Should I drip acclimate my fish?

We all want to keep our fish as healthy as possible, and so we develop certain habits to help with this. We perform routine aquarium maintenance to prevent a buildup of harmful substances. We carefully consider tankmates in order to reduce aggression. We use quarantine tanks to monitor new arrivals and avoid introducing sick fish to a healthy tank. We make every effort possible to keep our water parameters stable and avoid pH swings.

Most methods of keeping our tanks healthy revolve around one concept: trying to reduce the amount of stress our fish are exposed to.

Like people, fish have robust immune systems. Also like people, when they come under stress, fish’s immune systems can become suppressed, allowing pathogens that would normally be fought off to overwhelm the fish. By keeping our fish comfortable and happy, they are less likely to become ill.

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This entry was posted on September 26, 2017 at 6:57 PM and has received 14391 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

The aquarium hobby often gets a bad rap. The few times that the media ever looks at us they’re either claiming we’re raping the environment of its wild animals or they’re blaming us for the release of a species that has become invasive.

Occasionally we will get a positive mention, such as recent press on the importance of the ornamental fishery to communities on the Rio Negro and articles on the first ever tank raised blue tangs. But those stories are rarely told.

On top of these, there are more stories of the aquarium community driving conservation. We’re breeding species that are otherwise extinct, protecting wild ecosystems, and restoring lost habitats. We have supplied zoos and aquariums as they create survival plans for critically endangered species.

Check out our infographic for just a few of the ways the aquarium hobby has promoted conservation.

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This entry was posted on September 12, 2016 at 3:39 PM and has received 8549 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

One of the great aspects of the aquarium hobby is the sheer variety of animals we can choose to keep. There are literally thousands of species and varieties that are available to the hobbyist. And with the amount of information and resources available, there are fewer and fewer species that people are unable to have success with keeping. 

Arguably, the most popular family of fish (and likely the family with the most passionate fanbase) are the cichlids. And for good reason. Like the hobby as a whole, there is a wide enough range of cichlids to meet almost any keeper’s desires. It’s estimated that there are more than 2,000 cichlid species ranging from the tiny shell dwelling Neolamprologus to very large peacock bass (Cichla spp.). You can find cichlids that are fairly peaceful or that are ruthless killers, cichlids that thrive in large groups or that are complete loners, cichlids that are graceful and beautiful or cichlids that are downright ugly. 

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This entry was posted on July 19, 2016 at 4:31 PM and has received 11545 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

As Disney/Pixar's Finding Dory hits theaters today, the conversation around ocean wildlife, aquariums, and the collection of fish for the aquarium hobby is growing increasingly loud. Anti-aquarium voices are loudly decrying that the movie will create a mass rush of people running to their local fish store to buy their very own Dory, arguing that this skyrocketing demand will spell the end of wild tang populations and that ornamental fisheries need to be shut down to protect the reefs. Industry and hobbyist sources such as The Pet Leadership Council, MASNA, OATA, and others are releasing messages encouraging hobbyists and would-be fish keepers to do their due diligence and only buy fish that they can responsibly care for. 

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This entry was posted on June 17, 2016 at 1:54 PM and has received 5600 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Harlequin Rasboras (Trigonostigma heteromorpha)

Being new to any hobby can be overwhelming, and the aquarium hobby is no exception. One of the biggest questions almost everybody new to the hobby has is what are some of the best beginner fish for my aquarium. A quick Google search can come up with more results than any one person can read (approximately 525,000 as of this writing), but most of them will suggest more or less the same fish. Fish like livebearers (mollies, guppies, swordtails), dwarf gourami, barbs, and tetras are justifiably recommended, but there are also other fish that don’t get as much attention. So we decided to highlight some less common fish that beginners could easily have success with.

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This entry was posted on May 10, 2016 at 4:45 PM and has received 10463 views. There are currently 3 comments. Print this entry.

Every hobby is different, but each one has its own sets of challenges and rewards. To those outside of a given hobby, it can be hard to understand what it is that makes us struggle through these challenges and not simply move on to something else. What is it that drives us to push through and invest our time, energy, and money into keeping fish? The answer will always be different for each person, but there are several common reasons that we see in the hobby.

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This entry was posted on April 12, 2016 at 2:41 PM and has received 7813 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

Captive bred or wild caught? Depending on the species, there can be arguments made for the merits of both. After years of focusing on advocating captive bred fish, many are realizing that sustainable wild collection that is managed properly can help support conservation measures, such as is being demonstrated by Project Piaba. However, this mostly applies to freshwater fish. Marine species, thanks to the complexity and difficulty of their life cycles, are still being captive bred in relatively small numbers, and we should be making every effort possible to develop and promote captive breeding initiatives.

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This entry was posted on March 8, 2016 at 4:02 PM and has received 17801 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

As with any hobby, fish keepers have a tendency to get overzealous. We’re always looking for something bigger, better, and more exciting. Whether this is a bigger tank, being first to breed a particular species, bringing out some extraordinary feature, owning the most rare and unusual fish, there is often a sense of one upmanship in the hobby. Sometimes, though, there’s a good reason to resist your urge and just step away.

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This entry was posted on February 15, 2016 at 5:14 PM and has received 8399 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

For over a year, Segrest Farms and other industry leaders have been working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to develop and implement testing and treatment regimens to address concerns over a chytrid fungus from Asia named Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (frequently shortened to Bsal).

For several months we have had in place, and encouraged other suppliers to do the same, a voluntary moratorium refusing to carry certain species including the Fire Belly Newt (Cynops pyrrhogaster) and Paddletail Fire Newts (Pachytriton brevipes).

The USFWS has decided to put in place an interim ruling listing all species from 20 genera as injurious, making it illegal to import these species into the United States or transport them across state lines. The ruling goes into effect Thursday, January 28th 2016.

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This entry was posted on January 26, 2016 at 10:08 AM and has received 4735 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Cardinal Tetras, the jewel of the Rio Negro

If you follow us closely, you will have heard or seen us mention on occasion Project Piaba . In our blog post on Environmental Sustainability in the Ornamental Fish Industry, I discussed the benefits of sustainable wild collection operations. There are several existing operations that are performing vigorous research into the best methods of collection and carefully monitoring fish populations in order to ensure they are operating sustainably. The fishery in West Hawaii, for example, is arguably the most heavily researched and monitored fishery in the world. But when I was writing the post and discussing the benefits of a sustainable fishery, Project Piaba is what I was most closely thinking about.

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This entry was posted on January 19, 2016 at 7:05 PM and has received 5315 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.