Back when I got my first tank, people didn’t cycle tanks. Things were very different then.
You bought the tank, all the decorations, gravel, and so on. The helpful person at the local fish store told you to get it all set up and let the filter run for at least 24 hours before adding fish.
“What??? You mean I can’t put them in there tonight? Why?”
“Because the water needs to age. Longer is better, if you could hold out a week…”
Nobody did. Not a whole week!
Some of the cutting edge people actually proposed using some magic elixir that would remove the chlorine and let you stock fish right away. I’m sure they were branded as heretics by their peers and fiercely scorned.
So people anxiously aged their water (whatever that meant), then returned to the store with cash in hand (no debit or check cards back then either – and no magnetic strips on credit cards) and they selected their fish. Freshwater, of course – you had to have a tank the size of one of the Great Lakes and a Master’s Degree (PhD preferred) in chemistry to be able to do saltwater. Oh, and a really fat bank account. Bill Gates style – well, Nelson Rockefeller back then.
The fish were taken home and the bag was plonked into the tank. After the eternity of 15 minutes or so, the fish were released into the tank. You could go from an empty space to overstocked in 24 hours!
Within a week or so, fish started to die off. The cloudy water killed them, no doubt. “But why do I have cloudy water?” “Because it’s a new tank. That happens. Sorry about your fish – too bad you’re out of the 24 hour warranty period. You have your check book with you, right?” The best thing you could do for your fish was a water change, and of course remove and replace all of your filter media. After all, look how dirty it looks! That can’t be good… It’s full of bacteria!
More fish died. You must have done something wrong when you cleaned the filter. Or your lights are on for too many or too few hours a day. Just buy more fish, it’ll be OK…
We didn’t cycle tanks back then – we cycled fish and cash. Paycheck in, Dead fish out, Money out, live fish in.
Today it’s sooo much easier. There was no internet then. There is usually more knowledge logged in a forum at any given time than you could find in all the pet stores combined in a major city. A lot of fish have died over the years to get us where we are today. What’s considered an appalling loss of fish today was normal back then – all part of keeping fish. The wisdom spread slowly, until the internet that is. Trust me on this folks, I know it seems like it takes forever to cycle a tank – but that bit of patience is orders of magnitude better than the way things used to be… If this is your first tank, remember, you’ve lived your entire life without one – what’s another few weeks to do it right?
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CaptnDan is the author of this article, used with permission by Chris Merriman
To Learn How To Obtain, Sustain & Maintain Your Aquatic Mini-World, visit LearnAboutAquariums.com
It really took the introduction of the undergravel filter to get the idea of cycling started. By then, you didn’t want too many fish until the gravel bed got established. The first ones I saw came as a set of green plastic tubes and elbows, with little holes drilled in the tubes. I’ve wondered if reviving the tube system might be a compromise for an undergravel with plants- the roots could steer away from conditions they didn’t like.
A really good pet store would only sell you a few fish to start off with – usually a pair of guppies for your 10 gallon. The chain fish store was normally a 5 and 10 cent store. They had pictures of the fish next to the prices, because the staff knew nothing about fish.
Before that “The Balanced Aquarium” was in, if you were an advanced aquarist. You would put heaps of plants in the tank, with the idea that the plants would absorb the fish waste. Incandescent light was what you got, in stainless-steel hoods. Somehow, people with a green thumb could raise spectacular plants without CO tanks! Maybe the coal furnace helped?
Other “old-time” fishy stuff:
¤ Stainless-steel frame tanks, or even better, the “lab” tanks with the funky spatter paintjob.
¤ Filter Floss – this was spun glass fibers, and you would get the darn stuff in your hands when you put it in the filter, just like a million cactus thorns. No way to rinse it- when it got dirty you just threw it away. A million whacky filter systems have come and gone- some using huge amounts of activated charcoal.
¤ Those antique Chinese take-home containers – instead of plastic bags, the fish store would fold up these wax-covered paper boxes with a little wire handle, with your fish inside.
¤ Glass Dip Tubes – for catching smaller fish. Sneak up on them, take your thumb off the stem to let the air out, and the fish would get sucked in. A great way to catch fry.
¤ TFH Magazine – always with the subscription page with the native guy with the huge plate in his lip reading a copy. You got a couple loose-leaf pages for your giant TFH encyclopaedia, two new species every month.
¤ Really Big Livebearers For Sale – the fish farms had not yet discovered good business principles, and sometimes messed up and grew fish to spectacular size. Sometimes the Mollies offered for sale were healthy and vigorous!
¤ Lots of fishkeepers were trying to develop their own strain of guppy, platy, molly, or swordtail. Some would sell their culls to the fish store, but most were afraid that the competition would get the jump on them, so they’d have some oscars to act as garbage cans.
¤ “Cichlids” meant angelfish, discus, severums, Jack Dempseys, “Ports”, etc. “African Cichlids” were Kribs and Egyptian Mouthbrooders. Angelfish were very hard to breed, and discus were almost impossible. The parents of “domestic” strains were better about rearing their young.
¤ Killies would occasionally show up in the store, but the “secret society” of guys sending fish and eggs through the mail was active back then, too. They had little ads in the back of TFH magazine to join the “AKA”.
¤ Corydoras were “garbagemen”, and people didn’t get that excited about them. Sometimes strange ones would come in that would cost a few cents more- so you could snag some sterbai, natteri, etc. The idea was that you would pay discuss prices for catfish would have made people faint, back then.
This article may be used freely as long as this resource box, with intact hyperlinks, is included.
CoupeDeFleur is the author of this article, sourced and used with permission by Chris Merriman
To Learn How To Obtain, Sustain & Maintain Your Aquatic Mini-World, visit LearnAboutAquariums.com
Most of our marine fishes come from the wild. It isn’t unusual for the fish to be carrying a worm infection in its intestinal track. It’s been estimated that up to 30% of fish in the wild have some kind of intestinal worm infection. This number can considerably increase as fish are kept in holding tanks along transfer points, where they can share diseases and infections.
In the wild, this isn’t much of an issue. The fish can find enough food for its own needs and the needs of the worms. The worms, of course, are taking nutrients away from the fish. But if the intake of nutrients is enough, the fish & the worms are happy. However, I, the aquarist, am not happy. I want worms out.
If the fishes are de-wormed (which is very easy to do) the aquarist doesn’t have to worry about the worms taking nutrients away from their fishes.
Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to always tell if a fish has these worms. The symptoms of a worm infestation match other intestinal disorders. Generally though, the symptoms and observations of fishes with intestinal worms include:
Strange faeces (stringy, solid lengths, colored wrong, worms in faeces, etc.)
Fish eats voraciously but doesn’t seem to gain weight
Fish eats but is losing weight, or seems to be wasting away
Fish eats but is losing coloration and clear marking boundaries
Fish eating habits have changed to picking at food or it stops eating
Obviously the above set of symptoms can apply to certain other conditions, however, the ’strange faeces’ is the one symptom you’ll come to rely upon most.
You have to be a Super Pooper Snooper to ’sniff out’ the problem.
I’d like to cover in this article the three most common problems which are indicated by the above symptoms. Peculiar faeces are usually a sign of an intestinal/internal problem.
There are three basic possibilities when it comes to an intestinal problem.
This reference outlines the three nicely:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr…nfections.html
Garlic is not a remedy. It has been suspected of helping in one case of internal parasites. The fish was fed solid chunks of it. Garlic juice does nothing in this case. I can elaborate on this if you want or you can read a thread on that: Garlic
Knowing how long you’ve had this fish would help in the diagnosis, as well as whether or not you use a quarantine system to verify the fish was healthy before you put it into your display tank. Since I don’t know this information when I wrote this article, I have to assume either possibility and provide how to deal with each.
Whatever the intestinal problem, the fish needs the best water quality, the best diet AND supplements added to its diet. Remember, it’s eating for two or two thousand!
For diet and supplement help, check this out:
Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition
If the fish isn’t eating then the only way to get medication to the intestinal track is to put the fish in a quarantine tank and treat the water with chemicals that will kill the internal condition. The drug Praziquantel (a.k.a. Droncit) will treat intestinal worms, Maracyn Two for Saltwater fish will treat an internal bacterial infection and Metronizazole will treat dinoflagellate infections.
To be conservative: I recommend two ways forward:
1. If you’ve had your fish for several months or more: First check your source water for contaminants. Use only the best source water and make up a new batch of salt water. Now check that freshly made up water for quality/contaminants. If it passes, then adjust it for pH, temperature and salinity, mix some more, then do an 80% water change and see if the fish seems to ‘perk up’ (e.g., starts eating or eats more or swims around more in the open). If the fish definitely perks up then it maybe a combo of water conditions and bacteria. In this case, I’d treat the fish for an internal bacterial infection. Move fish to a hospital/quarantine tank and treat with Maracyn Two for Saltwater fishes. Begin with a double dose and continue double dosing what is recommended on the medicine insert. With proper nutrition and water quality, the fish may gain control and conquer the internal infection.
2. If you recently acquired the fish: Treat the fish for worms (using Praziquantel) first and if no improvement, treat for dinoflagellates (using a medication containing Metronizazole). You can use a medication that includes both these (see below).
If the fish was fat and eating properly and being fed a proper diet (see above reference), with vitamin and fat supplements, it can live without eating for several weeks, providing all other environmental and water quality conditions are as they should be and the fish isn’t diseased. Praziquantel is best administered orally so if your fish isn’t eating, try to get the fish eating.
De-worm all newly acquired fishes with Praziquantel right after acclimation. Acclimation suggestion: It Was Acclimation, I know. . .
Dose Praziquantel as instructed below. Wait 5 days and dose again.
This treatment is over!
Medications:
Maracyn Two for Saltwater fishes. Made by Mardel. Contains the antibiotic Minocycline with B complex vitamins (to stimulate appetite). Available at some local fish stores, Petco, and on line.
Praziquantel. Praziquantel may be hard to find. But it is available on-line along with other medications at: National Fish Pharmaceuticals, FISH DISEASE . . It is also available on-line from PondRX PondRX – Do you feel the need for speed? – Home. . Unfortunately, the quantity of Praziquantel you need to order as a minimum order may be more than you’ll need in the next few years. It is administered at 23mg per pound of fish, in their normal food.
There is a commercially prepared anti-parasitic pellet food available. It is made by Jungle. The active ingredients in this food are levamisole (a stimulant for the fish immune system), Metronizazole, and Praziquantel. This particular formula will kill a much broader spectrum of intestinal organisms. Also, the product Gel-Tek Ultra Cure PX can be used instead of Praziquantel. The aquarist is looking for a treatment that the fish will swallow (not a water treatment). For both of these products, just follow directions on the medication.
Alternative Meds (overseas). I try to be on the look-out for meds available outside North America. I’ve recently come across some that are suitable for de-worming. Those in the UK and Europe may find Fenbendazole or Piperazine more readily available. They are dosed at 250mg/100g of food, fed for 7 to 10 days. Medications and medications containing these will likely come with dosing instructions. Always follow label instructions.
Metronizazole. Also found in several products. (See above). Follow the directions that come with the medication.
BE THE SUPER POOPER SNOOPER. Watch your fishes’ faeces! (This is a hobby?)
This article may be used freely as long as this resource box, with intact hyperlinks, is included.
Lee Birch is the author of this article, originally posted here, used with permission by Chris Merriman
To Learn How To Obtain, Sustain & Maintain Your Aquatic Mini-World, visit LearnAboutAquariums.com
