Angel Fish

Angel fish make a great addition to your aquarium and they are one of the most popular fish for beginners. These fish can have many different coller patterns, some are black others can be orange or they might have black and white stripes like the one above. They can be expensive once mature so I recommend buying them young they will be fully grown in about 3 years if put in the right sized aquarium.

Family: Cichlidea

Temperature: 74 to 80 degrees.

Length: Can get up to 5 inches

Feeding: feed blood worms, flakes, or small live foods

Zebra Danios

Zebra Danios are great fish and they are very energetic and fun to watch. They are also great fish to have in new aquariums.

Feeding: Feed bloodworms, brine shrimp, or flakes

Breeding: egg scatter

Temprature: 70 to 77 degrees

The Boeseman Rainbow Fish

The Boeseman Rainbow Fish is a great fish to have in a community tank with others of the same species. When young they have a silvery gray collor but once they mature they get an unforgetable yellow coller in the back side of them. Here are some ways to improve the Rainbow fishe's coller.

• Keeping tank clean and doing freakwent water changes
• feeding it the right food
• keep in a tank with other rainbow fish

Feeding: Feed bloodworms, flakes, or brine shrimp for best coller.

Temperature: Any where from 72 to 80 degrees.

Breeding: Have a separate breeding tank ready. Put 2 adualts in aquarium and feed plenty of food. Once the female lays the eggs leave both fish in tank until the eggs are about to hatch than remove both fish from breeding tank and put them back in your other aquarium.

Fish Diseases

What to do in Case of Illness

• Remove fish from aquarium.
• Observe fish and take notes on its behaveor so that you can give the pet store dealer a detailed discription of its symptems.
• take fish to pet store and ask for advise on bying medicine for your fish.
• before putting fish back in the aquarium cange one-third of the water in the tank and clean the filter.

Common Diseases

Fin rot

velvet disease

hole disease

white spot disease (ich)

White Spot Disease

About a month after starting my new 25 gallon aquarium I noticed that 2 of my clown loaches had ich. Scaleless bottom dwellers like loaches will usauly be the fist to show signs of disease. The next day I went to the pet store to buy some medicine for my fish. I gave my fish there medicine once a day but the medicine was not helping and I noticed that both of my bala sharks had gotten ich to. I also noticed that one of them had a bactierial infection witch is a secondary disease that happens to weakend fish. A week later both my bala sharks had died and both of my clown loaches died. Now that all the diseased fish were gone my aquarium was back to normal. I was lucky that only four of my fish got infected. If any of your fish get ich be prepared for them to die.

The Clown Loach

The clown loach is a member cobitidea family. These fish have a very long life span, some may live up to 15 years. They also get very large they can get up to 12 inches long so they need a large aquarium, a 50 gallon aquarium is the perfect size for this large fish. The clown loach is at its happiest when it is in groups.


Feeding: It will take flakes, blood worms, brine shrimp, and other meaty foods.

Tempreture: Any where from 75 to 83 degrees

Breeding: Egg layer

Note: When young keep in groups.

The Bala Sark

The bala shark is a member of the cyprinidae family. Don't let the name "shark" fool you this is a very peaceful species that is very easy to take care of and is very easy to feed it will take flakes, frozen meaty foods, and will also take live foods. It is best to keep this fish in water thats tempreture is anywhere from 68 to 79 degrees. This fish will need alot of swimming room. They also like to be in groops of 2 to 6. A tight fitting lid is needed for this fish, it is a good jumper. The only problem with this fish is it will get very big, it can get up to 15 inches long and it might start to be agresive.

Plecostomus

Plecostomus come in many different varieties some grow to be 2 feet and others may only get 6 inches. Plecostomus also can have many different color patterns like the zebra pleco or the leopard pleco. Plecostomus are algae eaters so make sure that you have a good supply of algae if you do not then you can go to a fish store and purchase algae pellets.

Leopard Pleco Golden nugget pleco

Zebra Plecostomus Common plecostomus

Feeding your Fish

Feeding your fish is an important part of taking care of your fish tank, but it is not always easy. Some fish are harder to feed than others are. Most fish will take fish flakes other fish like frozen foods like bloodworms, feeder fish, vegetable pellets, shrimp pellets, and other frozen foods. Some fish will only take live foods.The most important thing to remember when feeding is that you should never over feed your fish because the food that the fish don't eat will go to the bottom of your tank and over time it will poison your fish and they will die, so when in doubt under feed your fish.

steps to starting your aquarium

Steps to Starting Your Aquarium

1. 
   
   
   
   Take the tank outside and wash it out with water.DO NOT USE SOAP!




2. 
   
   
   
   Fill tank with water. If it leaks you will need to repair it.




3. 
   
   
   
   Once you have checked for leaks bring tank inside and place on a sturdy table that will hold the tanks weight.




4. 
   
   
   
   Fill tank with gravel or sand.




5. 
   
   
   
   Fill tank with water and then treat the water with a any type of chlorine remover.




6. 
   
   
   
   Next get the filter for the aquarium. I recomend getting a filter stronger then needed, for instence I have a 25 gallon aquarium and I am using a 30 gallon filter instead of a 25 gallon filter. This way your tank stays cleaner and you can have more fish. Leave filter running for 2 weeks.



7. 
   
   
   Once you have the filter set up youwill need a heater. Put your heater in the aquarium and set to any where from 70 to 80 degrees.



8. 
   
   
   Now comes the fun part decorating your aquarium. Your aquarium needs a good balance of plants and rocks along with a place for your fish to hide. If yo want to have live plants instead of fake plants you will need a good source of light.


9. 
   
   Now you need to buy some fish you should start out with cheap but hardy fish in your aquarium because your aquariums water quality is not good enough yet for the large and fancy fish yet. Here is a list of fish that will do good in new aquariums: Zebra dainos, neon tetras, cardnal tetras, serpa tetras, black tetras, guppys, flying foxes, anglefish, green cory, bronze cory, panda cory three-line cory, a plecostomus, black mollies, common swordtails, and dalmatian platies. Once you have some of these fish in your aquarium after a while your water quality will enprove and you can get some large fancy fish.