Cool Water
Aquariums
An
aquarium that does not require a heater
What we are talking about here is an aquarium with fish that
can be kept between
55° and
75°F - most homes will do nicely for this type of aquarium.
Setting Up Your Aquarium
Setting
up your aquarium is the same regardless of whether you are
setting up a warm or cool water aquarium. See
Choosing Your Aquarium,
Choosing a Filter and
Setting Up Your Aquarium
for getting prepared to add fish.
Once Your Cool Water Aquarium is Set Up
Your
aquarium has now been set up for three (3) days
without fish.
Don’t skimp on the number of days.
The first
fish you want to add to get your aquarium are three (3)
inexpensive Comet Goldfish – they should be medium sized,
between 2” and 2.5”. DON’T GET EXCITED AND BUY FANCIER
GOLDFISH.
Don’t add any more fish for three (3) weeks
The First Three Weeks with a Cool Water Aquarium
This
is a risky time for your aquarium and your fish.
You need to monitor it fairly closely but don’t become a Nudge
and obsess over either. You will begin to learn how much food
your fish will eat and what your aquarium set needs to stay
clean and at the proper temperature. But best of all you will
have had three weeks to enjoy the antics of your new fish and
begin to familiarize yourself with behaviors.
 Gravel
and setting up your tank - aquariums only need gravel to
hold plants and other decorative items in place. If you can
try not to use gravel if you are a beginner, particularly
until you master feeding your fish without over-feeding.
The left over food loves to settle into the gravel and there
it lives, turning into bad bacteria that can cause
problems. The left over bits are hard to clean out of the
gravel also
Feeding Your Fish
This
is a skill, that if you are a new aquarist you will need to
practice to master.
You will want to feed your fish twice a day, starting with a
very tiny amount (you may even want to measure it to keep track)
place it in the tank and observe the fish eating it – all
together you will be giving you fish 10 minutes to eat. Keep
giving them tiny pinches if they eat what you give them quickly
until they stop eating or the 10 minutes is up. If there is
left over food at the end of 10 minutes scoop it out of the
tank. You will soon learn how much food they will eat in the 10
minutes time frame and won’t have to go through this
rig-a-ma-roll each time. The best food for cool water aquarium
fish and critters is floating food, I would suggest using
TetraFin and Freeze Dried Blood Worms (feed a few of these for a
after meal treat.)
Water Temperature
The
water in a cool water aquarium should be kept between
55° and
75°F,
with the upper range being considered the best for cool water
species. You will need to monitor this using a aquarium
thermometer. If you live in warm climates without air
conditioning you may have to do things to keep the water cool
enough for you fish. You should always keep the tank away from
sunny windows and heater vents, but air conditioner vents can be
just as problematic. There are things you can do to cool down
your tank if you find it climbing above 75°F, click here for
information on cooling your tank. It is equally a problem if it
gets too cold, so if you heat goes off, or you are going to be
away and you turn the heat down, remember your fish will suffer
and you may loose them.
 Cleaning
Your Cool Water Aquarium
You will need:
-
Gravel
vacuum (if you are using gravel or other medium on the
bottom of your tank)
-
Clean
rags or paper towels
Wash Your Hands
and make sure you have all the soap rinsed off. (Dirty hands
and/or soap can make your fish sick or even kill them.)
Once a week you will clean the inside of the tank with the
scrubbing pad, make sure you clean each side thoroughly and
gently. Watch that you don’t get gravel under the scrubber and
scratch the sides permanently. You also need to give a little
scrub to everything else in the tank decorations, plastic plants
the funny little deep sea diver, etc. You can just scrub them
in the water, unless they are particularly gunky,
The siphon tube going into your filter should be cleaned by
taking it off and placing it into the water you removed from the
aquarium. (Remember you are removing 20% of the water and
replacing it with clean water.) Rinse the siphon tube with
clean tap water and replace it. (A test tube scrub brush is a
great brush to clean the tubes in your tank.) After this give
the gravel gentle stir and using your gravel vac, clean the
gravel, hopefully once you get the feeding process down, there
will be less junk and bits in the gravel. If you tend to have
lots of gunk, you may need to consider a better filter or more
than one. Click here for information on choosing a filter.
This
is where you will get how important it can be to not
over-feed your fish, the excess food, breaks down and can
make your fish sick, but it also makes more for you to clean
– trust me it will mean - a lot more to clean!
Avoid contaminating Your Cool
Water Aquarium
I
don’t need to tell you not to use anything to clean with, no
chemicals, soap, bleach etc., you will end up killing everything
in your tank.
Always clean and rinse (in fact double rinse) anything you will
be introducing into your tank. Whether it is your hands or a
new decoration, make sure you have cleaned and rinsed them.
After you have cleaned your cool water aquarium, make sure you
clean the equipment you used and put it away so that it won’t
get dust and grime on it.
If
you have:
A Cool Water Aquarium with
Foamy, Smelly, Cloudy Water
If
your tank has an odor or the water becomes cloudy or foamy you
have a high concentration of bad bacteria. (I know we use
bacteria to assist in keeping aquarium in the proper condition,
but this isn’t what we are talking about) Some of what you
filter out (uneaten food, waste products) isn’t being removed
properly and it is overwhelming your tank and your fish. This
bacteria needs to be dealt with or it spells the end for your
fish.
Getting Rid of it
-
You
need to thoroughly clean your aquarium. Click
here to go to
Cleaning Your Cool Water Tank.
Change
20% of the water every day. (Be careful not to remove more
than 20% because it will put stress on your fish.) What you
are doing here is trying to remove more of the dissolved
waste in the water and this will begin to starve the harmful
bacteria.
If you
don’t remove more than 20% you can use most tap water
without having to add conditioners. Some well water has
chemicals or minerals that are harmful to fish. You may
want to check with a local aquarist (not the sales clerk at
a fish store) to see if your local water is safe. Adding a
water conditioner will neutralize many toxic chemicals, but
if you stick to the less than 20% at day you will probably
be safe. (Even using conditioner stick to the less than 20%
rule)
You
need to resist the impulse to over-feed your fish. They
really eat very little. The way to find out what is the
right amount, feed you fish a measured portion of food, if
they eat everything quickly add a small amount more, wait
for 10 minutes and then remove whatever they haven't eaten.
Click here to go to How to Feed Your Fish.
-
Add
these Chemicals to the water
Aquarium
Salt – Add only once. (the dose on the box) This salt has no
additives like calcium silicate (it helps table salt pour
smoothly) or iodine. Aquarium salt is fairly inexpensive, so
saving a few pennies isn’t really worth using table salt. Salt
doesn’t change the pH or the hardness of the water. Keep in
mind most fish tolerate salt quite fine, but Corydoras catfish
and some live plants can have problems
Water
Conditioner - Use the dose listed on the bottle. Repeat every
day until the water clears.
Quick Cure
- Add a half dose as a preventative. Repeat every day until the
water clears.
Do
not add any other chemicals or medications to the water and
be careful to add the proper dose of
the above items.
There
is some controversy about mixing chemicals and in general it
is not considered safe to mix. Some Aquarist question
adding the water conditioner and the Quick Cure at the same
time, but experience has shown me that it isn’t a problem in
this situation.
If your
tank has gravel – add a small handful of healthy gravel if you
can access it, either through another health tank you have, a
friend who will share or you can convince a fish store to
share. The healthy gravel will have good bacteria that will
quickly grow and help your tank back to health.
Avoiding It Next Time
Keep the
aquarium clean, change out the 20% of the water 2 times a week
and clean thoroughly once a month
Use the
correct filter for your aquarium. Click here to go to Choosing a
Filter for your Aquarium.
Don’t over
feed your fish. Feed them twice a day, tiny amounts until you
can establish how much they will eat in 10 minutes. Remove any
that is left at that time.
Unless you
have an aquarium with a bio-wheel filter, add a ¼ inch thick
layer of gravel. (Remember to gently stir the gravel before
changing the water.)
You and Your Cool Water Aquarium Made it Through the First Three
Weeks !!
If
you have healthy fish, and your aquarium water is crystal clear
and doesn’t smell you can add another fish.
(or add ghost shrimp that will improve water quality by eating
bits of left over food)
DO
NOT ADD FISH TOO FAST
Only add a couple of fish every few weeks, I know this is
difficult but if you don’t go slow, you can destroy your
aquarium. The general rule of thumb for newbies is – I know
this sounds a little odd, but - -+ 1 inch of fish per gallon of
water. So, for a 30 gallon tank you could eventually have 30
inches of fish, go with me here – that could be 15, 2 inch fish
or 10, 3 inch fish. You get the idea.
Fish to Add to Your Cool Water Aquarium
Believe
it or not you can get fancy Goldfish is all kinds of shapes and
some really beautiful colors other than orange gold. There are:
Danois
 This
is a category of fish that has too many sub species to list,
but in general these are good cool water community fish and
although they are boisterous they don’t tend to attack the other
fish, but will eat any fish small enough to fit into their
mouths. They thrive in water that is in the lower 70 degrees.
They are jumpers so require a tight lid on the aquarium. They
are active swimmers so do better in a tank that is long enough
to have a current with a power filter or at least an airstone to
simulate a stream current. The do fine with most aquarium food.
Tiger Barb
(Most Barbs)
 The
Tiger Barb grows to the size of 2.5 to 3 inches, this makes
them large enough to keep from being eaten from larger fish, yet
they fit in a medium size tank. They are not always ideal for a
community tank so they need to be chosen carefully. In a tank
with just one or three they can harass the other fish but in a
larger group (at least 6) they keep their picking to the group.
You also need to make sure you don’t keep the Tiger Barb in a
tank with slower more docile fish or long-finned fish like fancy
Goldfish. But if chosen with color variations they can be in a
beautiful display. They are cool water fish and can tolerate a
wide variation of water. The ideal tank for Barbs is one with a
variety of plant life (live or artificial) and wide open spaces
for swimming. The aren’t picky about the food they eat but they
need a good quality flake food and live and frozen food like
brine shrimp, blood worms and even beef heart. They even like
cooked vegetables.
White
Cloud Minnow
 Currently
there are two variations of the White Cloud Minnows, the “Golden
Cloud” and the “Meteor Minnow”, and breeding them together
as resulted in the “golden Meteor Minnow”. This is an ideal
fish for the cool water aquarium and the beginning aquarist as
it is a hardy fish. They are similar in appearance to the “Neon
Tetra,” with their bright colors. This is a community fish and
if kept alone can actually begin to lose it color. The perfect
number is a shoal of about five other minnows and they are happy
in a tank with other fish as long as those fish are not larger.
They do best in a tank with plenty of plant to hide in, and can
handle water that gets down as cold as 50 degrees and as high as
90 degrees for short periods. The idea temperature is 65 to 70
degrees.
Killifish
 The
Striped Panchax is a species of Killifish, that can be found in
pet stores, specialist societies and associations. Of
course the males are the colorful in fact lavishly colored,
member of this species, the females tend to be dull colored.
They tend to get along if they are raised together in a group,
but two alone may not get along and will need to be kept
separate. They can be hard on smaller fish (anything small
enough to eat) as they have mouths that open as wide as their
mouths. They also jump, so you need to make sure the tank is
“baby proofed” as the are reported to get through tiny holes and
they will get into the filter and get stuck. I’ve been told
that “killies” do best with live food but frozen and freeze
dried is also ok, unless they have been raised on fresh, they
may refuse freeze dried.
Paradise
Fish
 This
fish is best kept as the only fish species in the tank as
they can be fairly aggressive particularly with smaller fish.
This fish is hardy and does good in most temperatures.
You will
need to separate the males as they will fight but you can put a
male in with females and you can also keep a group of females
together. If you are keeping a lone fish you will need a tank
that can hold at least 3 gallons of water, in a group they do
well in a 20 to 30 gallons. If you are placing them in a
community tank care should be taken as they can be aggressive
fish.
The Giant
Danios, any large Tetras, and even some of the lesser aggressive
cichlids, tend to be to hold their own with the Paradise as long
as they are about the same size. Long finned Goldfish and any
other slow moving fish like angelfish are not a good choice.
Some Cichlid species do well but they can get into a dominance
struggle so they should be monitored closely at first. The
Paradise fish will eat just about anything you feed them, but
they should be given a high-protein diet, not the standard
vegetable-based Goldfish food.
Goldfish
(Common)
 This
is a great first fish; they are hardy and can live in less than
ideal conditions. They are the fish you see at children’s
school fair in the little jars you throw a ball in to win the
fish. My daughter brought one home from a fair and it actually
survived 15 years (and many moves to larger aquariums as it
grew.) This little orange fish is extremely social and will do
well with other fish and other aquatic life. Many people swear
these fish have personality (Kate’s fish would come to the
surface to be scratched.)
There are many other fish
that can be successful in a cool water aquarium these are just
some of the easiest to be successful with. There are also
other aquatic animals such as tadpoles(frogs) ghost shrimp,
snails that can be added if done properly.
It takes some skill and patience to find the proper fish for
your cool water aquarium. You are limited when you set up an
aquarium without a heater. The fish and critters above are a
few that should work together, but for more information on fish
compatibility click here. You may also want to consider a warm
well in cool water aquarium,.
So there you have it, you have a cool water aquarium and some
remarkable fish to care for and enjoy watching. There are many
others out there who are aquarist with a cool water tank and if
you do a little research you will find them to offer their
experience and advice. Check out the other tropical and salt
water aquarium information on Tame That Wild Thing.com
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