Subj : New fishkeeper?
To   : Carol Shenkenberger
From : mark lewis
Date : Thu May 01 2008 06:52 pm


 CS> Once cycled, a tank needs about 10 mins every 2 weeks to 
 CS> filter out fish poop from the gravel and change the filters.

FWIW: i don't even do this... maybe possibly once every 6 to 12 months... i 
view my tanks in the same realm as a pond... however, i only feed my guys once 
every two or three days so i don't have the problems that others do who feed 
their's every day... i also don't have a lot of sunlight available to my tanks 
in addition to all of them having timers for the lighting which are only one 
for roughly the same amount of bright daylight as one gets in nature ;)

[trim]

 CS> Fish load is the most common new tank keeper mistake.  Rule of
 CS> thumb is about 1 gallon per inch of fish so in a 10G tank, you can
 CS> reliably hold 10 small fish of 1 inch.  This starts to shift though
 CS> with fish over 2 inches and they need more room.  Don't look at the
 CS> fish's current size, but what it will grow to be.  If the tank
 CS> depth isnt twice the size of the final adult fish, think 3 times
 CS> before getting it.

you should see how big the four "goldfish" a friend got me are in my 30g 
tank... they're in there with the 4 remaining feeder guppies that i have... i'm 
about to move those guppies over to my 20g beta tank and get some more... ya 
just can't beat $1US/dozen and they're the same ones that you pay higher prices 
for because they're "pretty" :?

at one time i had some fishing minnows that i purchased at $1/dozen... they 
were around for 4+ years... the largest was larger than a big sardine you get 
in a can... fast and mean, too... very aggressive but they wouldn't/couldn't 
eat the snails and other things that came in with live plants... however, the 
one or two goldfish were quite happy to take care of those :lol:

)\/(ark 

 
* Origin:  (1:3634/12)

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