The Paradise Fish can be trained

This is one of the oldest fish in the aquarium hobby. People had Paradise Fish in their aquariums in the late 1800’s.

One reason they were kept so long ago is that they can tolerate a wide range of temperatures. They can withstand being at 60-90F with no problems. I am pretty sure if you kept one at 60F all the time he wouldn’t be very happy compared to one at 75F.

I had a pair in my 55 gallon community tank and they didn’t bother any of the other fish.  The female was getting chased by my Red-tail Shark and I suspect that she was injured at one point because she swam with her back end drooping, only propelling herself with her pectoral fins. I removed the Red-tail and she survived for months afterwards but eventually died.

I still have the male, and he hangs around at the surface of his tank, bothering no one and still relishing Mysis Shrimp and Brine Shrimp more than the flake food.

He was quite the jumper in his younger days.

I almost forgot, the Paradise Fish can be trained to jump out of the water to eat! For a time, I had this male in a 10 gallon tank, with a glass top, and the water level down a few inches. I started by wetting my fingertip, sticking on a tiny bit of dry Mysis Shrimp and holding it close to the surface of the water. In just a few days I was holding my fingertip 2 inches out of the water and he would leap up and knock the shrimp off of my finger! There are Youtube videos that show Paradise Fish doing this.

The Paradise is commonly known to be an aggressive fish in some situations. Mine were not.

Flourite substrate for plants…it works

I bought a bag of Flourite substrate with the idea of growing a jungle-like tank of Vallisneria. The Flourite is expensive, about a dollar per pound. I bought a 15 pound bag of the Red Flourite. By the way, Flourite is a clay-based, iron-rich gravel-like material. I don’t think it leaches into the water, at least not very much. It helps the plants that are able to get their roots around it.

In a 29 gallon tank I poured in a layer of  natural landscaping rocks, then added a layer of about 10 pounds of the Flourite . I  finished the bottom with small gravel and a few handfuls of fine sand , and also an area of bigger rocks.

The reddish-colored rock is the flourite.

I bought two bunches of Vallisneria, which separated into about 10 plants.

Vallisneria makes new plants by sending out "runners".

It worked! Almost too well.

Kuhli Loaches are cool

The skinny little Kuhli Loach is a great addition to your community aquarium.  Some people do not like them because of their snake-like appearance but remember, they are a fish and need love too!

Another bad impression people have is that the Kuhli Loach hides all of the time, only coming out at night. I think that is what makes them so interesting. Other fish swim around, back and forth, all day, while the Kuhli Loach sleeps under his rocky hideaway. Then, toss in a few sinking shrimp pellets, the Kuhli comes out,  gets all excited and finds the pellets. Dinner!!

If you buy one Kuhli Loach and your tank is bare except for a corner filter on the bottom, the Kuhli Loach will hide all day under the filter. The MORE hiding places he has, the MORE you will see him. Sounds strange but it is true. He will come out and move from place to place searching for food. When you have more than one Kuhli they may all gather under one flat rock, then one will poke his head out, then one will dash out an inch or two, then they all come boiling out of there!

Buy a few little Kuhli Loaches.  I see the Black Kuhli Loaches on sale at Petsmart all of the time. Don’t buy just one. This is important, you can really see that they like to be together . PLEASE buy at least two. I have four and when I toss in their pellets they all come tumbling and squirming out to eat.

Just think, if you were a skinny little snake-like fish wouldn’t you need a friend or two?

Have I mentioned to buy them in groups? I promise you will be glad you did!

Tiger Salamanders

No, not in the fish tank. In a terrarium. I told you I would get off-topic once in a while with my other pets!  I have two Tiger Salamanders, and this photo might give you the impression that they are a thrill to keep.

OK I got your picture, go back and hide now.

But they are of a group of salamanders known as Mole Salamanders, because they spend most of their life underground. If you give them a proper home, they will show their appreciation by digging underground and almost never being seen.  I must say they are easy to care for. I feed them earthworms or crickets a few times per week. Keep them in cool place, 70F degrees or less, put in dirt and leaves and moss and a water dish, mist the tank every few days, keeping the substrate lightly moist, and there you have it,  Salamander heaven.

Don’t forget to clean the tank occasionally, a small tank every few weeks, a larger tank may go months before it needs a complete overhaul. Change the water in their dish frequently, at least every other day. They may come out at night and lay in it.

Tiger Salamanders live a long time for such a small creature. Mine are about 5 years old, and they can get to 15 or even 20 years. That’s a lot of worms.

Dang it, fooled again!

Why why why do fish stores sell plants for your aquarium that are not truly aquatic?  Sure, they can live a few months in an aquarium but they will die and then you have to go back to the fish store and buy more and…wait… a… minute… I get it now!

Anyway, tonight I stopped in at our Local Fish Shop. Their plant selection is normally poor, but you never know. Tonight I spotted a bright green leafy plant with brand new roots shooting out from it’s stems. This plant was labeled Green Hedge, $2.29.

I bought a bunch. I got home, opened the bag and planted a bit in one of my Angel tanks.

Looks nice huh?

Here I am holding the plant up by it's lowest section. A water plant would not stand up like this. A water plant does not need to stand up. It lives in water! Green Hedge is not a water plant.

THIS is a water plant. Hold it and it flops over.

I am probably generalizing a bit here, as I am sure some aquatic plants have strong stems but for the most part you can avoid buying land plants for your aquarium if you give them the Flop Test. As usual I did not take my own advice. I will be planting this little plant in some dirt and putting it under the fluorescent lights with our other LAND plants.

More Angels…why not

I know this isn’t The Angelfish Blog but here are a few pics of my Angelfish taken a few months ago. They are bigger and prettier now.

A Free Fish, and how to get two enemies to love each other

Over a year ago a friend was getting rid of his aquariums and supplies. The price was right. I delivered an assortment of beers to him and I got the tanks and supplies. One minor catch was that I needed to take his final remaining fish, a killer African Cichlid. It is a male of the species  Metriaclima estherae, the Red Zebra Cichlid, although you can see this guy is not red at all.

This is one tough fish!

I didn’t have an African Cichlid tank set up, although I used to raise Electric Yellow Cichlids. I also tried to find this mean fellow a home, to no avail, so I put him in his own 20 gallon tank.  I added gravel and rocks, some Java Moss and Hornwort, and he thrived.  After Mr. Red Zebra lived alone for a year there came a time when I needed to put my angry Red-tail Shark somewhere. I decided to take a chance and I put those two together. They tangled with each other for a few weeks and now they co-exist relatively peacefully…two unlikely neighbors.

To get them to live together I had to get past that first few days where the Big Bad African Cichlid was the king of the tank.

I did two things:

I re-arranged the rocks in the tank. The African Cichlid was used to a certain arrangement. Moving the rocks made him less confident that he “owned” this tank.

I added a group of Rosy-Red Minnows, a feeder fish. I put in about a dozen of various sizes and this gave the Cichlid something to chase…and eat.

The Red-tail Shark did get scraped up a bit avoiding the mean Cichlid, but now they get along fine. No, they aren’t really in love but they do tolerate each other.

Saltwater snails that reproduce

I wanted snails for my Saltwater tank. I went to our local fish store, I also went to Petco. They mostly sold Turbo Snails and Astrea Snails. I bought snails at both places.

The snails get old and die or, even worse, they flip over and can’t get back upright, and they die that way. A slow starving death.

I went to a local aquarium shop that SPECIALIZES in saltwater. I asked the owner if there are any saltwater snails that reproduce in the home aquarium. He said no, and I resigned myself to buying the snails he was selling. As I purchased them he actually laughed and said he sold a thousand per week. I bought 5.

Buying snails only to watch them slowly perish seemed wrong somehow.

I was given some Caleurpa and Chaetomorpha (these are plants) from a local aquarist. After a few weeks I noticed some little baby snails in my tank. Months later, I have about 10 dime-sized snails, and I am hoping they reproduce sometime soon.

I think the idea of buying snails that fall over and die is ridiculous. “Buy more because they are cheap”, seems to be the general idea but I cannot do it.

I am in search of the exact species of these snails and I will update this post as soon as I have that information.

The Black Neon Tetra

Side view of my nephew's beautiful community aquarium.

I don’t have any of these fish…yet.  My nephew does and they look gorgeous in his tank.

Every picture I see of his tank the Black Neons are schooling and that’s the whole point of buying a schooling fish!

Their scientific name is Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi, named after one of the giants in the aquarium hobby, Herbert Axelrod. The name alone is enough to make me buy some. Even though Dr. Axelrod has been in legal hot (boiling hot!) water I still look at him as the great name in Tropical Fishkeeping for my generation.

To continue my fascination with scientific names, it is worth pointing out that the Black Neon is not that closely related to the Neon Tetra that we all know. The Neon Tetra is Paracheirodon innesi  (named after another GREAT name in aquarium history, William Innes) and the genus of the Black Neon is Hyphessobrycon, which makes it more closely related to the Serpae Tetra, Hyphessobrycon eques and the Bleeding Heart Tetra, Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma , among many, many others.  I can’t help it, I think that is damn fascinating.

For additional notes about these fish please see the comments on this post.

The Royal Gramma, subtitled DON’T PANIC

In the Nemo movie, the Royal Gramma is named "Gurgle".

Four years ago I added a Royal Gramma to my saltwater tank.

The Royal Gramma seemed healthy at first, but his tailfin was slightly ragged. Then it got worse, the tailfin was getting smaller. Even scarier, a parasitic worm started to emerge from his head!! At that time, my tank had some hermit crabs and snails and I was very leery of using any medications.

The Gramma was still eating so I decided to raise the temperature of the tank to 82-84F and make sure he got a high protein diet. I fed him lots of shrimp (Brine Shrimp, Krill, and Mysis Shrimp). He continued to eat, the other fish did not seem to be “catching” any of his disease, and after a few weeks he started to improve.

As I recall, this process took about a month, but once he recovered he has been in great health ever since. I hope I have him another 4 years!

When the Royal gramma  “yawns” you can see that he is capable of eating a fairly large prey item. Occasionally he eats  guppies of various sizes.  He is an extremely capable predator.

The lesson for me at that time was not to panic when I see an illness in my fish tanks. If I see a little sign of tail fungus or mouth fungus or some fish that is “itching” by rubbing against objects, I first think about these things:

1. Is the heater working properly? If the heater fails and the tank drops to
under 70F degrees  there are diseases which may show up. Get the tank back up to temp and go a little higher than usual. I think the lower 80’s is safe and effective.

2. Is the water clean? Have I been neglecting the water changes.? If so, get with it! Make sure to have aged, treated water and get changing it. 20% per day for a week. Watch the fish and see if they improve. I guarantee the overall health of your tank will improve dramatically.

3.Is the sick fish under stress from his tankmates? Just sit down and watch the fish for awhile. Is there an aggressive fish that is harrassing the others? A harrassed fish doesn’t eat as much, plus he is probably getting nipped and shredded a bit. Disease can take hold where the fish is injured.

4. Feed the fish the best quality food you have. Give them frozen Brine Shrimp to keep them excited about eating. Any kind of worms are great, even garden worms that you dig up and chop up. Worms are great protein and the fish will fight over the pieces.

I haven’t always followed my own advice. I have failed to notice a problem when it first began, or I have let a problem go on too long. I have failed to act on something obvious, like getting a beat-up fish out of a tank before it is too late. I have under medicated or over medicated, all out of laziness or ignorance. Having fish can mean heartbreak, especially when you know it your fault.