Fw-190 History - BS!

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ok i was planning on starting annother thread for this but whilst we're talking about them.....

i am interested in getting some fish, just a couple, hopefully angel fish, and was wondering what kind of looking after they need.........
 
Personally, I would avoid angels. The reason is they tend to have a low immunity due to overbreeding and while some are hardy, a majority are not. Are you looking to start a bowl, or a tank? There are a number of things to think about when dealing with a tank, like heaters, filtration, decorative rocks and plants, etc.

Don't let anyone talk you into doing a nitrogen cycle with fish in the tank! It's very hard on the fish and the ones that manage to survive will have a shortened life cycle. Most fish stores will have you do that with fish. Having done this hobby for many years, I can tell you that is the absolute wrong way to go. You won't have happy, or healthy fish. The bad news doing it that way is you have a tank for about a month with no fish, but when it is ready for fish, they will thrive.

We could start a fresh topic on fish tanks. I could give you some tips that will save you some time, heartache and money.
 
Just do it here, I think everyone recognises that website as the biggest joke since the Munich Pact. So, just flood this with your fish talk.
 
ok thanks evan, ok if not angel fish black widow tarka or black angel tarka (i think that's what they're called) and what would be the difference between getting a tank and bowl??
 
There are alot of differences between a tank and a bowl. Mainly, it's the fish. If they don't need heaters or filtration and you want just one or 2 fish, then it's alright. Also you can't have big fish in a bowl. Personally, I would never have a bowl for fish. They are more hassle than they are worth to me. Plus bowl fish are kind of boring.

I am not familiar with Tarkas, so I am not sure about them. I used to keep African Cichlids, which are cool fish, but they are pretty aggressive and if you aren't careful, you will be netting out dead ones on a regular basis. I still have 2 that are getting along, but I probably won't have another main tank of them because of the aggressive tendencies.

Good starter fish that are nice fish too are Platys and Swordtails. I have both in my tank with some black skirted Tetras. Neon Tetras are cool, but they are very small and don't do well if you have a power filter as they have a tendency to get sucked into the inlets, or stuck to the inlet. I learned the hard way on that one because my filter is 320 gallons/hour flow rate.

Tanks come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and price ranges. 10-20 gallons are good starters and I am not sure about England, but in the US, you can get a fairly nice 20 gallon starter tank for a reasonable price that has everything you need to get started (tank, filter, light hood and heater). The rest, like gravel, decorative rock and plants are pretty cheap. Just watch the rock types as some can leach chemicals into the water. Same with driftwood. Driftwood will leach tannic acid into the water which some fish will be fine with, others will not tolerate it well.

First find a tank you like and get what you want to put into it. Then, while running the nitrogen cycle, which typically takes 4-6 weeks, you can research what fish are available locally and what their temperaments and agressivenesses are. Also check the pH levels in your local water source and check that with the fish you want.

Sound like a lot of work? Kind of, but a well thought out and planned tank will give you a tank that will thrive and give you years of enjoyment. I have an African Cichlid that I have had for 4 and a half years that has been in three different tanks and is healthy and thriving. Conversely, lack of fore-planning on a tank will give you perpetual headaches and takes all the fun out of it, plus will cost you money to replace fish and/or equipment.
 
The only prolbem with Plateys just like Guppies is that you either have to have all females or all males and if you mix them you can not have more males than females. In one of our aquariums we have a bunch of females and a whole lot of males and now our fish have baby fish like every 3 weeks. Most of the babies thank god are eaten by other fish in the aquarium which keeps it from getting overpopulated.

If they did not eat them I would have to send them to the big toilet bowl in the sky!
 
Also the first 3 months of an Aquarium are the hardest and most critical. If you can keep the water table at the correct levels and you have the right plants and fish, the aquarium can actually self sustain itself with little effort on yourself.

Real plants are a much though because they help lower your Ph and Nitrate levels and resupply oxygen to the water.
 
I don't mind the platys breeding too much. A majority of the fry that are born become food. Those that survive do well. It's like a natural selection and works well in my tank. If you have places for them to hide, some will survive. If you don't they will all get eaten. I think I have a good balance although all of the natural rock is currently out from the move. I need to get it back in soon. The black skirted Tetras have done a good job at keeping the baby platy population down. There are 2 types of baby platys, the fast ones and food! ;)

Live plants are nice, but you have to watch your lighting or you could end up with algae growth. Even worse, you get a live plant that has snail eggs on it and you will have a battle to get rid of them. My friend had a snail infestation that took 2 months to get rid of! The other thing you have to watch with plants is some fish will eat the plants too.

I use an air stone to oxygenate the water and it works fine. I have the long flexible kind, so I like to crank up the air during the day for a wall of bubbles across the back and lessen it at night. It's hidden under the gravel, so it's a cool effect.

They are very self sustaining once set up too. I clean my filter, run a gravel vac and do a 10% water change once every 2-3 weeks and the water is crystal clear. The right filtration will make a bg difference with that though. I use the 4x rule for filters. The formulae is you take the volume of the tank and multiply that by 4 and that should be the volume in gallons/hour flow rate for the filter. Some recommend 2x, which does work okay as well, but tanks cleanings need to be very regular, or you get algae, even with Plecos.

So for my original 80 gallon tank (80 x 4=320), I got a 320 gallon/hour filter. So essentially, the water in the tank is filtered 4 times per hour. I use that filter now on a 46 gallon tank, so the water stays very clean.

One very important thing that some forget is to make sure you wash your hands before feeding the fish or putting your hands in the tank. Clean hands=healthy tank.
 
Right now we do a 20% water change ever 2 weeks and we have plenty of algae eaters to get rid of the algae. Our water table level has been excellent in both tanks for about 5 months now with absolutely know problems. One of our Plateys is having a fry right now but I think she is having complications and probably going to die.
 
What do you use for algae eaters? I have a pleco that is one lazy fish. I had one before that devoured the algae, but he unfortunately fell victim to my cichlids. The one in my platy tank doesn't seem to do much for it and I end up having to scrub.

I realized after I wrote my post that my water change is higher than 10%. I did 10%-ish in my 80 gallon using a 5 gallon sparkletts bottle. My 20 gallon gets the 5 gallon bottle full and my 46 gallon gets 2 bottles, so it is actually higher. 10-20% seems to be the general rule. the more often you do it, the less the percentage. Obviously more than 3 weeks between water changes can make for some unhappy fish though.

I lost a couple of platys during, or after breeding. They are most susceptible to disease during that time and sometimes succumb to it. It's a shame, but there isn't much you can do about it. Do you have a hospital tank?
 
I use Panzer Wels and Antenna Wels as my Algae eaters. (I am not sure what the english name for them is) But they do a really good job of getting rid of the algae.

I do not have a hospital tank. I have never really had a problem with sick fish. When we first started our aquarium we had some Ick problems but we took care of that quickly.
 
Yikes! Ick can be a tough one. When we had our first batch of baby platys, I set up a nursery tank for them thinking that they would be better off to start their growing in there. That worked okay, but then I realized if I kept that up, there would be many more and I went to the natural order of things and let the fast and strong survive.

I have used a hospital tank on a couple of occasions, none have been successful in having fish survive, unfortunately. Mostly because by the time they start looking bad, they are pretty far gone. But it does give you a place to medicate them if you need to and not affect the other fish. Maracin is a good antibiotic for fish. Stay away from the Melafix though. Melafix will cause a strange clouding and gooey stuff that sticks to everything. It's a royal pain to clean out.

How's your pregnant platy doing?
 
Yeah our first one that did that we flushed down the toilet to keep her from getting the other fish sick well she was fine all along and we found that out after watching the next one.
 
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