You may not realize this, but fish keeping can actually be quite a dangerous hobby. Why is that? Well, because more often than not, fish keepers mix electrical appliances, large amounts of water, and great big sheets of glass. This is a recipe for potential disaster.
You can keep yourself safe however, if you follow a few simple rules.
Nov 4
Can fish jump? Oh yes, fish jump. Many fish are excellent jumpers in fact, and can clear over a foot in a vertical jump. I am not just talking about wild fish here either, even small aquarium fish are quite capable of jumping out of their tanks, and many do so on a regular basis.
Fish die. It happens to the best of us. What good fish keepers feel bad about are fish deaths that didn’t need to happen or that occurred from preventable causes.
After months without incident, I managed to lose not one, but four fish in one day, and have two end up fairly maimed. This is a list of what occurred, and what you can do to prevent the same deaths and injuries from occurring in your fish tank.
You’ll often read about why it is so important for fish keepers to have a hospital tank on hand for sick fish, but it is much rarer for people to impress the importance of a spaz tank on new fish keepers. I use the term ’spaz’ to refer to ’spazmodic’, as in fish which don’t quite make the physical or temperamental cut required to hack it in a main tank.
Raising baby fish for the first time is the most terrifying thing you can do aside from actually try to give birth to live young yourself. No matter what kind of fish you are breeding, this is a truism that cannot be ignored. Breeding bettas is quite fun, but it is also quite a big challenge. There are many online resources that tell you how to get things started, I even wrote a series of articles on the topic here, here and here. Read them if you’re having trouble getting the breeding process started.
Read this article if you already have eggs, or if you are wondering what awaits you. Whatever you do, don’t follow it, learn from it.
There are many species of synodontis, and there are many hybrids, crossbreeds between the species which pop up as well, quite often in pet shops. Synodontis appear to quite happily and readily crossbreed, to the chagrin of purists who do not approve of such abominations.
