Aquarium Care FAQ: Is My Platy Male Or Female?

Telling the sex of a platy is very easy. In fact, the sex of all livebearers – tropical fish, including platys, mollies, swordtails, and guppies, that produce live young, as opposed to eggs which need time to hatch – can be determined in the following foolproof way.

The most obvious physiological trait that differentiates a male from a female platy is easy to spot …if you know where to look.

If you examine the diagram above, you’ll notice that the anal fin of the male platy (the fin circled in red) looks different from that of the female platy (also circled in red). The anal fin of the male platy is called a gonopodium and looks more clamped, flat, and elongated. The anal fin of the female platy, on the other hand, is noticeably more fan shaped.

And that’s all there is to it! That’s how you can tell the sex of your platy.

Again, not only platys, but also mollies, swordtails, and guppies can be sexed in the way described above.

So, what can you do with this information?
How can you apply it to practice?

Well, livebearers breed prolifically in the home aquarium. If you want to avoid producing a continuous supply of baby fish, get only female platys, mollies, swordtails, and/or guppies. Male livebearers tend to be aggressive towards each other and, for this reason, I do not recommend getting only males.

However, male livebearers tend to be more colorful than their female counterparts (this is especially true of guppies), so you may want to mix some males into your female population. Needless to say, this will produce offspring.

If you choose to go this route, I strongly advise a livebearer ratio of one male for every two females. If, for example, you have two male mollies in your aquarium, you should also keep four females with them. Doing so will simultaneously curtail aggressive male competition and distribute (and, hence, attenuate) the physical stress of carrying babies among the females.

In other words, a ratio of one male to two females will lesson the stress felt by the females by distributing the “special male attention” that the females receive among more than one fish.

Here again, we see that establishing a balanced aquarium environment is key to successful tropical fish keeping. Indeed, aquarium care is simple when you understand the basic needs of your fish.

Aquarium Care 101: Part 5

In the last installment of this series (Aquarium Care 101: Part 4), we discussed “cycling” your aquarium. In this article, I’ll cover the safe methods of physically adding new tropical fish to your aquarium.

So, the time has finally come! You’re now ready to add tropical fish to your aquarium!

When you place your newly purchased beauties in your fish-tank, keep in mind that tropical fish are very sensitive to rapid changes in water temperature and to other water conditions (such as pH and hardness/softness).

When you put your tropical fish in your aquarium, you must, therefore, first get them used to their new environment. This process of slowly letting your fish adjust to their new aquarium habitat is called Acclimation.

There are various ways to acclimate fish to your aquarium.

The first involves floating the clear plastic fish bag, in which the fish came, at the water’s surface for a period of about 30 minutes. During this time, the temperature of the water in the fish bag will slowly adjust to match that in the aquarium. This way, your tropical fish won’t suffer from temperature shock when you release them into your aquarium.

After the 30 minutes is up, you can release your fish into the aquarium.

But, if you want to go the extra mile you can also get them used to the pH and the hardness/softness of your aquarium water!

Some of the more sensitive tropical fish, including the school of cardinal tetras pictured above, do best when acclimated not only to the water temperature, but also to the aquarium hardness/softness and pH.

If you do choose to go the extra mile, you’ll need a clean bucket (one you only use for aquarium maintenance) and a clean disposable plastic cup.

After the tropical fish have been floating in their bag in the aquarium for 30 minutes, take the bag out and release the fish, along with their water, into the clean bucket. Then take the plastic cup, fill it with aquarium water, and add it to the water in the bucket.

Repeat this step every two minutes for a period of 20 minutes.

After you have completed this process, your tropical fish are used not only used to the aquarium temperature, but also to the aquarium water! You can now catch the tropical fish out with a net, and add them to your aquarium.

Note: In the “members area” there’s an Aquarium Care *video* lesson that demonstrates how to acclimate new tropical fish to your aquarium. The video is based on the information provided in Aquarium Care digital book found here.

Aquarium Care FAQ: “How Do I Stop Cloudy Water?”

The dreaded cloudy water… it’s a common problem.

Aquarium water may turn cloudy for a variety of reasons (most of which are interrelated).

In this Aquarium Care FAQ article, I’ll talk about cloudy water syndrome in brand new fish-tanks (ones that may not even have fish in them yet).

The cloudy “stuff” in newly set up aquariums is most likely a precipitate. In the home aquarium, a precipitate forms in the following way.

So, brace yourself for a brief chemistry lesson. I’ll try to make it as painless as possible:

A precipitate forms when your aquarium water is supersaturated with a compound. Water can only hold a certain amount of dissolved minerals (think of it as a balancing act), and when your aquarium water is very hard, it may lead to the formation of a precipitate (the stuff that makes your water look cloudy). In other words, the water becomes cloudy when there are so many minerals in your aquarium that they can no longer dissolve in the water, and, hence, appear in an undissolved form. This undissolved mass of tiny mineral particles appears to the naked eye as cloudy water.

So, what does all this chemistry mumbo-jumbo mean, and how do you stop cloudy water?

Well, if your aquarium suffers from cloudy water, your water is likely to be very hard. If you test your tap-water for hardness with a standard test kit, I’ll bet that you’ll find that it is, indeed, very hard.

To solve the cloudy water issue, you can:

1) Add RO (reverse osmosis water) which is pure H2O and which, therefore, has no dissolved minerals in it (see this Aquarium Care FAQ article for more information on RO water).

2) Wait it out until the water clears by itself, by re-establishes that chemical balance.

Most people just wait it out and the problem goes away (…at least, until they do a water change).

Option number 2, however, does not alleviate the hard water issue, a problem that may affect the health of your tropical fish (depending on what type of fish you want to get).

Also, the type of rocks, gravel, and/or driftwood you add to your aquarium influences the chemical make-up of your aquarium water (see this Aquarium Care 101 article). In fact, some types of rocks and gravel may release more minerals into your tank, making the hard aquarium water issue worse.

So, the cloudy water situation is usually a reliable sign of a much bigger problem – very hard aquarium water caused either by poor tap-water quality, or by the addition of mineral releasing rocks and gravel into the fish-tank, or by both!

Aquarium FAQ: “Is Tap Water Okay For My Fish?”

Hey Everyone,

I’m happy to bring you this first installment of Aquarium Care FAQ – a new theSmileyFish series. I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from people who’ve asked for help with their new aquariums. So, I’ve decided to share both some of the most frequently asked aquarium care questions and the answers with the general public.

“Is tap water harmful to tropical fish?”

Yes; untreated tap water is harmful to all fish. Tap water contains chlorine, chloramines, phosphate, heavy metals, and other harmful impurities, all of which water utility companies add to drinking water to make it “safe” for human consumption.

While the human body can withstand these sanitizing poisons added to tap water, tropical fish cannot!

That’s partly because tropical fish have extremely thin skin which will burn when exposed to chlorine and chloramines.

This is why all tap water intended for aquarium use must be treated with something called water conditioner before being added to the aquarium. There are a variety of water conditioners available on the market and they will all effectively remove chlorine and chloramines.

Most water conditioners need a few minutes to take effect (some need more). When adding fresh water to an aquarium that’s already set up (into one that already has fish in it), I put the tap water into a clean bucket, then add the water conditioner, swirl the water around with my hand to ensure proper mixing, and then wait a few minutes before adding that water into the aquarium.

It’s important to note, however, that water conditioner will not remove phosphate from your tap water.

Phosphate is a compound that’s readily absorbed by problem algae. Phosphate, in effect, promotes problem algae blooms in the home aquarium.

So, if you want to go the extra mile by removing not only chlorine and chloramines, but also phosphate, you can opt to use RO (reverse osmosis) water for your aquarium.

RO water is pure H2O, so you don’t have to add water conditioner to RO water.

You can usually find Ro water at your neighborhood grocery store or even at your local aquarium shop …or you can make it yourself!

If you want to make your own RO water, you’ll need something called a RO unit – it’s basically a machine that uses a superfine semi-permeable membrane to physically separate “dirty” water from pure H2O.

I bought my RO unit for $240.00 (the picture above shows mine in its temporary bathroom setting). Yes; that was a bit of an investment, but the machine has paid for itself not only in financial terms, but also by cutting down potential maintenance caused by problem algae growth. In fact, when I first started using RO water, algae growth decreased by a whopping 90% and I haven’t seen any cyanobacteria (blue green algae) in ages! I’ve experienced no problems with the unit after years of operation.

Also, keep in mind that RO water is pure H2O. That means that it’s extremely soft and that it, therefore, cannot sustain high pH levels (for a detailed discussion of hardness/softness, buffering capacity, and pH see pages 30-32 of the Aquarium Care Book).

So, if you use RO water, and only RO water, you’ll have to add trace element solutions to compensate for the loss of beneficial compounds lost during the reverse osmosis process. Adding such solutions will also solve the potentially low pH problem.

Whether you use water conditioner or buy or make RO water, remember that the chlorine and chloramines in tap-water will quickly kill your tropical fish. So, tap-water always needs to be processed by one of the two ways outlined above.

Aquarium Care 101: Part 4

Keep Your Fish Alive From Day One to Day One Thousand and One!

When you set up your aquarium, when you add the gravel and decorations, attach the filter and heater, and add water conditioner (a solution that removes chlorine from tap water) you may want to go out to the nearest aquarium shop and pick out as many tropical fish as you can.

Stop right there! That’s the number one mistake people in the aquarium hobby make!

Remember those beneficial bacteria we discussed in Aquarium Care 101: Part 3? Well, until you provide them with a food source (fish waste), there is no bacteria in your aquarium (because they have nothing to eat). So, a brand new fish-tank has no beneficial bacteria in it!

In fact, during the first month or so of your aquarium’s “life,” the cleanliness of your aquarium water may degrade quickly if you’re not careful.

In particular, any tropical fish you add to a newly set up aquarium will produce more waste than the still growing beneficial bacteria population is able to consume. You, therefore, have to be very careful so as to not add too many fish in at once. In so doing, you’ll give the biological filter time to develop and do its “magic.”

Just to review, let’s take a quick look at the biological filtration process one more time:

Ammonia, the highly toxic substance that all fish release, is converted by a group of beneficial bacteria (known as Nitrosomonas) into Toxic Nitrite. Nitrite is then taken up by another group of beneficial bacteria (Nitrospira) and converted in Harmless Nitrate.

This two-step biological filtration process looks like this:

higly toxic Ammonia → toxic Nitrite → harmless Nitrate

But remember, brand new aquariums have no beneficial bacteria in it!

That’s why you should not add all the tropical fish into your aquarium at once. Doing so would cause a sudden and high influx of Ammonia into your fish-tank. Very high levels of Ammonia will kill your fish!

You should therefore add the fish in batches in order to give the beneficial bacteria time to multiply to sufficient levels – to a population that can handle the amount of waste being produced! Once the beneficial bacteria has multiplied to a healthy level, you’re ready for the next batch of tropical fish. This process is known as ‘cycling the aquarium’ and takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to complete.

You may say, “yeah, but I have a giant filter attached to my aquarium!” Well, keep in mind that no filter (which relies on mechanical and/or chemical filtration alone) can match the cleaning power of nature’s little workers. Let me say it again, NOTHING can substitute the work done by beneficial bacteria!

So, you indeed do have to add your fish in batches. Most aquarists recommend keeping one inch of fish per gallon of aquarium water, though in the Aquarium Care eBook, I recommend a slightly smaller ratio. But, if you go for the one inch of fish per gallon rule, a 40 gallon aquarium, for example, has a maximum stocking capacity of 40 inches worth of fish.

So, how big should your initial batch of fish be? Most people recommend adding 20% of your aquarium’s total stocking capacity. If you have a 40 gallon aquarium, your first batch should not exceed 8 inches worth of tropical fish (again, 8 is 20% of 40).

I don’t mean to scare you, but failure to properly ‘cycle’ your aquarium most likely will result in the death of all your fish! This ‘cycling’ process does require a bit of patience, but it’s well worth the time!!!

Note: In the “members area” there’s a 10 minute *video* that describes exactly, down to every detail, how this biological filtration process works and how you should cycle your aquarium so that your fish don’t die within the first week. The video is based on the expert Aquarium Care eBook found here.

To Buy Or Not To Buy? A Guide To Choosing Aquarium Products From The Internet

Online aquarium retailers offer every imaginable aquarium product (even tropical fish and other livestock) at a highly competitive cost. Given the recent boom in online retail activity, I think a brief analysis of which aquarium products are best obtained from the internet, and which online offers you should stay away from, is in order.

One of my readers recently emailed me to ask whether or not I would advise buying a canister filter (an Eheim Classic) from the internet. Although he felt a bit uncomfortable with purchasing the filter online, he was nevertheless enticed by the low internet price.

As well he should be! I not only encourage him to buy the canister filter online, but I also got him to get a much needed aquarium heater from the same website. All in all, he saved $43.00 by opting to buy his brand new canister filter and heater online!

Yes; when it comes to dry goods (aquarium filters, heaters, food, books, etc) online retailers are able to provide aquarium supplies a very low price that aquarium shops just can’t compete with.

But, that is not to say that every aquarium product found online is worth the cost. In particular, there is a huge difference between buying dry-goods and getting livestock (fish, invertebrates, and plants) from the internet.

I, myself, have saved a fortune by getting my aquarium dry-goods from the internet. At the same time, I’ve had mixed results from getting tropical fish and invertebrates online.

Although I’ve never bought freshwater fish online, and therefore cannot attest (from experience) to their quality, I have purchased a few saltwater fish and coral specimens from the internet. About half the corals shipped to me did not match the photos the site had provided of those specific specimens. In particular, the photo coloration of a Platygyra sp. and a Montipora tuberculosa was apparently “adjusted” by that particular online retailer.

I was a bit peeved and disappointed, but the experience did teach me that it’s best to buy aquarium livestock from your local aquarium shop.

Indeed, when getting your tropical fish from aquarium shops, you can see and observe the particular fish you’ll be taking home. Basically, you see before your eyes your future fish. On top of this, you can (and should) ask the people working at the aquarium shop to feed the tropical fish for you, so that you can determine it’s activity and health (a luxury that an aquarium livestock website just can’t deliver).

Unfortunately, these same neighborhood shops tend to overprice aquarium dry-goods, and they often won’t carry the product that you’re looking for. For these two reasons, I strongly encourage obtaining your filters, food, and books online. In so doing, you’re guaranteed to save big bucks!

So, here’s my simple formula for the most cost-effective aquarium purchases: buy your fish from local stores, and all your other aquarium products (filters, heaters, food, books, etc) online.

Announcement: A New Aquarium Care *Video* is Up and Running in the “Members Area”

Hey Everyone,

I’m writing to let you know that I added a new aquarium care video to the “members area” of TheSmileyFish.com. In this new aquarium care video I demonstrate the proper and safe method of acclimating fish (of carefully introducing new fish to a new environment) to your aquarium.

For those that are new to TheSmileyFish.com, access to the online aquarium care videos and tools in the “members area” is part of the special bonus package included in the Aquarium Care Guide found here. I encourage all to take advantage of this complete aquarium care manual and to benefit from its many features.

Please enjoy the new video, and take care,

Luke

P.S. As always, I’ll notify you the minute I add new aquarium care tools, videos, and other bonuses to the “members area”:)

The Dwarf Gourami: A Smaller and Gentler Gourami for Your Aquarium

The word “gourami” brings to mind the image of pale looking, lumbering fish that quarrel amongst each other. In fact, keeping more than one gourami is advisable only in large aquariums – that’s how aggressive these tropical fish can be towards their own species.

To the Gouramis’ credit, not all species of this tropical fish are so temperamental.

In fact, one gourami species, the Dwarf Gourami, is not only peaceful, but also stunningly colorful. While the males of this tropical fish species exhibit vertical blue stripes (markings that the females lack), even the females reddish orange hue will add a vibrant burst of color to your aquarium. On top of this, there are a few color variations – namely, Red, Neon, and Powder Blue – available to the aquarium trade!

In addition to its aesthetic appeal, this beautiful fish is hardy and grows to only 2 inches (5 cm) in length! These attributes make the Dwarf Gourami the perfect fish for the community aquarium and an excellent choice for beginners.

That said, here are a few additional things to consider. As with all tropical fish, you’ll get the most coloration out of the Dwarf Gourami if you provide it with the most suitable environment. Given its peaceful nature and small size, the Dwarf Gourami should be kept in well planted aquariums that contain only peaceful fish (no piranhas, guys and girls;).

In chapters 1 and 8 of The Kick-Ass Aquarium I explain in detail that supposedly “skittish” fish just need the right environment to encourage good health, great coloration, and plenty of activity. In particular, aquariums that resemble the natural environments from which your fish originate – in most cases, this includes little nooks and caves, overhangs, and lots of greenery – provide an environment that makes fish confident. These aquariums look great too!

The Dwarf Gourami, then, will gravitate towards the font of the aquarium for your viewing pleasure if it feels safe and secure, if it has a lot of potential hiding places to dart to should danger arise.

Of course, there’s no such danger in the home aquarium. But, keep in mind that tropical fish are hard-wired to “think” this way, and you can use this knowledge of tropical fish behavior to make your fish-tank look like paradise on earth!

And, the Dwarf Gourami, given its hardiness, is the perfect tropical fish for developing your perfect aquarium setup, the best aquascaping solution.

Aquarium Care:

Scientific Name: Colisa lalia

Origin: South Asia (India, Assam, and Bangladesh)

Water Temperature Range: 74-79 °F (23-26 °C)

Water pH Range: 6.0-7.5

Temperament: peaceful

Maximum Size: 2 inches (5 cm)

Minimum Tank Size: 10 U.S. gallons (38 liters), though, as I indicate in The Kick-Ass Aquarium, a larger aquarium size is advisable.

Diet: flake food, frozen brine shrimp, frozen bloodworms (not recommended)