Topic: Questions

[RawketGurl]

I need to stop creating new threads, but this is a different main subject...

2 things

1. How do you ensure there are no diseases in a tank/fish?
I am watching after my friend's guppies and plecos at this time (some of you may have seen my rant) and I transferred all her fish to an empty 15gal I had laying around. I'm using her filter and heater (suitable to the size of the tank) as well as her decor, but I put my gravel in (some I had laying around). Two things I want to do a) maybe take a couple of her guppies and add to my other tank b) use the tank they are in when/if she takes the other fish back. There are no visible signs of diseases, and there have been no mysterious deaths (other than the bala shark that was in there, but I never saw him eat, I think that was it), and everyone seems active and healthy. I just don't want to put fish into my other tank that may have diseases.

2. My fish are less active.
I have a 20 gal with 5 black skirt tetras, 2 neon tetras and 2 otos (all under an inch) that has been set up since around September. They don't seem unhealthy. They are eating (although they do not speed to the top of the tank when they're fed like they used to and go nuts over it...they wait till it falls lower), there have been no deaths (except I lost one of each kind of tetra as they were added about a day after they were added but that was months ago) but they spend most of their time hiding. I recently added a significant amount of fake plants to the tank and wonder if they just hide more because there are more places to hide? They seem to have changed their behavior since I added these plants.

[Aiptasia]

With regard to disease, the best way to keep your fish free from diseases is to prevent their introduction in the first place. The best practice is to quarantine all new fish to a cycled quarantine tank as temporary quarters for about a month until you are sure they are healthy and relatively disease free. If disease does occur, you can treat the fish in the quarantine tank until cured without exposing the rest of your fish in your home to the illness. Very few home hobbyists actually do this, but once you've lost a few prize fish to disease, you might want to consider it especially if you have a prized display tank in the home.

With regard to the less active fish: The introduction of more decor to the tank will allow the fish to hide and retreat to the relative safety of the plants and other decor. This is typical for most schooling fish, to retreat from time to time into the plants and is completely normal behavior. As far as seeming a little listless, i'd suggest doing a few things:

A) Water changes. Doing more frequent water changes always helps perk up fish.

B) Fasts. Believe it or not, a hungry fish is an active fish. You can safely reduce the feedings of most fish to small meals every other day. This will keep your fish active and constantly on the search for food.

C) Live food. Introducing live foods to your tank such as baby brine shrimp (or adult artemia), daphnia or mosquito larvae will bring out the hunting instincts in your fish. Daphnia also make a great fish laxative. Think of them as fish fiber.