Explore Your Creativity With An Aquarium

Tropical fish one of the most amazing pets that one could keep in their home or workplace. Tropical aquarium keeping is fast becoming an extremely popular hobby for many people young and old. Whether it is a small fishbowl with just a few fish or a 4 foot deluxe aquarium, tropical fish will make a beautiful center piece or highlight of any room.

There is nothing more relaxing than coming home after a hard day at work and watching your beautiful tropical aquarium with the fishes peacefully swimming around your carefully placed decorations and aquarium plants. You can set up your tank to show you a complex array of rock’s, wood, plants, and other decorations or you can aim for the simplistic approach. Either way you can express your own creativity, likes, and dislikes in how you choose to create your tropical fishes home.

With the popularity of tropical fish tanks, there is a wide variety of different types of decorations to choose from. Some people choose to take a humorous approach by setting up animated figures and cartoon characters, or skeletons and skulls. You could choose a medieval theme with castles and dragons, or keep it more natural with some fancy pieces of wood and rock.

Another big decision tropical fish I knows me to make is whether to have live plants, fake plants, or no plants at all in their aquarium. Of course this decision will be influenced by the type of fish you choose to keep in your tropical tank. Some fish will benefit more from having live plants in the aquarium while others will eat them quicker than they have a chance to lay their root’s. There are also a great many different species of plants available in a wide array of colors and features.

Whether to use rocks in your fish tank also depends on the species of fish you wishing to keep. For example some species such as cichlids need sheltered areas to claim their own territory, otherwise they may become aggressive towards the more timid fish in the aquarium. On the other hand there are species such as shoaling fish that will be a lot happier in a tank with wide open areas for them to swim in. If you decide to use real rocks you must be extremely careful where you get them from and that they are safe for use in aquariums. If in doubt fake rock’s are a good alternative.

Pieces of wood in an aquarium will also help fish that need area to claim as their own and more timid fish that like to have an area of safe retreat. If you are lucky enough to find a unique piece of wood that is safe for aquarium use it can be a very attractive addition to your aquarium. Live plants may even start growing around the wood and mosses will be attracted to its surface.

In summary how you choose to decorate your tropical fish tank is a very personal choice and one which will allow you to become very experimental and discover the creative side that you never knew you had. There are no rules or limitations that she must abide by as long as you put the health and well-being of your precious tropical fish first and foremost.

Bunch plants and Floating Plants for Aquariums

These plants take their name from the fact that they are frequently sold in bunches of individual stalks bound together with a rubber band or a strip of lead. In these plants the roots serve primarily as anchors. Growth occurs at the tip. If the tip is broken off, a new one will form; when the stem is injured, a branch often develops. In fact, if the stalk of a bunch plant is thrust into the gravel upside down, a new tip will form at the upper end, and the lower end will develop anchoring roots. The same holds true when a piece of the center section is cut out and planted.

Many bunch plants will grow even while floating freely in water. They show a tendency to root, however, sending down long, thin roots. When these roots reach the gravel, as frequently happens in a shallow aquarium, they anchor firmly and, not infrequently, draw the plant down to the gravel.

The main problem with newly purchased bunch plants is that of anchoring them. They seldom have enough root structure to hold them in place. For this reason it is advisable to plant them in a bunch, retaining the little lead band around them as a weight. Lead is relatively inactive, and a small amount does no harm in the aquarium.

Many bunch plants have a tendency to grow long and shed leaves from the base. The best way to keep this tendency under control is by uprooting the plant, cutting off the lower portion, and reroofing the upper. If there is a bushy, branching growth, snip off the tip occasionally.

Floating plants are the plants most frequently used as hiding places for baby fishes. Some of them occasionally put out anchors, called “holdfasts,” and these fasten on rocks or submerged bark. Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum), which is frequently sold as a bunch plant, is really a floating plant. It never develops roots. In others, such as Duckweed (Lemna minor), Salvinia (Salvinia natans), or Water Hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes), roots are present, but they do not root into anything. They merely float freely below the plant. Not all floating plants float at the surface. Some tropical aquarium fishes such as Chain of Stars and Stonewort (Nitella gracilis), float at the bottom. Reproduction is usually asexual, that is, without flowers.

Tropical fish Tanks Guide to Lighting and Plants

Aquarium plants play multiple roles in the tank life: they decorate the aquarium and make it look beautiful, they are an attraction for the fish and some of them help regulate the oxygen level.

While completing the aquarium structure with plants, it is good to know a few facts.

One of them is to keep in mind that plants should decorate the aquarium but, at the same time, leave enough space for the fish to swim. For example, the feathery plants look much better when there are many of them in small clumps. This makes them seem like bushes. The tall, grassy type is better to be placed in rows.

Planting rooted plants into the tank sand can be done like this:
1. hold the tips of the bunch of roots between the thumb and second finger
2. put the rest into the sand
3. push the upper part of the roots with the first finger approximately 2cm into the sand
4. scrape some sand over the uncovered parts of the roots with the thumb and second finger

The same method is applied when planting rootless plants. The lower ends of the stems are squeezed together and treated like they were roots.

Another aspect is the water level in the tank. The water surface should be just up to the lower edge of the top angle iron of the tank. If the water level is bellow the top angle iron, the aquarium will look like a water container. Ideal is that when somebody looks at the aquarium from the front, that person should imagine that there is no water there and fish are swimming freely.

The lighting in the aquarium is also a vital element for the fish health and a key factor if you want to grow plants. The lack of light damages the plants and also causes the fish to lose their color: red can turn into pink and green to white.

You can choose natural light or artificial light or even a combination of both. If you want to expose the tank to just natural light, place it near the window that’s facing north. But if you want artificial light, you can choose between incandescent or fluorescent light. Whatever the type is, you must also be careful about the amount of light you have in your tank. Too much light can make the water green and too little will not help them grow. Most of the times, adjusting the light level is a mater of multiple trials and tests.

The lighting system should be made of wood and placed above the tank. Some of the most spectacular aquariums have the light placed behind.

Also, if there is no natural light during the day, leave the artificial light turned on. Fish breeders recommend that the aquarium is lightened for about eight hours a day. If after a few days you see that the water is turning green, reduce the amount of hours to 6 or 7.

Aquarium Light Tips

Fish don’t need so much light as the plants do. A dim light is sufficient for fishes - usually just enough for them to see food. Very few fishes will eat in the dark. An exception is the Catfish; Catfishes, as a group, are largely nocturnal in their activities.

When no light reaches the fish tank, a great change comes over the fishes. Switch a light on suddenly after a protracted period of darkness and you will find most fishes in your tank are motionless. With few exceptions you will find that their color has faded. Such fishes have the brilliant red-and-green Neon fade to a white and light pink. Many fishes, you will notice, are lying on the bottom of the aquarium.

It should also be remembered that it takes some time for most fishes to adjust to a sudden light. If they are disturbed before their eyes have adjusted, they dash blindly about, even leaping out of the water. It is useless to feed them at this time, because they cannot see the food.

On the other hand, constant light seems to do no harm. Fishes in aquaria under constant light appear to live just as well as those that have alternate periods of darkness and light. The breeding cycle of many animals is controlled by the increasing and decreasing of the number of daylight hours as the seasons change. But very little work has been done with fishes in this field. What little has been done shows that light is a definite factor in the breeding of some, but not all, fishes.

Recently published experiments conducted with the young of certain marine fishes indicate that the fish will grow more vigorously when given a period of darkness in which to rest. How this affects the total longevity of the fish is not known.

There is no hard-and-fast rule governing light for the aquarium plants. It varies with the type of light, intensity of light, depth of water, kind of plant, the distance the light is from the water surface, and the amount of daylight that reaches the tank. Usually, if the fish tank is kept in a shaded area of a room, you should provide some artificial light in order to supply what the plants need. Lighting from a reflector which can be regulated is covered later.

Aquarium Plants

Under the influence of sunlight, plants and only plants have the ability to manufacture their own food. These green plants combine water and carbon dioxide to form sugars in a process known as “photosynthesis.”

During this process, free oxygen is released in excess of that used by the plant for respiration. This occurs only under the influence of bright light. At other times, the plant breathes normally, consuming oxygen and giving off carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis occurs only when the plant in light is healthy and growing.

Light, then, is essential to your aquarium so that the plants will grow properly and give off oxygen and consume carbon dioxide. The “wonder material” that regulates the food manufacturing process is chlorophyll - the material that gives plants their green color.

There is a good deal of controversy concerning the amount of oxygen that the aquarium plants actually supply for fishes to use.

It should be remembered that water can dissolve only a certain amount of oxygen; any excess oxygen is therefore released at the surface. It is not stored in the water for later use as the fishes require it. Carbon dioxide is released and oxygen is taken into the water. The process can be hastened by bubbling stream of air through the water. This tends to agitate the water and increase the area exposed to the surface in proportion to the amount of circulation engendered. Manual stirring of the water serves the same purpose, but it is not so convenient a method as the mechanical one.

The greater the area of the exposed-to-air water surface, the faster oxygen will be taken in and carbon dioxide released. The greater the air surface, the more fishes can be kept in a given volume of water. You do not really increase the capacity of the fish tank to hold fishes simply by raising the height of the water in the tank. You must also increase the other dimensions in proportion.

Probably the same number of fishes could be maintained in a bare aquarium as in one with plants. Then, you may ask, why bother with aquarium plants? Well, plants serve many functions besides the disputed one of oxygenating. The principal function is an esthetic one: there would not be much beauty to a tank without plants. They provide an excellent background against which your colorful fishes will display themselves to best advantage.