Maidenhead Aquatics Topical Tips - July 2010
As a glance at the countryside and the odd parched lawn will tell you, high summer is here and with it come a few jobs that need doing as the year slips past the half-way mark.
Outdoors
As the spawning season starts to wane and fishes start to build up their reserves for the cold months ahead, females can often be in very poor physical condition. Close examination will often reveal missing scales and lesions which can develop into sites for fungal or bacterial infections. Treat your pond at the first signs of damage to aid speedy recovery and avoid losses of female fish, which will only make the same problems worse for the remaining females when next spawning season comes around. As a treat, consider using an aquarium goldfish food to ensure optimal nutrition when fishes need it most.
The result of all this spawning activity should be noticeable in the pond at this time of year and unless you have large numbers of adult fish such as Koi, which will quickly eat any eggs they find, you may now see tiny dark-brown fish fry amongst the plants and shallows. These tiny fish will be eating the small bugs and invertebrate creatures that colonise the pond but their survival can be boosted by using a fine grade flake or pellet food. If you’re tempted to remove any fry from the pond for rearing think carefully, as feeding a large amount of food into a smaller volume of water can often lead to disaster. As a guide, it is far better to attempt to rear a small number of fish in a filtered aquarium or small vat than to lose otherwise healthy young stock due to pollution. With any fry rearing, the secret is to feed frequently and perform lots of partial water changes and I would recommend six to eight feeds a day and 50% water changes using water from the pond. A mature filter is vital and your local branch can advise you on options. Given the work involved, the wisest course of action is often to add a fine food regularly to the main pond to boost fry numbers.
All of these extra baby fish can lead to a population explosion that over time can lead to stocking issues. With warm weather comes the risk of low oxygen levels and July is a peak time for these often fatal incidents. As previously mentioned, this issue is linked to the fact that submerged pond plants will take oxygen from the water overnight and only start producing oxygen once the sun has risen. By the time that the average water gardener is enjoying the first coffee of the day, the oxygen levels have returned to acceptable parameters and the ‘mysterious death’ of often the larger pond fish remains an unsolved crime. If you have abundant plant growth and a large fish population, consider adding extra water movement at the surface of your pond during the hot months – a fountain is ideal, or an air pump may be more practical. Whatever solution you choose, make sure that it is left running overnight, even if it gets turned off during the day.
Pond margins are now home to this year’s young amphibians and care is needed to ensure these remain unharmed. Keep mown lawns short to prevent them being used as shelter (unless you’re looking for an excuse not to mow!) and consider raking the grass before using the mower. The absence of tadpoles makes it a safer time to remove blanket weed and duckweed but check for newt larvae and invertebrates and place material on the edge of the pond for a few hours before adding it to the compost bin. This gives any trapped creatures the chance to return to the water.
To provide shade and help control algae, add one of the tender floating plants such as Water Hyacinth or Water Lettuce. These rapidly growing plants will earn their keep as well as add ornament and the silver beads of rain on a water lettuce leaf are a sight that every pond keeper should see at least once. Many other pond plants from warmer climes are reaching their peak soon and exotics such as Cannas are a feast for the eyes alongside hardier forms such as Lobelia, Pontederia and Thalia. These exuberant plants are generally fairly difficult to hide and can be quickly located in many of our pond sections up and down the country.
For those with small children, small gardens or little time, large quantities of open water may be out of the question. I was reminded of this when I saw a very nice selection of water features running at our Woodford store. These can be found at most of our branches or obtained to order and suit a wide range of garden styles. Many of them also included lighting and would perhaps even do a reasonable job of keeping an unopened bottle of wine cool in their reservoirs of an evening! (Always enjoy your water features responsibly)
Indoors
If like me you’re a fan of conservation, you may have watched the recent Wild Night in on BBC2. I was very pleased to hear that funds were being used to help wild seahorses but feel that I have to clarify the role of the aquarium trade in their fate. Seahorses are protected by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) which makes trade in them tightly controlled. For this reason all the specimens that you see for sale in our stores will always be captive-bred and we prefer it that way. If you want to help seahorse conservation, please tell your friends not to buy any dried seahorses or products made from them. Properly cared for, captive-bred seahorses can thrive and breed fairly easily but they remain a fish best kept by committed aquarists.
At the other end of the fish scale, it was lovely to see some great examples of the ever-popular Oscar at our Carlisle store. These fishes were young mature adults and show signs of having been kept by customers who obeyed the simple rules of big tanks and frequent water changes. They might be a fish overlooked by experienced hobbyists and they may lack rarity but a good oscar is still one of the best aquatic pets you can find.
Having confessed to some of my early mistakes in the last edition, it seems only fitting to carry on where we left off.
Mistake #5
I remember having what I thought was a stubborn case of flukes in my aquarium that wouldn’t respond to treatment. Every couple of weeks the fishes would seem itchy and would ‘flash’ against the rocks and wood in the tank. I tried various remedies but none of them worked – I didn’t even know what I was doing wrong and every two weeks I would take the sponge from my internal filter and wash it under the tap.
Solution: nobody had told me that the chlorine in the tap water would kill my filter bacteria. Each time I washed it under the tap, I was losing my biological filtration and exposing my pets to a spike of pollution that irritated them and made them twitch like they had parasites. I upgraded to an external filter that needed less frequent cleaning and the problem solved itself.
The lesson: never make assumptions without testing your water first and never assume that just because your fish aren’t dying something isn’t wrong with your tank.
Mistake #6
My first ever marine tank was, looking back now, very ‘old school’ and unsurprisingly the source of some real challenges. One of my fish, a regal tang, was constantly afflicted with a few white spots. In my search for a ‘reef friendly’ treatment, I found one which warned of the fact that carbon would remove it from the water. In the external filter that powered my reverse-flow under-gravel filtration I had some carbon that had been in use for over six months. Secure in the knowledge that it would be exhausted and incapable of removing the medication I added the treatment. A couple of hours later all of my fish were dead apart from one.
Solution: although it might not have removed all of the chemicals which make up the treatment, the carbon seemingly removed enough to cause a toxic reaction from the fishes. Had I just removed the carbon it would never have happened.
The lesson: Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions when using any chemicals in your aquarium and never take the lazy route in the hope that things will probably be ok.
On a more positive final note, stingrays in our stores really seem to be on a mission to populate the planet and the contrast in size between adult and young in one instance really caught my eye. The baby rays in the photo will soon be joined by younger siblings as can be seen from the marks on the female’s flank. These are inflicted by the male as a prelude to mating. It seems if you’re a stingray, love hurts…
