Tropical Fish Care

Caring for Tropical Fish

Many people assume that tropical fish care means feeding them every now and again and not much else.  You can certainly get away with doing only this but you won't have fish for very long! Caring for tropical fish means taking proper care of them, so you don't have to bring them to the vet like you would with other pets but there are certain things that you need to do to make sure that your fish stay healthy.

An ill fish in your tank can make all the other fish sick and you could end up with no fish left, an unclean tank will not only be unsightly but can be harmful for the fish and can spread disease. Tropical fish have certain requirements that you must provide if you want a healthy tank. Below is an overview of how to care for tropical fish.

Water Quality and Testing in Tropical Fish Tanks

The quality of the water in your fish tank is one of the most important factors when it comes to caring for your fish.  There are many different home water quality testing kits that you can buy to test your water. There are kits available to test the pH of the water, the nitrate levels, ammonia and more. 

Keep the temperature of the water at a suitable level for the type of tropical fish you own. Try not to alter the temperature suddenly, if you must adjust it up or down you should do so gradually as some fish do not tolerate temperature changes as well as others.

When adding new fish to a tank you should not add the water they came in to your tank, you have no real idea of the condition of the water and risk opening your tank to any number of diseases etc.

Allow any new fish a certain amount of time to acclimatize to the temperature of your tank, you can place the closed bag with your new fish floating in your tank for around half an hour to get them used to the change.

Make sure that your fish have a balanced controlled diet, some fish will overfeed so it's up to you to make sure that they dont. Excess food floating around in the tank can make the water quailty poor too so try to only feed them as much as they can eat in about two minutes. It's 

also up to you to make sure that they are getting the right types of food.

Ensure that you have sufficient lighting specifically for aquariums installed. 

Partial water changes should be carried out regularly, make sure that the chlorine has been removed from the water before adding it to the tank, you can do this in several ways, one is to buy a chemical solution for aquariums but you can easily do this without chemicals simply by letting your tap water stand for around 24 hours prior to adding to the tank.

By following the above steps you can make sure that your are providing the correct enviroment for your tropical fish to live in and are doing your best to keep your tank and its inhabitants in the best possible health.`

Other articles you may be interested in reading:

Types of tropical fish

Choosing a tropical fish tank

Setting up a tropical fish tank