Planet Fish Tank
&
Garden Pond
The main mistakes new fishkeepers make are: not big enough tank, too many fish, and too big a fish. Bettas and goldfish, as easy first fish, are the most often abused by keeping in mere bowls. In their native habitat, bettas temporarily may be in a puddle, but they leap, as soon as possible to larger water sources. Goldfish grow quite large, and tend to rip up plants and swallow anything that fits in their mouths.
The other thing new fishkeepers need to know is The Nitrogen Cycle. It's a basic science thing from school that we've all forgotten. In the case of a tank, fish poop = ammonia = NO2 = (changed by friendly bacteria into) NO3 (which fertilizes plants). Ammonia and NO2 are toxic. It takes a month or so to get your tank "cycled"...which means don't add fish until then. You can speed things up with products you add to the water like Quick Start, which add the necessary bacteria. Filters only remove chunky stuff from the water. It's the plants and bacteria that actually keep the water habitable (that and water changes of 10 to 20%).
The other thing new fishkeepers need to know is The Nitrogen Cycle. It's a basic science thing from school that we've all forgotten. In the case of a tank, fish poop = ammonia = NO2 = (changed by friendly bacteria into) NO3 (which fertilizes plants). Ammonia and NO2 are toxic. It takes a month or so to get your tank "cycled"...which means don't add fish until then. You can speed things up with products you add to the water like Quick Start, which add the necessary bacteria. Filters only remove chunky stuff from the water. It's the plants and bacteria that actually keep the water habitable (that and water changes of 10 to 20%).
Once upon a time in the dark ages I was given a goldfish. I got a bowl, a filter, then a bigger tank, then more fish, then a heater, and tropicals, and started raising brine shrimp, and brought home a saltwater hermit crab and some sand and seawater... and an accidental smol blue crab who crawled out of the sand, ate the hermit crab, moulted, grew, and once escaped and ran around my bedroom.
This was all a second floor with no sink. So I had to haul water up and down stairs.
Eventually learned to scuba dive, and it was easier to go visit fish in their natural habitat.
Then life changed, the dive club disbanded, I got kayaks and mermaid tails, and then the Plague of 2020 and though we kayaked and snorkeled and mermaided all summer in lakes, the river and creeks... by winter all the pools were closed.
Some friends had to move and got rid of some things... "Here's a fish tank, anyone want it?"
It took me a few hours to consider whether I needed another thing to take care of.
But then, I was a mermaid out of water.
We set the 36 gallon tank... which had recently held a leopard gecko, who was too clueless to find his crickets in such a large enclosure, so he was put in a smaller tank... in a wading pool in the mudroom, filled it and waited.
It held water. We set it up on its stand in the kitchen (there's a sink there).I had painted the wall where the tank would go, in ocean. There was already mermaid decor and ship's wheels on the wall. The tank had no lid, but I found a boogie board that would do until I could make or find a lid. Beach balls on top of that discouraged cat expeditions.
I researched fish. I wanted simple and hardy. Turns out a common pet store feeder fish (sold cheap at 20 cents each to feed turtles etc) was a color phase of the native fathead minnow: the rosy red minnow. Tough, hardy, able to stand broad temperature ranges and water quality, and only two inches long, it sounded perfect.
The main mistakes new fishkeepers make are: not big enough tank, too many fish, and too big a fish. Bettas and goldfish, as easy first fish, are the most often abused by keeping in mere bowls. In their native habitat, bettas temporarily may be in a puddle, but they leap, as soon as possible to larger water sources. Goldfish grow quite large, and tend to rip up plants and swallow anything that fits in their mouths.
The other thing new fishkeepers need to know is The Nitrogen Cycle. It's a basic science thing from school that we've all forgotten. In the case of a tank, fish poop = ammonia = NO2 = (changed by friendly bacteria into)NO3. Ammonia and NO2 are toxic. It takes a month or so to get your tank "cycled"...
...which means don't add fish until then.
Oooops.
I killed off a few rosys and the Endlers livebearers (also a hardy small fish, a guppy). Some also got fungus. I finally got a small hospital tank so I could medicate any suspicious fish. It's hex shaped, and since we are all bingeing WandaVision, it got named The Hex after the hex shaped alternate world she creates with her hex magic.
I did add plants early on: anubia, Amazon sword, elodea (elodea canadensis is native to North America) and what is likely the native SAV coontail/hornwort. SAV = submerged aquatic vegetation.
I have some outdoor ponds, iced over at that point, and pried up the ice to find some native ramshorn and gill or pouch snails, as well as a plant sold at garden centers as "oxygenators". The snails woke up and found themselves in Tahiti, the plant too was far from dead. The snails immediately got busy and produced more snails. Since they are native, not invasive, if there are too many, I can put them back into the outdoor ponds. I also got some cherry and Amano shrimp, excellent at eating debris and algae in aquariums. They're only an inch long or so, but are fun to watch: the feeding feet are constantly in motion, they perch in the plants like songbirds, or soar across the tank like starships... occasionally going into "warp drive"... who knew shrimp were that fast...
The Amano shrimp" might actually have been the wild type of the cherry shrimp. They look similar and not all pet store associates know aquatics. The difference is cherries will breed in your tank and produce more cherries. The Amanos require salt water at one stage of their breeding cycle.
After a month, I took a chance on some more rosys and shrimp. I got three of the red cherry shrimp, but in another tank was an unusual black one, actually a very dark blue. It was scooped into the bag with the other shrimp, carried to the sink, and the bag exploded. The red shrimp were accounted for but the black one had vanished... presumably down the drain! The fish dept guy went back and looked in the tank, found another black shrimp, caught it, and carried it to the sink, where it promptly leapt out of the bin and into the sink. This time though, he was caught and is presently enjoying the wonders of the large aquarium with his buddies.
I also installed a pond complex (a garden pond of about 100 gallons and several smaller tubs) in the yard. It is shaded by a few small trees, contains various water plants: lilies, lotus and arrowroot, water celery, elodea, hornwort and others. Ponds also have to cycle before you add fish. The pond has so far hosted green frogs, tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs, various aquatic insects, snails, the odd leech, a bullfrog, and a breeding population of rosy red minnows. And the odd bird who might want to fish. I have seen great blue herons, great egrets in this area, and grackles also will fish at the edges of lakes and streams, as well as some owls, and many others.
This was all a second floor with no sink. So I had to haul water up and down stairs.
Eventually learned to scuba dive, and it was easier to go visit fish in their natural habitat.
Then life changed, the dive club disbanded, I got kayaks and mermaid tails, and then the Plague of 2020 and though we kayaked and snorkeled and mermaided all summer in lakes, the river and creeks... by winter all the pools were closed.
Some friends had to move and got rid of some things... "Here's a fish tank, anyone want it?"
It took me a few hours to consider whether I needed another thing to take care of.
But then, I was a mermaid out of water.
We set the 36 gallon tank... which had recently held a leopard gecko, who was too clueless to find his crickets in such a large enclosure, so he was put in a smaller tank... in a wading pool in the mudroom, filled it and waited.
It held water. We set it up on its stand in the kitchen (there's a sink there).I had painted the wall where the tank would go, in ocean. There was already mermaid decor and ship's wheels on the wall. The tank had no lid, but I found a boogie board that would do until I could make or find a lid. Beach balls on top of that discouraged cat expeditions.
I researched fish. I wanted simple and hardy. Turns out a common pet store feeder fish (sold cheap at 20 cents each to feed turtles etc) was a color phase of the native fathead minnow: the rosy red minnow. Tough, hardy, able to stand broad temperature ranges and water quality, and only two inches long, it sounded perfect.
The main mistakes new fishkeepers make are: not big enough tank, too many fish, and too big a fish. Bettas and goldfish, as easy first fish, are the most often abused by keeping in mere bowls. In their native habitat, bettas temporarily may be in a puddle, but they leap, as soon as possible to larger water sources. Goldfish grow quite large, and tend to rip up plants and swallow anything that fits in their mouths.
The other thing new fishkeepers need to know is The Nitrogen Cycle. It's a basic science thing from school that we've all forgotten. In the case of a tank, fish poop = ammonia = NO2 = (changed by friendly bacteria into)NO3. Ammonia and NO2 are toxic. It takes a month or so to get your tank "cycled"...
...which means don't add fish until then.
Oooops.
I killed off a few rosys and the Endlers livebearers (also a hardy small fish, a guppy). Some also got fungus. I finally got a small hospital tank so I could medicate any suspicious fish. It's hex shaped, and since we are all bingeing WandaVision, it got named The Hex after the hex shaped alternate world she creates with her hex magic.
I did add plants early on: anubia, Amazon sword, elodea (elodea canadensis is native to North America) and what is likely the native SAV coontail/hornwort. SAV = submerged aquatic vegetation.
I have some outdoor ponds, iced over at that point, and pried up the ice to find some native ramshorn and gill or pouch snails, as well as a plant sold at garden centers as "oxygenators". The snails woke up and found themselves in Tahiti, the plant too was far from dead. The snails immediately got busy and produced more snails. Since they are native, not invasive, if there are too many, I can put them back into the outdoor ponds. I also got some cherry and Amano shrimp, excellent at eating debris and algae in aquariums. They're only an inch long or so, but are fun to watch: the feeding feet are constantly in motion, they perch in the plants like songbirds, or soar across the tank like starships... occasionally going into "warp drive"... who knew shrimp were that fast...
The Amano shrimp" might actually have been the wild type of the cherry shrimp. They look similar and not all pet store associates know aquatics. The difference is cherries will breed in your tank and produce more cherries. The Amanos require salt water at one stage of their breeding cycle.
After a month, I took a chance on some more rosys and shrimp. I got three of the red cherry shrimp, but in another tank was an unusual black one, actually a very dark blue. It was scooped into the bag with the other shrimp, carried to the sink, and the bag exploded. The red shrimp were accounted for but the black one had vanished... presumably down the drain! The fish dept guy went back and looked in the tank, found another black shrimp, caught it, and carried it to the sink, where it promptly leapt out of the bin and into the sink. This time though, he was caught and is presently enjoying the wonders of the large aquarium with his buddies.
I also installed a pond complex (a garden pond of about 100 gallons and several smaller tubs) in the yard. It is shaded by a few small trees, contains various water plants: lilies, lotus and arrowroot, water celery, elodea, hornwort and others. Ponds also have to cycle before you add fish. The pond has so far hosted green frogs, tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs, various aquatic insects, snails, the odd leech, a bullfrog, and a breeding population of rosy red minnows. And the odd bird who might want to fish. I have seen great blue herons, great egrets in this area, and grackles also will fish at the edges of lakes and streams, as well as some owls, and many others.