Aquarium Care

Avoid Disease In Your Aquarium

There are many diseases that can affect your aquarium fish and once your tank is infected, there's a good change that all your fish can get sick. Luckily, keeping a disease free tank is not that hard. Most aquarium disease can be avoided by making sure your aquarium water is healthy. Neglecting the appropriate tank maintenance and partial water changes will allow toxins to build up in the water, basically polluting your fish's environment. As the water becomes more toxic your fish become more "stressed", the more stressed your fish becomes the easier it is for the micro organisms present in your aquarium water to infect your fish with various diseases.

Don't overcrowd your fish tank. The larger the tank, the more fish you can have.

Acclimate new fish to the tank properly. Make sure to have great water quality. Since poor water quality is the greatest case of fish disease and death you'll want to be diligent about your tank maintenance and partial water changes. 

Raise White Worms For The Aquarium

Live foods are overall high in protein. Live foods enhance the natural tendencies of fish to forage for their food as they would in their natural environment.

White worms (Enchytraeus albidus) are a great source of food for the aquarium. The white worm in size is approximately 3/4" to 1 1/2", somewhere between Tubifex and Grindal worms. Nick Lockhart, breeder for King Discus [http://www.kingdiscus.com] feeds white worms twice weekly to our breeding discus and juveniles. White worms are easy to raise. Fill the container about 3/4 full with peat moss as the medium. Add your starter culture of worms. Place a piece of wet crustless white bread on top of the medium for compost. Allow the worms a week to establish before feeding them. One of the best foods for white worms is Gerber's Baby Oatmeal. White worm cultures will "crash" if the population becomes too large. You can then feed the worms to your fishes.

The biggest thing to remember about growing white worms is to never let the medium dry out. Keep an eye out for mold, feed the worms appropriately, and you will have happy, vigorous fish!