Managing Aquarium with Water Shortage

If you are facing water shortage, in the first place its not recommended to keep too many fish. The lesser you keep the better. Fish constantly produce waste in the water and reduce its quality, which is why water changes are necessary along with good filtration. In this condition, you will want to throw in some extra filters in your tank which are well established with good bacteria. You must make sure that the filters are cleaned on a periodic basis and don't over clean the media to avoid heavy loss of good bacteria. Also if your filters are powerheads, since you are introducing extra ones inside, try diverting the water through PVC pipes to prevent too much turbulence. you could also use some jumbo sized bio foam sponge filters. These are known to be the best in harboring loads of good bacteria.

Even though you may have a filter overkill to combat ammonia buildup in your aquarium, that doesn't rule out water changes. You still must do some water change on a weekly basis at the minimum. You could do a 50% change or could go for a 75% if possible. Try to avoid pushing this for more than a week.

Feed your fish less to avoid excess ammonia. If you find they are not eating properly, that means the water is bad. Probably the filter is clogged, or bio load is too much for it to handle. If you got the cash, go in for some ammonia test kit and test the water every 2-3 days.

So to make things simple, if you suffer from less water supply:

1. Keep as less fish as possible.
2. Keep small fish that don't pollute the water.
3. Lots of filters - Use, power filters and sponge filters if your on a budget. If not, go for a canister that's designed for a tank bigger than yours. This is known as an over kill, but in a scarce water condition, this will be good thing.
4. Feed less. It depends on what fish you keep. Don't starve them. Get to know its minimum requirements and feed that amount to it daily.
5. Choose proper non-messy foods like commercial pellets.
6. If you have good lighting or your tank receives good daylight, throw in some hardy plants like Hydrilla, which will help a great deal in improving water quality.

The Convict Cichlid (Kindle Edition Ebook)

Convict Cichlid - Fighters of the Deep

In the wild, survival is a tough game. Everyone has heard of the law of the jungle i.e. Kill or be killed. That also applies right in your aquarium, especially if you got a lot of fish who end up competing against each other to get bigger and better.

Fish have their own ways of combating each other or other competitive species, in order to protect themselves or their territory. Cichlids make extreme warriors of the water world. They are smart and agile.

Convict Cichlids which are very common in the aquarium trade, are a very aggressive species that make great fighters. They are known to

House Keeping Fish

If your tank is placed in a bright location, or if you are using bright lights, you will surely experience algae issues every now and then. This leads to a tank that's filled with algae, which prevent you from seeing your fish. For this I would recommend a sucker. I have personally tried snails and Kissing Gouramis, but the sucker fish out beats them both single handedly. I've got one and I shuffle him between my tanks every now and then. He is a hog and it takes him

Zero Cost Way of Identifying Water Problems

Not everyone who keeps aquariums will spent a ton of money on test kits of all sorts. Getting into the aquarium hobby doesn't require you to be a scientist. The aquarium test kits out there in the market are over priced according to me based on the no of tests allowed. Bescides, if you really get into all this chemistry, you will not only need a test kit for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, but also test kits for water ph, hardness etc. You might as well also go in for water stablizer kits too, as water changes arn't always going to be the ultimate fix.

Phytoplangton (Green Water)

If an aquarium is receiving sunlight, in the presence of nutrients like ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, the water starts to turn green and can get to a state where you wont be able to see the fish at all. Green water is a sign of excess nutrients in the water and call for water changes. This could also be a sign of filter issues. Maybe its clogged and needs cleaning, or maybe the benificial bacteria has died out.

Hunger and Health

The difference between an aquarium fish and a wild fish is that an aquarium fish is stuck in a puddle. Whereas a wild fish has all the fresh water it needs to thrive. Since the water provided to an aquarium fish is limited, it takes an outside force to change the water in order to keep it fresh. If the water is gets bad, and this happens real fast in the absence of filtration, the fish will get sick. A sick fish doesn't move in the normal way and you will notice it.

Hunger

Hunger is one sign of good health in general. This applies not only to fish, but also to other living things. If your fish

Demons of the Night

Convict Cichlids are noted for their aggression. They will be aggressive towards other fish species, as well as their own. They are very intelligent in nature and can also be revengeful. These guys are known to pick, one target, at a time. These cichlids do most of the damage at night, when its dark. They will take their victim by surprise, by bursting at them with vicious bites. Convict Cichlids are smart enough to know that the eyes are a vital part of ones survival, and that's what they target first. If you observe them in the dark, you will notice, that they are partly maintaining their boundaries by warding off one another. They also launch attacks against other unsuspecting victims. Next morning you may notice a fish with all his fins torn up or bruised up real bad. You may also notice a fish with an eye or two, missing. So, if your keeping Convicts, be vigilant in the night as well and separate the victims.

Too Big to Get In

Female Convict Cichlids are much smaller than the males. Some males can get really big and nasty and they can sometimes attack their own mates and kill them. However, it has been observed that some smart-ass female convicts will pick places with small holes that are only big enough for them to squeeze in. The male stays out, as he is too big to enter. She interacts with him at the entrance and is safe from his temper tantrums. Where spawning is concerned, she lays the eggs inside the hole itself. The male still manages to get his sperm into the cave, but this is unobserved. Some eggs get lucky enough to hatch.

Crow Feeds Convict Cichlids

I have noticed lately that a Crow keeps visiting my aquariums quite often. At first I didn't mind it, but yesterday and today, I have noticed that my fish have eaten well. Their stomachs seem quite full these past few days. I am the only one who feeds them, so how did this happen? I took a good look at my aquarium and noticed that there were chunks of meat and bones lying around with most of the meat stripped off. It seemed more like bird meat. I have noticed that this Crow keeps bringing food for my fish nowadays. Its really surprising as to why would a damn bird do charity work.

Probably this could be a bait thingy that he's trying out. I have too many Convicts to tell if anyone is missing. I guess I will have to trust the Convicts to be smart enough not to fall for this trick. This is the only explanation that I can think of right now. ;)

Convict Cichlid - Even the Kids are Bad Asses

I needed to babysit 3 Goldfish. Two of them were, quite big and the third on was tiny. Since they were all Goldfish, and Goldfish always end up as punching bags, I dropped them into the tank full of Baby Convicts. I thought to myself, what the heck could those babies possibly do to those Goldfish, but to my surprise, after a while, when I returned to make sure all was good, I notice the Convict Kids picking on the tiny little Goldfish. They bruised him real bad.

So even as kids, these guys are merciless. They know who and what to target. So, what we learn here, is, "Big Goldfish and Baby Convict ok" but "Baby Goldfish and Baby Convict, BAD THING!"

Oh by the way, I transferred him into a spare basin. He is better now. ;)

Setting Up A Zero Maintenance Aquarium

Many love the idea of having a beautiful aquarium sitting in a good spot in their home, where everyone can see it most of the time. You are excited about setting it up. You setup all the decorations, plants and find the most colorful fish. So the aquarium setup is complete. You switch on the light and Oh yeah! It's beautiful.

But for how long, will it stay like that? A couple of days is all it takes for a brand new aquarium to get real messy. Things like ammonia, nitrites and nitrates build up and affect the health of the fish, algae blooms, dirt smothers the decorations etc.

Can an Oscar and a Convict Cichlid Pair Up?

I had a female Oscar that was about 8" long and a male white convict cichlid that was 4" long. These two were too aggressive to house with any other fish. So I kept them together in one tank. They both seemed to respect each other’s boundaries and there was never any trouble.

But one day, I noticed that the convict was trying to entice the Oscar to pair up with him. He was doing the mating ritual with her, but she was least bothered. He just wasn’t big enough to impress her. Disgusted by his act, she would chase him away, every now and then.

Convict Cichlid - Hump on the Head

In the aquarium world, when one talks about humps, the first thing that comes to mind, is the Flower horn. That's one of the cichlid species that has been cross bred with different varieties of cichlids in order to achieve this characteristic.

But here, I'm not going to talk about the Flower horn Cichlid. Instead, I will talk about the Convict Cichlid. I have kept Convict Cichlids long enough to notice the adult males developing humps on their heads.

Controlling Convict Cichlid Aggression - The Struggle for Peace

Convict cichlids are highly aggressive in nature. It is your duty to try and control Convict Cichlid aggression to some extent. Convict ciclids can be aggressive towards their own kind, or towards other fish. The aggression level increases especially once they pair up. They become even more aggressive when they spawn. Now if you are stuck with too many of these fish in your tank, it will be your responsibility to control convict cichlid aggression. Now there are a few tricks that you can try out.

Cichlid Tank Decorations
By changing your tank decorations, you are giving them something else to worry about. The convicts get busy searching for new homes and settling down. So during this time there will probably be less picking on others. You can repeat this on a weekly basis to keep the aggression level to the minimum.

Convict Cichlid - Tank Reorganizers

Underwater Galleries Cichlid Stone Bulk Pack

Convict Cichlids are very materialistic. Their attitude is "Be The Boss Of Everything". They like to dominate all the other fish in the tank and they won't leave the decorations alone, either. They will rearrange everything in the tank till they are satisfied with the way things are. They are expert movers and packers. They have great pushing power and can relocate surprisingly big items. If you keep them, you should by now know what I mean.

They like holes, burrows, caves, ship wrecks, sculls, ruins etc. They are from the dark side. They don't like beautiful, colorful stuff like plants, flowers etc. Hence, if your planning to keep Convicts, you might want to opt in for aquarium themes like sculls, caves, ship wreck, scull island, anything like the end of life, Armageddon, dooms day etc. ;) You can use big stones, or use hollow broken barrels, sculls with holes big enough for them to go in and out, just be creative.

Quick Introduction To Convict Cichlid Fish

In the water world, inhabiting the lower and mid depth, staking claim over territory and fighting to protect it are an intelligent and impressive species of cichlids, known as the Convict Cichlid. The name convict, because of the black stripes, similar to that of a prisoner's uniform. These fish are notorious troublemakers in most aquariums, and keeping them, means watching out for violent breakouts in the aquarium.

Although these fish are beautiful, agile and colorful, their aggression is a major factor that denies the idea of keeping these with other milder fish. I am an aquarium enthusiast, and have a generation of these bad boys ranging from like 5 years. Of course, when the idea of raising fry to adults comes into the picture, insuring a lower mortality rate is not as easy.

Regular 25% Water Changes

People like to keep aquariums, but no one wants to dip their hands in the water. At the most, they might install a filter and leave everything to it. If you have the bacteria culture along with the test kits then its fine, as long as you check it on a regular basis. Ammonia spikes can happen real fast and cause damage to your fish's internal organs. This is the one thing that happens almost everywhere, as most people do not understand the importance of maintenance.

Just like us, fish will urinate and excrete wastes. In the wild, this thing is fine as all of that is washed away by the current and the volume of water is too large to lead to a chemical buildup. But in your aquarium, think of it as your fish swimming in his own piss and shit soup. You wouldn't like that, would you?