Do fish need space?

All living things need some space from one another. The more space, the better. I have observed that fish grow much faster if they are provided their own space. I have keep a single convict Cichlid baby in its own aquarium and it out grew all the others that were stocked together.

In my opinion, all living things have an energy field around them. With competitive species especially, the presence of a dominating companion will inhibit it's progress. Even though the fish may seem fine, at some level of its consciousness, it feels fear and stress in the presence of its competition. The results eventually show in its growth and health.

I raise convict Cichlid fry in a single tank together. But I won't be able to house them together for long. As they grow they need to spread out. Their requirement for personal space expands as they grow.

However this rule may not apply for schooling fish like Danios, tiger barbs, neons etc. These fish need to be in groups to function properly.

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What aquarium plants are easy to grow?

To my personal experience, hydrilla verticillata and duck weed are great plants that spread very quickly in your aquarium with reasonable light.

I have tried other types of plants but was never successful. I have always tried amazon sword but failed at all attempts. Whenever I got myself an amazon sword, it would get covered by algae and die.

Sometimes plants may compete with other varieties by releasing chemicals in the water which inhibit the growth of their competition.

If the water is too rich in nutrients, especially ammonia, although plants utilize ammonia as food, they will not grow if there's too much of it.

You need to balance things out with water changes. If you are dealing with too many fish and do not find much time to do water changes, you can use aggressive plants like duck weed or hydrilla. In fact, if you got fish that do not consume duck weed, then it would be a better choice to hydrilla. Even though hydrilla is an aggressive plant, I have witnessed it losing the battle against algae at times. Duck weed floats at the top. It's leaves float on the surface of water, so algae cannot cover that. Duck weed divides quickly and will soon cover your entire aquarium and deprive algae of light and nutrition.

How do Apple Snails Lay Eggs?

Apple snails lay eggs in clusters above the water. The eggs need to be in a humid environment to survive and hatch. They have a specialized way of delivering the eggs. Below is a little video that demonstrates the process.

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What to feed Convict Cichlid Fry

Well you got a pair of Convict Cichlids that have spawned and now yu will be wondering what to feed them. Most experts talk about feeding live feed like brine shrimp, micro worms, daphnia magna etc. to baby fish. So you would then be wondering as to where will you get all this stuff.

Here's the thing. If you are dealing with Convict Cichlid Fry, you need not bother yourself with all that hassle. You can simplify the whole thing by feeding them pellets. Yes! I did say pellets. The most common food people feed their fish. The same thing that most people feed the adult convict cichlids.

But theres one small difference here. Its the size of the pellet. I have visited many aquarium shops in search of readymade powdered food for fry, but its very scarce in supply. Now keeping in mind the size of the fry, you need to reduce the size of the pellet to fit in the fry's mouth. So I use a blender.

Steps - Preparing Powder dry feed for Convict Cichlid Fry

What to do if a tiny fish jumps out of your aquarium?

Many a times you may witness you little fish jump out of the aquarium and lands on the ground. In most cases, people might try to pick it up with their bare hands. But this is likely to fatally injure the animal due to its small size.

What to do?

1. Sprinkle a little water over the fish's entire body to keep it moist.
2. Take a piece of paper (printer or notebook paper is best) and place it flat on the ground, next to the fish.
3. Take another piece of paper and gently divert the fish onto the other piece of paper.
4. Once the fish lands on the piece of paper, carefully lift it up and quickly put it back into the aquarium.

This method will insure minimum to zero damage to your little fish.

If you are a beginner, be as patient as possible. Do not freek out in this situation. If its taking you some time to get this right, keep sprinkling water on the fish's body to buy more time. By all means, do not let the fish dry.

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Money Plant Indicates Water Quality

I would like to share one observation about the money plant. Many people keep money plants in water filled bottles. In the presence of good indirect sunlight, money plants will take roots.

Now I have tried establishing money plants atop my aquariums but they do not seem to take root even though there is good sunlight.

There could be many reasons for this like fish who damage the roots as they grow or in most cases, the water quality is too bad.

In general, plants do not like too much of nutrients. Excess of nutrients damage the roots.

Now here is what I observed. I had a money plant hanging over my aquariums in a pot. As they grew longer, one of them decided to send out roots into my discuss tank. I would say that the water quality of the discuss tank would be exceptionally good due to the heavy plantation in there. The majority of plants in there are duck weed. Aquatic plants purify aquarium water. The roots of the money plant went all the way down to the bottom.

Then one day I decided to do a bit of over feeding. I introduced a large amount of live tubifex worms. Now worms tend to reduce water quality to a large scale. So after introducing the large amount of worms, I noticed the roots turned upwards like as of they do not like the water anymore and want to get out. So the next day I did a 50% water change. I them observed the roots turned back down to the bottom. I repeated this again and the same thing happened.

So i drew a conclusion that the roots respond to the water quality. They will go freely all the way down if the water is good and they will bend upwards towards the surface if the water quality is bad. This is a great indicator.

This is the money plant that found its way into the aquarium

Notice the roots turning upwards. I have not done a water change here.

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