Looking After Tropical Fish

Welcome to my blog on keeping tropical fish, I hope that you find some useful information here to help you look after, breed and enjoy your fish.

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Caring For Tropical Fish

Discus Fish Care:

Much to the surprise of many tropic fish owners, discus fish care has revealed special features specific to this breed that makes it stand apart. Therefore, when you design your aquarium make sure you plan the discus fish care area properly. They make great friends and pets; as you will find out, discus fish respond to you and have a social and bonding behavior unparalleled by other breed. When you make discus fish care a hobby, you’ll see they react in the most pleasant of ways, watching you moving around the room or even eating out of your hand. No wonder people love them.

Considered the pride of any fish breeder, discus fish and their care raise a few issues, though not to complex I dare say. When you plan your aquarium it is really important to set up its purpose: is it going to be a family show tank or can the discus fish use it for breeding? Discus fish care is not painstaking at all; on the contrary, it brings immense satisfaction. For instance the family habits you notice during discus fish care moments will stress out the active role the male discus takes in the raising of their fry.

Keep in mind the fact that these fish are extremely clean and they like pure water all the time. Therefore, a special part of the discus fish care should focus on keeping a close watch on water recycling, temperature and the oxygen level. In order to avoid various diseases due to improper discus fish care make sure all the living parameters are within the normal values. For instance, good discus fish care means the water is at a temperature of 31 degrees Celsius at the maximum; if it gets warmer the level of oxygen drops and you’ll be confronted to oxygen starvation.

Another aspect of discus fish care is the establishing of colonies of nitrifying bacteria in the filter. This is essential since no discus fish care measures allow you to put the fish in a tank without these bacteria. They are responsible for keeping the ammonia and the nitrites under control by consuming the fish waste as food. Therefore, you may choose several nitrification methods in the process of discus fish care, the most important being the type of filter you decide to use. Plants also contribute to reducing the amount of toxic substances in the water, but you will still have to change it on a regular basis.

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Monday 10 September 2007

Breeding Tropical Fish - Discus Fish

It is not uncommon that exotic fish owners find breeding discus fish a little bit difficult to get baby discus. The hardest part about breeding discus fish is finding the right mates, this issue rises from the fact discus like to choose their partners alone, and not anyone suits their “taste”. Under such circumstances, you’ve got two solutions for breeding discus fish: you can either buy a couple or raise them together in a group and hope they will make couples. The first variant is not the happiest, since a discus fish couple can be as expensive as a few hundred dollars, which is a lot.

Therefore, the most advantageous option you’ve got is to start breeding discus fish by creating a discus group of at least six members and keep the fingers crossed that you get at least one couple. How do you recognize mates? Well, breeding discus fish is not that difficult from now on if you follow some basic rules. First of all, the “new-weds” will delimitate a perimeter in the tank and will start defending it against trespassers. This means it’s time for you to move to the second phase of breeding discus fish.

You should prepare a separate tank for your breeding discus fish and keep it as simple as possible. There’s no need to put anything on the bottom of the fish tank, all they need is a vertical surface where they could lay their eggs. Your breeding discus fish should soon begin to spawn. Don’t worry about the eggs that look whitish, those are infertile for sure, as for the rest, it is possible that the parents may eat some of them and protect the others. The good part about breeding discus fish is that they feed their own siblings for a few weeks.

In about three weeks time, you’ll have to move the fry into a special tank as it is not uncommon that the breeding discus fish be injured by their own babies who eat their scales for instance. Once they’re off the parenthood responsibility, the breeding discus fish will begin a new cycle of reproduction and you may have some more siblings soon afterwards. Feeding and water are essential all throughout the breeding period, so, make sure that you don’t make any mistakes. For further professional information on breeding discus fish you can always turn to the advice available on http://www.discus-fish-secrets.com/.

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