Should I drip acclimate my fish?

We all want to keep our fish as healthy as possible, and so we develop certain habits to help with this. We perform routine aquarium maintenance to prevent a buildup of harmful substances. We carefully consider tankmates in order to reduce aggression. We use quarantine tanks to monitor new arrivals and avoid introducing sick fish to a healthy tank. We make every effort possible to keep our water parameters stable and avoid pH swings.

Most methods of keeping our tanks healthy revolve around one concept: trying to reduce the amount of stress our fish are exposed to.

Like people, fish have robust immune systems. Also like people, when they come under stress, fish’s immune systems can become suppressed, allowing pathogens that would normally be fought off to overwhelm the fish. By keeping our fish comfortable and happy, they are less likely to become ill.

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This entry was posted on September 26, 2017 at 6:57 PM and has received 13970 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Urgent Alert On Hawaiian Fish

If you’ve paid any attention to news surrounding that aquarium hobby, there have been many challenges over the years designed to stop the collection of ornamental fish from Hawaiian waters. Despite the fact that the West Hawaii fishery has been determined to be among the best managed in the world, it has to overcome continuous attempts to shut it down.

The most recent challenge in the Hawaii Supreme Court has centered around whether or not permits for ornamental fish collection should fall under the regulations outlined by the Hawaii Environmental Protection Act (HEPA). Last night, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that commercial aquarium collection is, in fact, subject to HEPA’s requirements.

What This Means For Aquarists

What this means for aquarists is that as of today (9/7/2017), all collection of fish in Hawaii has been stopped. These fish, most notably yellow tangs, will not be available from Hawaiian sources.

Unfortunately, it is still unknown how to successfully aquaculture many reef fish, and the work that organizations such as Rising Tide Conservation can do will be greatly diminished as a result of there being more limited sources of fish to work with.

What Can You Do To Help?

The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC), who has been working with legislators and Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources to keep the fisheries operating, is already looking to develop strategies on how to move forward in order to get the fishery reopened.

There are potential paths forward. For example, the ruling by the Hawaii Supreme Court moved the case back down to circuit courts and left open the possibility of aquarium collection qualifying for an exemption to HEPA regulations should sufficient evidence be presented. There are likely other avenues that might be explored as well.

Unfortunately, the legal process that will be required to overturn this ruling is immensely challenging and, subsequently, highly expensive. We encourage every retailer and hobbyist to contribute to PIJAC’s Aquatic Defense Fund in order help with this process. PIJAC continues to be the first, and sometimes only, line of defense against rulings such as these. The work they do is invaluable and your contributions can truly make a difference.

Additionally, we highly encourage both retailers and hobby clubs to become PIJAC members. PIJAC plays a pivotal role in the health of the entire pet industry by working with legislators to shape the laws that affect pet ownership, developing resources to promote animal welfare, and creating initiatives to help preserve the environments our pets come from.

To learn more about PIJAC’s Aquatic Defense Fund and make a donation, go to http://pijac.org/aquatic 

To learn more about PIJAC and become a member, go to http://pijac.org 

To read the Hawaii Supreme Court’s ruling in its entirety, go to http://cases.justia.com/hawaii/supreme-court/2017-scwc-13-0002125.pdf?ts=1504728111 

This entry was posted on September 7, 2017 at 7:14 PM and has received 5421 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Algae is a nuisance that virtually every aquarium keeper will have to battle at some point. It is estimated that there is anywhere from 30,000 to over a million species of algae. Fortunately, the number of algae strains commonly seen in aquaria is fairly low, and few if any are actually harmful for the fish. Certain fish love to eat certain types of algae, so in some cases a small amount of algae can be beneficial. But for the most part we try to eliminate algae from our tanks because it looks bad, and why would anyone want to keep an ugly aquarium?

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This entry was posted on November 2, 2016 at 3:46 PM and has received 9996 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

The aquarium hobby often gets a bad rap. The few times that the media ever looks at us they’re either claiming we’re raping the environment of its wild animals or they’re blaming us for the release of a species that has become invasive.

Occasionally we will get a positive mention, such as recent press on the importance of the ornamental fishery to communities on the Rio Negro and articles on the first ever tank raised blue tangs. But those stories are rarely told.

On top of these, there are more stories of the aquarium community driving conservation. We’re breeding species that are otherwise extinct, protecting wild ecosystems, and restoring lost habitats. We have supplied zoos and aquariums as they create survival plans for critically endangered species.

Check out our infographic for just a few of the ways the aquarium hobby has promoted conservation.

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This entry was posted on September 12, 2016 at 3:39 PM and has received 8358 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Why You Shouldn’t Go Small

Perhaps the biggest question asked when one is shopping for their first aquarium is “what size should I get?” As with most topics in the hobby, there is no one size fits all answer to that question. But buying a small aquarium is arguably the worst decision you can make.

People often have the misconception that the larger the aquarium, the harder it’s going to be to keep, so they look for small “starter” aquariums. As a result, we’ve seen an explosion of all-in-one nano tanks being marketed as first aquariums. These tanks are often one to five gallons, contain most of what you need to get started, and claim to make for an easier learning experience.

The reality, though, is that in many cases larger aquariums are actually easier to keep and make for a better introduction to the aquarium hobby. Why is this? There are a few basic key benefits to larger tanks.

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This entry was posted on August 29, 2016 at 4:09 PM and has received 5881 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

One of the great aspects of the aquarium hobby is the sheer variety of animals we can choose to keep. There are literally thousands of species and varieties that are available to the hobbyist. And with the amount of information and resources available, there are fewer and fewer species that people are unable to have success with keeping. 

Arguably, the most popular family of fish (and likely the family with the most passionate fanbase) are the cichlids. And for good reason. Like the hobby as a whole, there is a wide enough range of cichlids to meet almost any keeper’s desires. It’s estimated that there are more than 2,000 cichlid species ranging from the tiny shell dwelling Neolamprologus to very large peacock bass (Cichla spp.). You can find cichlids that are fairly peaceful or that are ruthless killers, cichlids that thrive in large groups or that are complete loners, cichlids that are graceful and beautiful or cichlids that are downright ugly. 

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This entry was posted on July 19, 2016 at 4:31 PM and has received 11316 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

As Disney/Pixar's Finding Dory hits theaters today, the conversation around ocean wildlife, aquariums, and the collection of fish for the aquarium hobby is growing increasingly loud. Anti-aquarium voices are loudly decrying that the movie will create a mass rush of people running to their local fish store to buy their very own Dory, arguing that this skyrocketing demand will spell the end of wild tang populations and that ornamental fisheries need to be shut down to protect the reefs. Industry and hobbyist sources such as The Pet Leadership Council, MASNA, OATA, and others are releasing messages encouraging hobbyists and would-be fish keepers to do their due diligence and only buy fish that they can responsibly care for. 

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This entry was posted on June 17, 2016 at 1:54 PM and has received 5403 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Harlequin Rasboras (Trigonostigma heteromorpha)

Being new to any hobby can be overwhelming, and the aquarium hobby is no exception. One of the biggest questions almost everybody new to the hobby has is what are some of the best beginner fish for my aquarium. A quick Google search can come up with more results than any one person can read (approximately 525,000 as of this writing), but most of them will suggest more or less the same fish. Fish like livebearers (mollies, guppies, swordtails), dwarf gourami, barbs, and tetras are justifiably recommended, but there are also other fish that don’t get as much attention. So we decided to highlight some less common fish that beginners could easily have success with.

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This entry was posted on May 10, 2016 at 4:45 PM and has received 10209 views. There are currently 3 comments. Print this entry.

Every hobby is different, but each one has its own sets of challenges and rewards. To those outside of a given hobby, it can be hard to understand what it is that makes us struggle through these challenges and not simply move on to something else. What is it that drives us to push through and invest our time, energy, and money into keeping fish? The answer will always be different for each person, but there are several common reasons that we see in the hobby.

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This entry was posted on April 12, 2016 at 2:41 PM and has received 7625 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

Captive bred or wild caught? Depending on the species, there can be arguments made for the merits of both. After years of focusing on advocating captive bred fish, many are realizing that sustainable wild collection that is managed properly can help support conservation measures, such as is being demonstrated by Project Piaba. However, this mostly applies to freshwater fish. Marine species, thanks to the complexity and difficulty of their life cycles, are still being captive bred in relatively small numbers, and we should be making every effort possible to develop and promote captive breeding initiatives.

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This entry was posted on March 8, 2016 at 4:02 PM and has received 17627 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.