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  • Do Fish Feel Pain How We Know A Fish Is In Pain

    Do Fish Feel Pain How We Know A Fish Is In Pain

    Do fish feel pain? Have you ever sat and wondered if they feel at all and if they can feel pain. I’m sure like me you have. Pain is a subjective thing and we as humans can let people and inanimate objects know we are in pain. We scream and shout cuss fish can’t communicate their pain if they indeed have any.

    Fish don’t talk or scream in fact they don’t make much noise at all. So how would we know if they are in some discomfort do fish roll around in agony?

    Do Fish Feel Pain

    Scientific evidence indicates fish indeed feel pain they have a complex nervous system with neurons that signal the brain allowing the fish to be self-aware. read more

  • Do Fish Sleep Can We Tell If Fish Are Sleeping

    Do Fish Sleep Can We Tell If Fish Are Sleeping

    Do fish sleep? Great question right? Fish have no eyelids and can’t shut their eyes. Also fish have no cortex within the brain that usually allows us to dream.

    When we observe other animals and humans, we tend to see slower breathing, twitching of muscles, and movement of limbs. So we don’t see this in our fish the question is do fish sleep? Can we tell if the fish are sleeping?

    Do Fish Sleep

    Yes, fish sleep most will sleep at night we can observe lower gill mouth movent and less breathing a reduced metabolic rate, and a slow brain wave pattern.  read more

  • Can Fish Drown? Do You Have Enough Oxygenated Water

    Can Fish Drown? Do You Have Enough Oxygenated Water

    What’s going on in your aquarium? Are fish at the very top of the tank do they look like they are gasping for air? Yep fish need air well no they need oxygen and there’s oxygen in water too just not as much. 

    There are 210,000 parts per million of Oxygen in the air which equates to around 21 percent oxygen. What about water though well that’s only 8 parts per million of Oxygen in water which equates to under 0.1 percent.

    Fish need around 4 parts per million to function healthily. This is half of what’s generally in water making fish both very adept in fact amazing at getting oxygen out of water. As well as always being at risk of drowning.  read more

  • Low Tech Aquariums Are 1 Magic 2 Blissful

    Low Tech Aquariums Are 1 Magic 2 Blissful

    Once starting or joining the hobby you will find many terms that don’t make sense at first. It’s only natural terms like water buffing and scaping or should I say aquascaping? There are a plethora to choose from.

    In this post Id like to explain one such weird term Low tech aquariums. Low tech usually implies planted tanks. That run with no added filtration or any added co2 and only low-end natural lighting. No added tech. Making them extremely low maintenance.

    So What Are Low Tech Aquariums 

    Low tech aquariums usually have no filtration or extra co2 also once established very few water changes and almost no maintenance read more

  • How To Buy A Healthy Neon Tetra

    How To Buy A Healthy Neon Tetra

    Buying neon tetra is the best. These are some of my favorite fish but they are overbred these days as they are so popular.

    Some interbreeding and other genetic problems can occur. The way they are farmed and sent to shops can be problematic so how do we make sure we get sold healthy neon tetra? Tetra that won’t die so easily or have disease or symptoms of diseases.

    A common problem with neon tetras is diagnosing illness as NTD neon tetra disease looks a lot like other bacterial and or fungal diseases. The same for certain symptoms like dropsy. read more

  • The Benefits Of Deeper Substrate Improving The Walstad Method

    The Benefits Of Deeper Substrate Improving The Walstad Method

    There are plenty of ways of making a substrate for our fish tanks. Some hobbyists have no substrate or very little some use gravel others sand even more keepers mix both.

    So what’s best which substrate do we choose well Diana Walstad wrote extensively about this very subject. Diana is a science researcher and has a B.S. In Microbiology. She changed the way hobbyists think regarding substrates in our tanks In 1999.

    How so? She wrote the book Ecology of the planted aquarium which gave birth to the Walstad method. We will discuss this method later. read more

  • The Benefits Of Indian Almond Leaves & Leaf Litter For Neon Tetras

    The Benefits Of Indian Almond Leaves & Leaf Litter For Neon Tetras

    Have you ever wondered what those strange leaves are that are packed in with your fish delivery? Those leaves that the fish retailers keep.

    These leaves are known as Indian almond leaves. They may go by other names such as Cattapa leaves, Ketapang leaves, or even Java Almond leaves. We generally call these leaves leaf litter. Why are they used to ship fish around and why do hobbyists use them in their tanks? (.)

    Well, I’m glad you asked these leaves are amazing for our aquariums. The Almond leaf has some amazing benefits and looks amazing allowing us to mimic blackwater conditions for our neon tetras and other fish. read more

  • Neon Tetra Breeding How Do They Reproduce?

    Neon Tetra Breeding How Do They Reproduce?

    One of the biggest problems with keeping neon tetra is getting good healthy tetra. These fish have blossomed in recent years. They have become one of the most-kept fish in the world. It’s believed two million of our little neon tetras are sold per month just in the United States.

    However, the way they are farmed leaves disease and deformities open as there are too many fish to count and look for defects. The fish farms will generally just weigh the fish and guess how many fish are sold on that weight. This leaves them open to the possibility of dying before their time. read more

  • Do Neon Tetras Need Light At Night

    Do Neon Tetras Need Light At Night

    When looking at our little buddies the neon tetra. Do you like me wonder do they need so much lighting? I mean they come from the amazon but live in murky water. They’re called blackwater fish because the water is dark right? (.)

    Begs the question do they need or require the same amount of light all the time? Let’s dive in and answer this along with my main dilemma of do neon tetras need light at night.

    Do Neon Tetras Need Light At Night

    No Neon tetras need no light at night they are diurnal meaning they are active in daylight but sleep at night they require a minimum of 10 hours to recharge and help their circadian rhythm. read more

  • Do Neon Tetras Play Dead?

    Do Neon Tetras Play Dead?

    So I’m writing about a topic that seems to divide some people. For most hobbyists who keep these awesome little fish, the neon tetra this topic is a no-brainer. What are we going to explore in this article yep do neon tetras play dead? (.)

    Come with me as we discover that they do indeed play dead.

    Neon tetra has become popular and rightfully so in my opinion. Super cool personality mixed with a cheeky, playful attitude and some stunning color. How do neon tetra get so colorful click to see? Although very nice fish some say they are too hard to keep and die easily could they just be playing dead? (.)  read more