This is an 11 step guide to setting up a freshwater aquarium in your home.
Equipment you will need: Aquarium gravel Aquarium filter Replacement filter media Heater Other decorations (such as plants) Chemical test kits Fish food Aquarium vacuum Fish net Glass Scrubber 5-gallon bucket Pasta strainer
STEP 1: Realize the responsibility involved. A tropical fish tank is just like having a dog or a cat when it comes to the amount of effort on your part. In order to have a successful fish tank you will have to work at it. Once a week, or at most once every two weeks, you will need to perform some kind of maintenance on the tank. Most of the time you will be performing water changes. You will also have to feed your tropical fish at least once a day. If you are up to the challenge, please proceed!
STEP 2: Decide on an aquarium size. It’s a good idea to have in mind what kind of tropical fish you want to keep before you purchase an aquarium. Some tropical fish only grow to be an inch or two, whereas other types of tropical fish can grow 12 or 13 inches in length! Knowing what kind of tropical fish you want will help you decide the size of the tank they will need. If this is your first time with an aquarium, I would recommend going with a 10 or 20 gallon aquarium for now.
STEP 3: Decide on the aquarium’s location. Place your aquarium in an area where the light and temperature of the tank won’t be affected by external sources such as windows and heater vents. You will want to place your aquarium on a stand that will be able to hold its total weight. A good rule of thumb for determining the total weight of a full aquarium is 10 pounds per gallon of water. For example, a 55-gallon tank will weigh approximately 550 pounds when filled with water!
STEP 4: Buy your aquarium and equipment. Now is the time to decide on the type of filtration you will want to use. You will also need to purchase a heater capable of heating the tank size you have. Buy the gravel, plants, a power strip and other decorations. A good rule of thumb for the amount of gravel that you will need is 1 to 1.5 pounds of gravel per gallon of water.
STEP 5: Set up your aquarium and stand. Wash out your tank with water only! Do not use soap or detergents. Soap residue left behind will be harmful for your tropical fish. If you are going to use an under gravel filter (not recommended) now would be the time to set it up as well.
STEP 6: Wash Gravel, plants and decorations. Be sure to wash the gravel thoroughly before adding it to your tank. An easy way to do this is to put some of the rocks in a pasta strainer and wash them out in your bathtub. Then place the clean gravel in a clean 5-gallon bucket for transport to the aquarium. After adding the gravel you can place your plants and decorations.
STEP 7: Add water to the aquarium. To avoid messing up your gravel and plants, you can place a plate or saucer in the middle of your aquarium and direct the water flow onto the plate. Use room temperature water when filling. To remove the chlorine and chloramine, use something like Tetra AquaSafe for Aquariums. Don’t completely fill up the aquarium until you are sure of the layout of your decorations. Otherwise, when you place your arm in to move stuff around water is going to spill over.
STEP 8: Set up equipment. Install your heater but don’t plug it in until the thermostat in the heater has adjusted to the water temperature. This usually takes about 15 minutes or so. Hook up your filter and any other equipment you have, then top off the aquarium water to just under the hood lip. Place your hood and light on the aquarium and then check your power cords to be sure that they are free of water. I would also recommend using a drip loop on all of the power cords to be extra cautious. Plug all of the equipment into a power strip and then ?turn on? the aquarium.
STEP 9. Wait, wait, wait and then wait some more. I know, you want to add some tropical fish. But, in order to do this right you must wait until your aquarium has cycled before adding any fish. There are ways of speeding up this process. Check out the nitrogen cycle page to learn more. If you must use fish to cycle, try to get a hardier species like the zebra danio or cherry barb.
STEP 10. Add tropical fish. Only add one or two fish at a time. Adding a couple tropical fish at a time gives your filtration system the time needed to take on the increased biological load that the new fish introduce. When you bring the fish home let the bag float in the tank for about 15 minutes so that the fish can become acclimated to the temperature and pH of the aquarium water. After 5 minutes of floating the bag you should add some of the aquarium water to the bag so that the fish can become acclimated to the pH level in the aquarium. This will help reduce the amount of stress imposed on the tropical fish. Stressed tropical fish often leads to dead tropical fish! Don’t feed your tropical fish on the first day. They probably wouldn’t eat any food on the first day anyway. Let them get acquainted with their new home.
STEP 11. Get ready for regular maintenance. Be prepared to spend some time once every week or two to clean your tank. Performing regular water changes will reduce the nitrate levels and keep your tropical fish happy and healthy.
Pets Pantry
February 18, 2010
Pets Pantry has all the equipment you will need to set up a new aquarium for coldwater and tropical fish in our Aquarium Supplies department. Whether you need an air pump , aquarium filter , ornaments or just new gravel we have the lot at Pets Pantry.
Fish Food Tips
February 18, 2010
A balanced diet for your aquarium fish is essential to their survival. Most of the commercially available dry fish foods are almost always unbalanced. In many cases, the vitamin content will gradually decline at room temperature and since majority of the dry food for tropical fish commonly used will only keep for about three months, it is always advisable to buy fish-feeds in many small packs rather than in one large pack.
The feed could preferably be kept absolutely dry in a refrigerator. However, all fish appreciate a change of diet and will thank you for your consideration with more interesting behavior, better colors, and greater readiness to breed and better general well -being. This change of diet should be supplemented with live food; majority of which now come in irradiated freeze dried forms to make sure that they are disease free.
I will mention a few that could be found handy in some major aquarium shops and I will group them into two. And they are flake foods and freeze-dried foods
Flake foods
Most popular and highly recommended brands are Aquarian?, Tetra?, and Wardley?. They are varying in cost and quality. Wardley is the least expensive among the three. However, the Aquarian and Tetra are richer in specialty flakes compare to Wardley.
Freeze-dried foods
You will also find freeze-dried foods available in aquarium stores. They are favorite foods for aquarium fish. They have single animal-ingredient like mosquito larvae, blood worms and Tubifex worm each. Aquarist should note that freeze-foods are not in themselves complete diet but they can be combine to flake food or other type of freeze-dried foods. We shall discuss more about Tubifex as a popular freeze-dried food.
TUBIFEX – This is a traditional favorite food relished by most fishes. They are small red worms that live at the bottom of streams and rivers particularly where large amounts of organic matter are present. Therefore, it is difficult for the aquarist to collect them life from their habitat. It is therefore preferable to buy Tubifex from pet shops where they are already clean, freeze-dried and concentrated into cube forms.
From personal experience, Tubifex tubes could probably be the most exciting feed to use for fishes. The cube can be stuck to the front inside wall of the aquarium. The fishes in the tank will immediately come forward and bit off pieces of worms excitedly until satisfied.
You need not bother to remove the rest worms since they seldom pollute and in most case fishes return to the feed for further fill.
Bristlenose Catfish
By: Jan Hvizdak
Probably the most “common” fish in aquatic shops. Usually dark, sometimes with a small moustache, there is nothing sharp in the aquarium at all. It often sucks the bottom of the tank. But these are just the first impressions.
When you take a more in depth look, you will see how superlative this fish is. Ancistrus is a fine and good-looking fish which complements many freshwater aquariums.
I have kept ancistrus fish for more than 4 years and they have become an integral part of my tanks and my hobby. At first I bought only 4 of them and I didn’t know how to differentiate males from females. Fortunately, my aquarium was suitable for them and they did well. As time went by, the males acquired a moustache, all of them grew larger, and they all got a very nice coloration. After 2 years of successful keeping this nice species of fish, I decided to buy a larger tank. They liked it, because I saw small tails after few months. They sucked on wood all day long, and they showed me how beautiful they are. Generally speaking, people say that breeding ancistrus fish is not an easy task, but the environment in my tank did what I expected. The number of ancistrus in this tank has increased since that moment.
What do people need to know if they decide to keep Bristlenose catfish successfully? You can find a lot of information about water hardness, temperature, etc. in books. You may hear the same in shops and aquarists would tell you it again and again. I’d like to tell you a shortened version of these facts only including the most important information.
What kind of aquarium is most suitable for Bristlenose catfish?
I prefer tanks with many hiding-places, so they will be able to breed in peaceful conditions and small newborns will survive even if there are also larger fish in the tank. When you keep scalare or gouramis, then you will do better if the tank is planted heavily. I have 2 tanks and it happened to me, that gouramis ate all the newborn ancistrus but one. This one is still in my aquarium. The fish tank can be low; it won’t hurt “their business”. Bristlenose likes oxygen and the young need it at the bottom of tank. You can’t expect them to swim to the surface, because larger fish may eat them easily. When ancistrus grows up to 2 cm, it shouldn’t be considered as dinner by other fish.
What about the temperature of the aquarium?
Bristlenose will survive in 18°C water, but I don’t recommend you to keep them under 21°C. I just forgot to close the window one night during winter… I keep water temperature between 22-25°C. Of course, summer means higher values. They feel better when temperature is higher.
What does Bristlenose eat?
I don’t want to make any advertisement campaign, but I fed them with Sera tablets since I bought the first one (first 4). Only meat and vegetables. It is full of vitamins and is a really good solution, and I am yet to have mass disease in my tanks (fortunately). More ancistrus, more tablets.
Water hardness, ph and what else?
I have never measured any ph or dh in my tanks. In my opinion, an aquarium has to be something natural, not something that looks like a lab. I just keep them, I’m trying to satisfy their needs and I want them to feel good. I haven’t changed any water in my tanks for more than 2 years and I just top up water that has evaporated off.
Of course, I recommend to keep aquarium, fish and plants healthy.
What should you know before buying Bristlenose catfish?
1. This fish lives usually 8+ years. Don’t buy any Bristlenose if you plan to keep your aquarium for only 1-2 years.
2. Bristlenose is very peaceful fish. But it still needs its area. Adult males sometimes fight other males when they meet each other. But they don’t fight to the death. Naturally, when Bristlenose fish breed, the tank would become full of fish. This is not a reason to sell them or to give them to other people. I recommend to sell/give them when they’re adult or when they grow up to 6 cm. Two reasons why: firstly, they will easily survive in the new tank; secondly, they will cost more when they are adult as they are larger and more beautiful.
3. Bristlenose likes tablets! Often the shop assistant sells this fish and says “It will eat all algae in your tanks.” This is not true for adult fish. Unlike adults, newborns like algae much more. Until they are 2-3 cm long, they will eat it all day long.
4. Bristlenose catfish needs wood! Once I had two Bristlenose catfish without wood and they didn’t do well. When I moved wood into that tank, they became more active immediately. It is place where they can hide and where small fish can eat algae.
Author Bio
Originally published at http://www.aqua-fish.net.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content
Pets Pantry
February 28, 2010
If you are thinking of keeping Catfish or any other tropical fish, we have a comprehensive range of tropical fish foods here at Pets Pantry as well as most of the aquarium supplies you will need to keep you fish fit and healthy.
Breeding Livebearers - Guppies & Swordtails
February 28, 2010
By: Mike Magnum, http://www.FishLore.com
Equipment Needed:
· Breeder Box or Breeder Net
· Breeding Grass
· 5 or 10 gallon tank for the baby fish or a tank divider that you can use for your main tank.
· A pair – 1 female and 1 male
Two of the more popular tropical fish for beginners has to be Guppies and Swordtails. Guppies and Swordtails are livebearers, which means that their babies come out swimming. Like most livebearers, there is not much to getting your guppies or swordtail to breed. If you have a male and a female then you will eventually have a pregnant female. The gestation period for livebearers is usually 28 days but can range from 20 to 40 days.
Place the male and female in the same tank together and they will soon mate. You are probably asking, how can I tell when the female is pregnant? When a female guppy is pregnant she will develop a dark triangular shaped gravid spot near her anal vent. This will get larger and darker as the pregnancy progresses. While you are waiting on the female to develop the fry it’s time to make sure you are prepared for the delivery. We use plastic breeder boxes and always have without any problems. A breeder box is a small box plastic box about 4 inches long by 3 inches wide and 4 inches deep. There is a removable “V” shaped trap in it, which serves to separate the mother from the babies. When the mother fish has babies they fall through the slot in the “V” into the bottom of the box. After the mother is finished having babies, you can remove the “V” trap so that the babies have more room to grow. Some people have had bad experiences with breeder boxes and now only use breeding net. It is also a good idea to purchase some real or plastic breeding grass for the top of the aquarium. The breeding grass is just in case the mother gives birth before you have a chance to put her in the breeder box. The young babies instinctively will swim to the top of the aquarium and the breeder grass provides a great hiding place so they won’t get eaten by the bigger fish in your tank.
To feed your new arrivals you can use finely crushed flake food. Using your fingers, you can rub the flakes into a fine powder. Some only feed live foods such as baby brine shrimp. Live foods would definitely be the best way to go, but for most this is simply not feasible. Crushed or powdered flake food will suffice. Try to feed the babies 3 very small meals per day. You will invariably feed too much and the excess food will drop to the bottom of the tank or breeder box. To clean a breeder box we like to take a 3 ft. length of aquarium tubing and a small bucket. Use the tubing as a siphon to clean the bottom of the breeder box. Be careful not to siphon any baby fish.
Try to perform 25% water changes weekly for your baby guppies. This will aid in the optimal growth of your baby tropical fish. After a few weeks in the breeder box your new babies will soon outgrow their home and you will need to move them either to a new tank or your main tank with a divider installed. By 8 weeks old your baby fish will most likely be able to return to the main tank without a divider. However, it really depends on the size of the other inhabitants in your aquarium. Use your best judgement before releasing them into the main tank.
Whether you are going for that one of kind strain or if you simply find small fry swimming in the top of your tank one day after work, please be responsible with your fish. If you have more than you can accommodate you can try trading them or maybe even selling them to a local fish store in your area. Talk to your local pet stores beforehand to see if you can work out some sort of arrangement. You can also use this opportunity to get your friends interested in fish.
Author Bio
Mike is an editor at FishLore.com. Designed for beginners, FishLore.com provides tropical fish information, how-to guides, articles, fish profiles, FAQs, forums and more! http://www.FishLore.com – Tropical Fish Information
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content
Pets Pantry
February 28, 2010
If you need to update or renew any of your aquarium equipment, Pets Pantry is a great place to start.
8 Comments
This is an 11 step guide to setting up a freshwater aquarium in your home.
Equipment you will need: Aquarium gravel Aquarium filter Replacement filter media Heater Other decorations (such as plants) Chemical test kits Fish food Aquarium vacuum Fish net Glass Scrubber 5-gallon bucket Pasta strainer
STEP 1: Realize the responsibility involved. A tropical fish tank is just like having a dog or a cat when it comes to the amount of effort on your part. In order to have a successful fish tank you will have to work at it. Once a week, or at most once every two weeks, you will need to perform some kind of maintenance on the tank. Most of the time you will be performing water changes. You will also have to feed your tropical fish at least once a day. If you are up to the challenge, please proceed!
STEP 2: Decide on an aquarium size. It’s a good idea to have in mind what kind of tropical fish you want to keep before you purchase an aquarium. Some tropical fish only grow to be an inch or two, whereas other types of tropical fish can grow 12 or 13 inches in length! Knowing what kind of tropical fish you want will help you decide the size of the tank they will need. If this is your first time with an aquarium, I would recommend going with a 10 or 20 gallon aquarium for now.
STEP 3: Decide on the aquarium’s location. Place your aquarium in an area where the light and temperature of the tank won’t be affected by external sources such as windows and heater vents. You will want to place your aquarium on a stand that will be able to hold its total weight. A good rule of thumb for determining the total weight of a full aquarium is 10 pounds per gallon of water. For example, a 55-gallon tank will weigh approximately 550 pounds when filled with water!
STEP 4: Buy your aquarium and equipment. Now is the time to decide on the type of filtration you will want to use. You will also need to purchase a heater capable of heating the tank size you have. Buy the gravel, plants, a power strip and other decorations. A good rule of thumb for the amount of gravel that you will need is 1 to 1.5 pounds of gravel per gallon of water.
STEP 5: Set up your aquarium and stand. Wash out your tank with water only! Do not use soap or detergents. Soap residue left behind will be harmful for your tropical fish. If you are going to use an under gravel filter (not recommended) now would be the time to set it up as well.
STEP 6: Wash Gravel, plants and decorations. Be sure to wash the gravel thoroughly before adding it to your tank. An easy way to do this is to put some of the rocks in a pasta strainer and wash them out in your bathtub. Then place the clean gravel in a clean 5-gallon bucket for transport to the aquarium. After adding the gravel you can place your plants and decorations.
STEP 7: Add water to the aquarium. To avoid messing up your gravel and plants, you can place a plate or saucer in the middle of your aquarium and direct the water flow onto the plate. Use room temperature water when filling. To remove the chlorine and chloramine, use something like Tetra AquaSafe for Aquariums. Don’t completely fill up the aquarium until you are sure of the layout of your decorations. Otherwise, when you place your arm in to move stuff around water is going to spill over.
STEP 8: Set up equipment. Install your heater but don’t plug it in until the thermostat in the heater has adjusted to the water temperature. This usually takes about 15 minutes or so. Hook up your filter and any other equipment you have, then top off the aquarium water to just under the hood lip. Place your hood and light on the aquarium and then check your power cords to be sure that they are free of water. I would also recommend using a drip loop on all of the power cords to be extra cautious. Plug all of the equipment into a power strip and then ?turn on? the aquarium.
STEP 9. Wait, wait, wait and then wait some more. I know, you want to add some tropical fish. But, in order to do this right you must wait until your aquarium has cycled before adding any fish. There are ways of speeding up this process. Check out the nitrogen cycle page to learn more. If you must use fish to cycle, try to get a hardier species like the zebra danio or cherry barb.
STEP 10. Add tropical fish. Only add one or two fish at a time. Adding a couple tropical fish at a time gives your filtration system the time needed to take on the increased biological load that the new fish introduce. When you bring the fish home let the bag float in the tank for about 15 minutes so that the fish can become acclimated to the temperature and pH of the aquarium water. After 5 minutes of floating the bag you should add some of the aquarium water to the bag so that the fish can become acclimated to the pH level in the aquarium. This will help reduce the amount of stress imposed on the tropical fish. Stressed tropical fish often leads to dead tropical fish! Don’t feed your tropical fish on the first day. They probably wouldn’t eat any food on the first day anyway. Let them get acquainted with their new home.
STEP 11. Get ready for regular maintenance. Be prepared to spend some time once every week or two to clean your tank. Performing regular water changes will reduce the nitrate levels and keep your tropical fish happy and healthy.
Pets Pantry has all the equipment you will need to set up a new aquarium for coldwater and tropical fish in our Aquarium Supplies department. Whether you need an air pump , aquarium filter , ornaments or just new gravel we have the lot at Pets Pantry.
A balanced diet for your aquarium fish is essential to their survival. Most of the commercially available dry fish foods are almost always unbalanced. In many cases, the vitamin content will gradually decline at room temperature and since majority of the dry food for tropical fish commonly used will only keep for about three months, it is always advisable to buy fish-feeds in many small packs rather than in one large pack.
The feed could preferably be kept absolutely dry in a refrigerator. However, all fish appreciate a change of diet and will thank you for your consideration with more interesting behavior, better colors, and greater readiness to breed and better general well -being. This change of diet should be supplemented with live food; majority of which now come in irradiated freeze dried forms to make sure that they are disease free.
I will mention a few that could be found handy in some major aquarium shops and I will group them into two. And they are flake foods and freeze-dried foods
Flake foods
Most popular and highly recommended brands are Aquarian?, Tetra?, and Wardley?. They are varying in cost and quality. Wardley is the least expensive among the three. However, the Aquarian and Tetra are richer in specialty flakes compare to Wardley.
Freeze-dried foods
You will also find freeze-dried foods available in aquarium stores. They are favorite foods for aquarium fish. They have single animal-ingredient like mosquito larvae, blood worms and Tubifex worm each. Aquarist should note that freeze-foods are not in themselves complete diet but they can be combine to flake food or other type of freeze-dried foods. We shall discuss more about Tubifex as a popular freeze-dried food.
TUBIFEX – This is a traditional favorite food relished by most fishes. They are small red worms that live at the bottom of streams and rivers particularly where large amounts of organic matter are present. Therefore, it is difficult for the aquarist to collect them life from their habitat. It is therefore preferable to buy Tubifex from pet shops where they are already clean, freeze-dried and concentrated into cube forms.
From personal experience, Tubifex tubes could probably be the most exciting feed to use for fishes. The cube can be stuck to the front inside wall of the aquarium. The fishes in the tank will immediately come forward and bit off pieces of worms excitedly until satisfied.
You need not bother to remove the rest worms since they seldom pollute and in most case fishes return to the feed for further fill.
Here at Pets Pantry you will find a huge range of fish foods for coldwater and tropical fish. We also have turtle and terrapin foods and plenty of different pond foods as well.
Bristlenose Catfish
By: Jan Hvizdak
Probably the most “common” fish in aquatic shops. Usually dark, sometimes with a small moustache, there is nothing sharp in the aquarium at all. It often sucks the bottom of the tank. But these are just the first impressions.
When you take a more in depth look, you will see how superlative this fish is. Ancistrus is a fine and good-looking fish which complements many freshwater aquariums.
I have kept ancistrus fish for more than 4 years and they have become an integral part of my tanks and my hobby. At first I bought only 4 of them and I didn’t know how to differentiate males from females. Fortunately, my aquarium was suitable for them and they did well. As time went by, the males acquired a moustache, all of them grew larger, and they all got a very nice coloration. After 2 years of successful keeping this nice species of fish, I decided to buy a larger tank. They liked it, because I saw small tails after few months. They sucked on wood all day long, and they showed me how beautiful they are. Generally speaking, people say that breeding ancistrus fish is not an easy task, but the environment in my tank did what I expected. The number of ancistrus in this tank has increased since that moment.
What do people need to know if they decide to keep Bristlenose catfish successfully? You can find a lot of information about water hardness, temperature, etc. in books. You may hear the same in shops and aquarists would tell you it again and again. I’d like to tell you a shortened version of these facts only including the most important information.
What kind of aquarium is most suitable for Bristlenose catfish?
I prefer tanks with many hiding-places, so they will be able to breed in peaceful conditions and small newborns will survive even if there are also larger fish in the tank. When you keep scalare or gouramis, then you will do better if the tank is planted heavily. I have 2 tanks and it happened to me, that gouramis ate all the newborn ancistrus but one. This one is still in my aquarium. The fish tank can be low; it won’t hurt “their business”. Bristlenose likes oxygen and the young need it at the bottom of tank. You can’t expect them to swim to the surface, because larger fish may eat them easily. When ancistrus grows up to 2 cm, it shouldn’t be considered as dinner by other fish.
What about the temperature of the aquarium?
Bristlenose will survive in 18°C water, but I don’t recommend you to keep them under 21°C. I just forgot to close the window one night during winter… I keep water temperature between 22-25°C. Of course, summer means higher values. They feel better when temperature is higher.
What does Bristlenose eat?
I don’t want to make any advertisement campaign, but I fed them with Sera tablets since I bought the first one (first 4). Only meat and vegetables. It is full of vitamins and is a really good solution, and I am yet to have mass disease in my tanks (fortunately). More ancistrus, more tablets.
Water hardness, ph and what else?
I have never measured any ph or dh in my tanks. In my opinion, an aquarium has to be something natural, not something that looks like a lab. I just keep them, I’m trying to satisfy their needs and I want them to feel good. I haven’t changed any water in my tanks for more than 2 years and I just top up water that has evaporated off.
Of course, I recommend to keep aquarium, fish and plants healthy.
What should you know before buying Bristlenose catfish?
1. This fish lives usually 8+ years. Don’t buy any Bristlenose if you plan to keep your aquarium for only 1-2 years.
2. Bristlenose is very peaceful fish. But it still needs its area. Adult males sometimes fight other males when they meet each other. But they don’t fight to the death. Naturally, when Bristlenose fish breed, the tank would become full of fish. This is not a reason to sell them or to give them to other people. I recommend to sell/give them when they’re adult or when they grow up to 6 cm. Two reasons why: firstly, they will easily survive in the new tank; secondly, they will cost more when they are adult as they are larger and more beautiful.
3. Bristlenose likes tablets! Often the shop assistant sells this fish and says “It will eat all algae in your tanks.” This is not true for adult fish. Unlike adults, newborns like algae much more. Until they are 2-3 cm long, they will eat it all day long.
4. Bristlenose catfish needs wood! Once I had two Bristlenose catfish without wood and they didn’t do well. When I moved wood into that tank, they became more active immediately. It is place where they can hide and where small fish can eat algae.
Author Bio
Originally published at http://www.aqua-fish.net.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content
If you are thinking of keeping Catfish or any other tropical fish, we have a comprehensive range of tropical fish foods here at Pets Pantry as well as most of the aquarium supplies you will need to keep you fish fit and healthy.
By: Mike Magnum, http://www.FishLore.com
Equipment Needed:
· Breeder Box or Breeder Net
· Breeding Grass
· 5 or 10 gallon tank for the baby fish or a tank divider that you can use for your main tank.
· A pair – 1 female and 1 male
Two of the more popular tropical fish for beginners has to be Guppies and Swordtails. Guppies and Swordtails are livebearers, which means that their babies come out swimming. Like most livebearers, there is not much to getting your guppies or swordtail to breed. If you have a male and a female then you will eventually have a pregnant female. The gestation period for livebearers is usually 28 days but can range from 20 to 40 days.
Place the male and female in the same tank together and they will soon mate. You are probably asking, how can I tell when the female is pregnant? When a female guppy is pregnant she will develop a dark triangular shaped gravid spot near her anal vent. This will get larger and darker as the pregnancy progresses. While you are waiting on the female to develop the fry it’s time to make sure you are prepared for the delivery. We use plastic breeder boxes and always have without any problems. A breeder box is a small box plastic box about 4 inches long by 3 inches wide and 4 inches deep. There is a removable “V” shaped trap in it, which serves to separate the mother from the babies. When the mother fish has babies they fall through the slot in the “V” into the bottom of the box. After the mother is finished having babies, you can remove the “V” trap so that the babies have more room to grow. Some people have had bad experiences with breeder boxes and now only use breeding net. It is also a good idea to purchase some real or plastic breeding grass for the top of the aquarium. The breeding grass is just in case the mother gives birth before you have a chance to put her in the breeder box. The young babies instinctively will swim to the top of the aquarium and the breeder grass provides a great hiding place so they won’t get eaten by the bigger fish in your tank.
To feed your new arrivals you can use finely crushed flake food. Using your fingers, you can rub the flakes into a fine powder. Some only feed live foods such as baby brine shrimp. Live foods would definitely be the best way to go, but for most this is simply not feasible. Crushed or powdered flake food will suffice. Try to feed the babies 3 very small meals per day. You will invariably feed too much and the excess food will drop to the bottom of the tank or breeder box. To clean a breeder box we like to take a 3 ft. length of aquarium tubing and a small bucket. Use the tubing as a siphon to clean the bottom of the breeder box. Be careful not to siphon any baby fish.
Try to perform 25% water changes weekly for your baby guppies. This will aid in the optimal growth of your baby tropical fish. After a few weeks in the breeder box your new babies will soon outgrow their home and you will need to move them either to a new tank or your main tank with a divider installed. By 8 weeks old your baby fish will most likely be able to return to the main tank without a divider. However, it really depends on the size of the other inhabitants in your aquarium. Use your best judgement before releasing them into the main tank.
Whether you are going for that one of kind strain or if you simply find small fry swimming in the top of your tank one day after work, please be responsible with your fish. If you have more than you can accommodate you can try trading them or maybe even selling them to a local fish store in your area. Talk to your local pet stores beforehand to see if you can work out some sort of arrangement. You can also use this opportunity to get your friends interested in fish.
Author Bio
Mike is an editor at FishLore.com. Designed for beginners, FishLore.com provides tropical fish information, how-to guides, articles, fish profiles, FAQs, forums and more! http://www.FishLore.com – Tropical Fish Information
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content
If you need to update or renew any of your aquarium equipment, Pets Pantry is a great place to start.