How to keep your fish and kids
Well most people have tried to keep fish at some stage, some people have success, but most end up k i l l i n g their fish. I’m
writing this to save lives! And too stop the heart ache of the little ones who love their fish so much. There are a few simple steps to successful fish keeping. Tank size and filter choice, type of fish, type of food and temperature of the water all come into play. So with a little help and good luck every one can keep fish.
To put it simply a fish tank is a “mini environment”, this environment consists of three main things. Bacteria, fish and algae and plants, the most important part of this environment is the bacteria! Fish (as do all animals) produces ammonia as it wasted produce, ammonia it toxic to most living things and if in high enough levels will kill almost every thing.
The Nitrogen Cycle:
The Nitrogen Cycle (cycle) happens in every ones tank, this cycle will happen naturally in 4-6 weeks. The cycle is the Nitrifying Bacteria (bacteria) colonizing the tank, so that fish and other organisms can live without there own waste produces killing them.
The bacteria works by converting the toxic ammonia into nitrites(also toxic) and then into “non toxic” nitrates. This cycle is the corner stone of all fish tanks, if you do not let your tank cycle you will have fish deaths, and it will be imposable to have large numbers of fish.
The bacteria will colonize on any surface, the larger the bacteria colony the better. Water flow is needed to make sure all the bacteria are happy and feed. The colony highest population in going to be in your filter, sponges, gravel and bio noodles provides a great place for a colony to grow, as it has a huge surface area.
A bacteria colony is fragile, DO NOT clean the filter in tap water. The chlorine with destroy the colony and you will have to start again. You can over clean a tank very easily. Only change 1/3 of the water at ones. To clean the filter use a bucket with tank water.
How do you run a Nitrogen Cycle:
Running a cycle is a “Catch 22” by that I mean you need a fish/fishes to produce the ammonia to feed the bacteria colony, but not enough ammonia too killed them. As I stated before it takes 4-6 weeks to run a cycle
Cycle is a fine line, over feeding, over population and wrong fish choice will lead to fish death. The key to cycling is to take it easy, and follow these guild lines:
- · Do not over feed your fish, the fish should finish there meal in under 30 seconds
- · Do not over populate, you want the minimum amount of fish necessary to cycle the tank
- · Do not buy baby or scale less fish (catfish and loaches), these fish have very little tolerance for ammonia and nitrites
- · Do not change the water during the cycle
- · Buy hardy fish, some times you have to buy the ones you don’t like, just so they can run the cycle
During the cycle there is a pattern that happens, the ammonia level climb for approximately 2-3 weeks, then drops away to be replaced by climbing levels nitrites. Finally after another 2-3 weeks the levels of nitrites drops away to ever climbing levels of nitrates.
Your tanks progress should be checked to insure that the cycle has completed prior to adding any extra fish. Your local aquarium shop should be able to help you. Any competent store will check for:
- · PH
- · KH (carbonate hardness)
- · Ammonia
- · Nitrites
- · Nitrates
- · And possible Phosphates too
If your local shop does not do these test find some where else too go.
Once only nitrates are found in the water, start doing regular partial water changes, I recommend you change 1/3 once a week. This will limit the levels of nitrates and algae, and keep the fish happy. Keeping the nitrates down maximize the life of the fish and the overall size it will grow.
Your stable environment:
At this stage you have a stable environment (that is it will sustain life). Most people want an incomplete environment in their tank, this is easier said than done. Algae will quickly grow to use up the excessive nitrates in the water. Algae will not hurt your fish, it just looks ugly.
At this stage you can add more fish safely, the overall number of fish you can have in your tank is determined by the size of the fish and the amount of water. I use a simple ratio.
- 10 liters = 1 inch/25.4mm cubed
This means for every 10 liters of water you can have 1 cubic inch of fish, so if you have 65 liters you can have 6.5 cubic inches of fish. If you apply this ratio to gold fish, 1 small gold fish = 1 cubic inch, so it needs 10 liters of water to be happy. 10 neon tetras would also give you the same “bio mass” of 1 cubic inch so would live in 10 liters too.
If you want to keep “Oscars” you will need 140 liters each fish!!!
If you have any more “fishy” question send me a minti mail.
(May 2008) (
