When starting an
aquarium, nobody does so with the thought of, “I want to fail.”
Quite the contrary, people start in the hobby to succeed at establishing
a community of animals that grow, and thrive.
Failure in the hobby many times can be avoided by planning from the
beginning. Not only where the aquarium will be placed, or how much money
you will spend, but exactly what you want to look at when all is said and done.
Success in the hobby is measured in years and not months or weeks.
And, an integral factor to success in longevity is to combine animals
that will cohabitate in a natural manner for many years to come.
Physical Environment
The physical environment encompasses all factors that
pertain to placement and decoration. The
aquarium should be located where the ambient temperature and lighting can be
easy to control. Excessive
lighting, whether from the outdoors or indoors, can be a huge factor to
uncontrollable algae growth. Drafts
from central heating and cooling systems, or heat from an outside bearing wall
can make the temperature difficult to control.
Noise and activity should also be paid attention to.
Constant activity around the tank whether it is from children, pets, or
adults will lead to fish that are skittish in the least.
It can also be a contributing factor of long- term stress that can lead
to constant struggles with diseases. The
same scenario can result from excessive and erratic noise. If the aquarium is located in the proximity of the home
theater system, the noise from the surround sound system could also be a
contributing factor of long-term stress. Although
fish are amazingly adaptable, the extremes are what need to be avoided.
The inside of the aquarium should be decorated in a manner that will
contribute directly to long-term harmony. The
framework of the live rock should allow for multiple territories, as well as
uninhibited water flow throughout the tank.
Reef vs. Fish Tanks
Half
the battle to being successful with your pets is choosing wisely which pets to
put together. Corals come from
environments that are ruled by mostly constant and unchanging parameters.
The sun is always predictable and the dilution factor of the open ocean
is infinite. The water chemistry is
coined as “pristine”. This
means that it is largely devoid of organic by-products that are inherent with
healthy, eating and growing animals. Having
fish in your aquarium means having to add food to keep them healthy. This is
where the pollution and hence maintenance of an aquarium originates. Small fish
appropriate for a coral tank require much less food than large fish associated
with fish tanks. Many of the
angels, and butterflies kept in captivity would not only require rich diverse
food to stay healthy, but will directly feed on corals. Triggers, puffers and many wrasses need large amounts of rich
meaty foods to grow and behave normally. The
amount of food going into a standard reef tank to keep a puffer or trigger fed,
more often than not overwhelms the filtration and maintenance of the system.
What all this means is that success is much more likely with corals when
the food input can be limited. And,
when the inhabitants aren’t eating them!
Likewise, success with a fish tank is more easily achievable when corals
are not present.
Behavioral Harmony
Although the reef
as a whole works, many of the relationships that are natural are either
intensified or altered in an artificial closed setting with a finite amount of
space. This means, that the reef as a whole is not reproducible in the average
aquarium. Instead particular
habitats can be recreated with great success.
Recreating a natural setting that houses the fish inherent to it, allows
those animals to display natural behavior and feel comfortable.
This is directly relevant to aquarium keeping success.
A yellow tang in a 125-gallon tank swims comfortably.
A yellow tang in a 30-gallon tank is cramped.
And, since natural behavior promotes health, the yellow tang in the
30-gallon tank is much more likely to have disease issues. Another
scenario of incompatibility would be having a trigger or a puffer in a reef
tank. The trigger or puffer would constantly predate on snails,
crabs, shrimp, etc. Your clean-up
crew would be in a constant state of flux.
It would be costly to constantly replace the critters that are supposed
to keep the tank clean.
Nutrition & Feeding
For all the different animals that inhabit the reef, there
are as many different diets required ensuring health and growth.
The amount of foods available to the hobbyist nowadays is much more
diverse than it has ever been. However,
not every diet is reproducible. Many
of the more obscure or rare butterfly fish and angel fish require particular
types and quantities of live coral to not only survive, but to grow and live
comfortably. Just the same, there
are many types of cleaner fish that make a living by cleaning parasites and bits
of food off of other fish. They do
this as a primary diet. Obviously,
we do not want to promote the continued occurrence of parasites in the aquarium
just to keep a cleaner wrasse alive. Consequently
an integral factor to keeping a successful community of animals is being able to
provide a highly nutritious and diverse diet.
The inclusion of some of the higher quality vitamin additives can also be
a huge factor to the intensity of activity and coloration exhibited by fish in
captivity. They help to bridge the
gap between the diversity of food sources available to them in their natural
habitat and the limited availability of foods in the trade.
One of the biggest mistakes made, is limiting the diversity of your pets
diets. No one food provides all of
the necessary vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately,
animals fed a limited diet are doomed in the aquarium.
Conclusion
These
are just some of the major aspects to being successful with a marine aquarium.
Planning and researching from the beginning of the venture can alleviate
most of the shortfalls, such as where the aquarium will be located, the types of
fish that will live in it, and whether or not they will cohabitate in confined
quarters. The accessibility to foods, and the time willing to be spent providing
the diet will weigh into what fish are appropriate for any aquarist.
For guidance on any of the issues aforementioned, come on in and consult
with an AquaTouch employee.
Success can be realized and achieved from the beginning!
Prepared by Scott Davidson
