Upside-Down, Floating Goldfish Problems?

I just took care of this problem with one of my goldfish today and thought I would pop a quick note up about it. Some of you may have noticed your goldfish has trouble swimming downward on occasion and just pops right back to the surface like it is full of air. The worse cases end up floating belly-up. This is most often seen in fancy goldfish with compact, round bodies. Their organs are all tightly packed in that round body and sometimes air does get trapped in the intestines. This sounds funny that the fish cannot swim due to a fishy equivalent of a fart but it can kill the fish if it continues too long. Many times they work it out, but not always.

Air Pump Hazards to Remember.

Many of you with fish tanks have at least one air pump and bubble stone. Often they are on the floor because of noisy vibrations or other area a little away from the tank. I just wanted to throw a quick post reminding people who have tanks and alerting those about to start the hobby an easy way of killing your fish due to forgetting about the nature of many of your pumps.

Convert an old-style filter cartridge for the new Tetra model. Save money and customize!

(Finally a post!! Woohoo! Geez, long title huh?)

Some of you out there may be thinking of getting, or have bought, a the newer version of the Tetra, Whisper filter for your fish tank. The type that hangs over the back. The price of the filter cartridges that go with these new ones are expensive when compared to the old models that you can buy in bulk and assemble yourself. This might be putting you off. Or you have several old cartridges laying about you need to use up. Or you maybe your store does not carry the replacements (recently here). Well there is a solution! (Insert happy noises here!)

Adding Salt to a Freshwater Aquarium

(Last post of the year!  Happy New Year!!!! I hope 2009 brings health, happiness, and security (in many forms) to everyone.)

The other day I was researching how much salt to add to our main freshwater aquarium containing an adult Black Ghost Knife fish (1/2 teaspoon/gallon or a little less for an adult) and remembered a common mistake people new to the hobby tend to make. (Yay! Something to post!)

Common Mistakes (in no order):

• Using the wrong salt
• Adding salt to the tank the wrong way (directly to a filter or dumping in directly all at once)
• Adding too much salt after a water change

What is creeping and crawling on the sides of your tank?!

I recently had to fight a gross (to me)  problem with one of my tanks. It was a fairly new set up so it was in the final stages of cycling. I only had one cichlid (Green Terror) in this freshwater tank at the time. Over time I would notice the glass of the aquarium getting cloudy. It started with odd, puffy stuff growing on the sides and then….worms. When I looked very close at what was on the side of the glass, I noticed white lines moving. Lots of them.  Some of these worms would float in the water column, though I doubt that was where they wanted to be. They covered everything. Over time they would get a little bigger. At first I thought of nematodes but the fish seemed like it was not being bothered by them and treatment for them did nothing. Also, unlike nematodes, their movement was very controlled and fairly slow. No side-to-side thrashing, even in the water column. I could just make out a head wider than the body on some of the bigger ones. Planaria. (Maybe some nematodes as well.)

DIY Aquarium Glass Scraper-Use Those Annoying Plastic Cards!

Do you keep getting those plastic, mock credit cards in the mail? Or how about those free membership cards for use at places such as Best Buy or PetSmart? The kind that you have to save and use at checkout to earn points, but just keep piling up as you save one for each store. If you have a fish tank, you can make a glass scraper out of them. Revenge!

Betta Fish-Look at the Bubbles!

My beta just built a huge bubble nest so I thought I would do a quick blurb on betas (Siamese fighting fish).

A beta can be a good starter fish. They actually can do well in a bowl or an aquarium and can be easy to keep (for a fish).

Here the beta is flaring his gills to threaten the camera.

Last update: October 31, 3008

Crayfish as Pets! My Electric Blue Boy

Last Update: March 26, He molted again!

If you are looking for the knitted crayfish please click here otherwise read on for live crayfish keeping.

For many reasons I have a love for crustaceans. I find their behavior fascinating. Unfortunately if you are not set up for salt-water, you are limited on what are available. (Hmm…that reminds me, I will have to add a blog on crabs later.)

Crayfish (crawfish, crawdads, mudbugs, freshwater lobsters, blue lobsters….) are usually thought of something you would eat (at least around here) but they are actually quite fun to watch. They have attitude.

Build a Strong, Inexpensive Aquarium Stand

Welcome!!

Update in progress: September, 2009. A reader sent pictures of her stand. I cannot get them to load but I am workig on it. Check back.

Most recent update: January 4,  2009: A few ideas on how to cover the front has been added after the building instructions if you do not want an open stand.

Fish keeping can get to be an expensive hobby. I recently, at the time of this posting, had to upgrade to a 55 gallon aquarium on a very limited budget so I needed an inexpensive stand. For my smaller tanks, I managed to use furniture on hand but this was not possible for a large, heavy tank.

I looked at stands for sale at pet shops and was horrified by the quality of the stands for the price that was asked. They did not look like they would last long. After checking out reviews online, it turns out many of them do not if they should get wet.  If you are like me, I tend to get sloppy during water changes no matter how hard I try to keep the water where I think it should be. Also, any doors and other accessories tended to come apart with regular use.

I decided to look into building my own.

Note: I do respond to comments on old posts.

Fish: Black Ghost Knife

Last Update: Oct. 24, 2009. A paragraph added near the end from someone talking about his 16 year old Black Ghost Knife!

Sep. 2009. She is now around 12 inches!

Note: I do respond to comments on my old posts.

One of our favorite fish in the house is our Black Ghost Knife (BGK) named Rain. We do not know its sex but we decided to call it a “she” to be different.