for the fry that the larger fish cant get to for safety. I don't recommend using breeding tanks as these usually stress the fish out too much. The only other thing to do is put at least one male and one female in the fish tank and wait! Just make sure you have a big enough tank for 20 more fish each time this happens!
To keep disease under control in your tank you should firstly make sure the ware is kept at optimum condition through testing the water for ph, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites and temperature often. If these change too far from the conditions that your fish are used to, they will often get sick. Look out for symptoms like white spots or rotted fins and unusual swimming behaviour. At the first sight of any of these, test the water, and do a water change and clean out the filter. Ask your local pet store to recommend any treatments for the particular problems.
Keep in mind the above guidelines when setting up you fish tanks and you should have a better experience than most who just jump straight in. You will love your new hobby and the time spent looking after them.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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