The FishWise Blog
Posted on Friday, July 25, 2008
This blog officially went "live" several months ago, but recently, we just got our own link to the main page of API(so, this is a Grand Opening, I guess). To celebrate, I’m going to talk about a whole different kind of "live."
There are a few benchmarks that let you know you've progressed to, or are at least progressing towards, a more advanced level of fishkeeping. Some major benchmarks wo...
Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2008
...it's getting hot out there.
Which can mean trouble for some of your fish. Like I've mentioned in previous posts, some "tropical" fish really aren't big fans of heat. And coldwater fish, like goldfish, native North American fishes, and others, can't take it for long.
An air conditioner or two can make all the difference, but what if one breaks down, or what if the...
Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008
About a week ago, I was cruising my LFS (Local Fish Store, in the online hobbyist argot) for something new, and I struck it rich. There was a tank full of medium-sized (2 ½ inches or so) fish, metallic blue, with deep vermillion fins. They were obviously cyprinids (barbs, goldfish, danios, rasboras and the like) by their forked tail, and the activity level in the tank, while less than frantic, cou...
Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008
First off, here’s an interesting link, despite the sensational title (it could see like dogs, cats, owls, or anything else with binocular vision). Thanks to Robin from Mars Fishcare for clueing me in to that one.
It’s spring, and if you haven’t already, it’s time for you to get those ponds ready - for your aquarium fish. Why not? Many tropical aquarium fish…aren’t. “Tropical” is so...
Posted on Monday, April 14, 2008
This morning I caught one of my fish in the act of displaying at a female...
Recognize it?
Posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008
Killies.com, an excellent forum for killifish fans (and fans of aquarium mosses) will shortly be merging with Aquaticquotient.com. Details here.
Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008
This weekend, I found something interesting at a local fish store...
Recognize it? This is just a teaser - more later!
Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008
My apologies to Shakespeare for that title. Ugh.“It’s so complicated.” Boiled down to a simple one-sentence sound bite, this is the reason most new hobbyists are put off by the Latin names of fish. It’s a dead language with tons of obscure rules, and, well, how do you even pronounce something like Zoogoneticus quitzeoensis? You could sprain something. At its core, however, the scientific jargon i...
Posted on Thursday, March 06, 2008
Neons, tiger barbs, “mixed African cichlids,” angelfish…sometimes I despair. Sometimes it seems as though if all but those four headings disappeared from tropical fish stores, hardly anyone would notice. Sure, there’s the second string, the danios, barbs, assorted tetras, but there’s a whole world of forgotten fish out there. Forgotten, I might add, for no good reason – they’re colorful, hardy, n...
Posted on Friday, February 22, 2008
...o' mice an men gang aft agley. Robert Burns said that, and my plans definitely took a turn towards "agley" the past week or so. This entry was supposed to the first part of a journal dedicated to an Indian-themed aquarium I'm setting up. The weather has prevented the shipping of some fish I was counting on, and the cherry on top was an unexpected bacterial (I think) infection of the fish I w...