Aquarium Ornaments

Aquarium ornaments are used to decorate the tank for yourself, not so much for the benefit of the fish. The ornaments can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, both small and big, caricature or traditional, complicated or very simple. You have the option to create them yourself or to buy one of the thousands of models that can be found in pet stores.

You can’t use ornaments in every tank though, as some fish don’t enjoy their presence. For example, Oscar fish prefer their tank to be ornament and plant free. In other cases, they are needed by fish to hide behind or under them. Traditionally, most ornaments will look like ships or castles and they can be used by small fish to hide from bigger ones. Another advantage is that fish can play inside them.

You can buy ornaments for aquariums from most fish or pet stores. You can find both cheap and expensive ornaments in these shops. You can find ornaments that are quite detailed and made to look like they’re branches that have weeds attached. In some cases, fish will need their aquarium to look like their home in the wild, and proper ornaments can be important in their case.

Having amphibians inside the aquarium means that an ornament that looks like a waterfall and has a small bathing pool on the bottom might be nice to have, as they will bath in it. Make sure the aquarium has plenty of greenery inside if you have amphibians in it, so it looks like it’s their home.

It’s not hard finding the right ornaments for your tank and they’re easy to put inside. If you can, make sure that the ornaments fit with the natural habitat of the fish you have inside. If you have a goldfish it doesn’t matter, but for other types of fish it does. In the aquarium of a goldfish you can use all types of ornaments, no matter how funny.

The importance of aeration for tropical fish

Everyone knows that the natural habitat for fish is a lake or rivers. Both have large surfaces where fish can get to receive their oxygen supply. As you can guess, an aquarium doesn’t offer fish the same possibilities when it comes to water surface. The habitat has less movement and the surface area where they can get oxygen is smaller. That’s why it’s important to make sure that fish can get oxygen from other sources as well.

Aeration is the artificial oxygen providing process. The process consists only of re-oxygenating the aquarium water. The system used for aeration usually consists of airstone, regulator diffusers or tubing clamp that pumps air.

There are plenty of types of air pumps, of different sizes and shapes. The one that most people use is a Taiwanese one, called tecax air pump. Another popular choice is the super 555, fabricated in India. They cost less but they’re not as resistant. You can also find versions built in France and UK, but they’re usually a bit more expensive.

The air pump should be hooked to a material that doesn’t vibrate and it’s above the level of the water. The aeration materials that I mentioned before can work well to aerate the aquarium. If the tank is small, you only need to use a simple air pump, through an air tube made of rubber, to an air stone. The air will be blown into the water by this system and provide fish with the oxygen they need.