Sunday, January 22, 2006

How not to kill your fish

One of the Franks died yesterday after the weekly water change. After talking it over with Guy at Fish Shop (what is it with the cute guys working at Sailfin?), it looks like it was chlorine that did it. It turns out adding dechlorinator to the tank, then adding the appropriate amount of tap water is not the way to do it, unlike what I read online. Add the dechlorinator to the bucket of water, wait 15 minutes or so, and add it to the tank. There is something like 1-2 ppm of ammonia in Champaign tap water, which is what I initially thought did it, but that wouldn't have worked nearly as fast as this.

Some useful fish, plant, and aquarium links, in case anyone is interested, or comes across this page after Googling:

  • Sailfin: The Champaign fish store. Accept no substitutes. They have a large inventory, and everyone there seems to know their stuff.
  • PlantGeek.net: Lots of good information on planted tanks. I think I like plants in aquariums almost as much as the fish. Since they also help keep the water quality up, I don't know why anyone would want to bother with the plastic ones.
  • The Age of Aquariums: A lot of profiles on different fish species. Pretty pictures, too.
  • FishProfiles.com: More fish profiles, separated by category. You can also search on size, diet, etc.
  • Freshwater Aquariums: The About.com section on freshwater tropical aquariums. Annoyingly ad-filled, but some good, basic information there.

If anyone knows any other good sites, please let me know.

2 comments:

The Squire said...

Speaking of fish, you might be interested in this.

Narc said...

Thank you, but I am perfectly happy with my gonopodium as it is.