The Discus fish is often regarded as the 'King of the aquarium' amongst fishkeepers due to their spectacular colours and almost royal like behaviour within the home aquarium.

Both Neon and Cardinal Tetras originate from South America. Though most you will find in aquariums will be captive breeds. This makes them more tolerant of water conditions.

Do not fret! No university degrees are necessary to be a successful aquarist. But even beginners to the hobby need to know the basics. They are vital to maintaining a healthy and trouble-free aquarium. PH, ammonia, general hardness, carbonate hardness(alkalinity), nitrite and nitrate levels— these are what you test for and keep an eye on. You do not want to send your dear fishes on a roller coaster ride of unstable water conditions.

Many varieties of aquatic plant are interchangeable in their ability to live emersed or submersed. But, when you decide on the look you are going for, do not change their environment too often. It will cause them stress, and they will likely die. When you know what you want, and change their environment to suit, it can take up to months for a plant to adapt. Patience is key.

 

If you've spent any time looking at aquatic plants, there is a high chance Crypts have come across your perusal, whether you’ve known it or not. They can create an enticing focal point for aquariums or underwater in paludariums.

Very quickly it was apparent to me that I needed to keep these animals in an appropriate sized aquarium due to their nature and overall size they got and luckily enough for me I scored my first "big" aquarium not long after I started looking.

From there I thought to myself it wasn't fair to have these Kribs in with a natural predator regardless if he was interested in them or not. Soon to TradeMe I went and I bought my self a second hand Aqua one 620t which had super sweet blue lights. So in the tank (uncycled, rookie mistake) went my Kribs.  And this was the making of my first aquarium.

We at The Fish Room would like to try and help you make the aclimitisatin process as easy as possible for you and your new pet. We have enclosed what we believe to be the best practice for introduction new fish into your aquarium. If you have a quarantine aquarium available, we strongly encourage you to quarantine your...

Probably the most important part of keeping an aquarium is learning about the cycle. They joy with cycling is you can make it as complicated or basic as you wish, and for the sake of this we will make it as basic as possible for you.

The simplest way of explaining the cycle is that is makes your aquarium safe for your fish. It does that via good bacteria within your filter breaking down nasty stuff and turning it into something that is less nasty for your wet pets. This process goes from ammonia (very nasty) to nitrite (also very nasty) on to nitrate (only nasty at high levels). The idea is to not put fish into an aquarium with ammonia or nitrite but to wait until this process has gone through to nitrate. Depending on the method you use to cycle your aquarium this could take anywhere from 3 days up to 6 weeks.

Bottled bacteria is a good way of speeding up a cycle for a new aquarium (please see cycling section) using these products can shorten a cycle down from upwards of 6 weeks to as little as 3-7 days. If using a bottled bacteria to cycle a fresh aquarium, please note although your aquarium is cycled and ready for wet pets, it is still a very immature system, so slowly adding fish is still the best option.

 

Many hobbyists (including us at The Fish Room) prefer the natural look for their home aquarium. These are normally stones, wood, spider wood and leaves. Often most of these can be collected from local beaches or river ways. If you are collecting your own decorations, some cautions need to be made. With wood, it is recommended to only use hard woods as soft woods can root and leech into an aquarium very easily.

Plant selection is also very important, all too often pet shops sell non-aquatic plants as aquatic plants, this is a recipe for disaster as they will not last long submersed underwater in your aquarium. We at the fish room do not carry not aquatic plants, to give you the best possible chance of having your plants survive.