ADDING THE FISH
The usual way of stocking a community aquarium is to include fish and
plant species from a wide geographic range that have similar wants and
needs. Wants and needs? This means, make sure you community has fish
that have the same pH hardness and temperament as the other inhabitants.
Don't mix a Cichlid community with a small tetra community, unless you
want a fat Cichlid community. It's pretty common sense stuff, but think
before you buy. Water pH and hardness can come into play to some extent,
but today most of the fish are bred in Florida or Singapore and they
produce a fish that can adapt to the "average" fish tank. These tank
bred fish are now more comfortable in our average tap water than they
would be in their native ranges. The advantage of this is that the fish
can now survive in all but the extremes of pH and hardness, which makes
them ideal for our community. These can be just about anything you like
from just being nice looking to a complete color scheme. You also want
to have the fish inhabit different layers or regions of the tank. You
want a fish selection that will include bottom, middle and top dwellers.
These can consist of lively and sedate fish, nocturnal and diurnal,
large and small, just about anything, remembering that they all must
fit into the basic definition of "community,"
Now that your plan is in place lets talk about adding the fish. First,
how many fish can my tank support? Sounds like an easy question, but
it is one that has caused much debate. The general rule of thumb
for fish capacity is between one half (1/2) and one inch of full grown
fish per gallon of water. The number varies on fish species, filtration
and your tank management. You should also take into account the water
displacement caused by the gravel and other decorations. Our twenty
gallon may only hold sixteen gallons of water! Remember that little
one inch fish that will grow to six inches has to be counted as six
inches of capacity. Our twenty gallon tank will hold between Eight and
Sixteen inches of fish. All tanks must go through a biological cycle
before it is safe for them to live in. This is usually done by adding
a small amount of hardy fish to the tank and letting the bacteria colonize
the aquarium, You can find detailed information in the
Genesis section of the site.
Before you purchase the fish, observe them in the dealers tanks, make
sure they have no diseases and that their fins are wide open and they
are swimming actively. You can even ask them to add a little food to
watch them eat. Diseases and parasites are very prevalent in dealers
tanks so this is very important, for more info visit the
disease section of the site. In a perfect world you will have a
quarantine tank, where you can isolate the new fish for a period of
a month which will allow time for any dealer born parasite or disease
to show up and you to administer medication . When you finally purchase
fish they will be in a plastic bag filled with air, you do not want
to add them directly to the tank. Due to temperature and pH differences
it is wise to float the bag for about twenty minutes to let the temperatures
equalize. Once this is done, you can open the bag and place the fish
and water in a small container and over the course of the next hour
slowly add some of your tank water to container. This will allow the
fish to adjust to any differences in water parameters. OK, now to add
the fish, you don't want to just dump them in because you can never
be sure of the water from the dealers tanks, its a better idea to gently
net them out and release them to the tank. Keep a close eye on them
for signs of stress and tankmate aggression.
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