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The more the merrier
Last night, Matty and I got a few more fishies for our aquarium. We were looking for fish that will swim in the top and/or upper-middle sections of the tank. They also had to be pretty hardy and not aggressive.
Stop by and see if you can spot the new-comers.
We picked up four Bleeding Heart Tetras, which are a nice silvery-beige with a red marking on their sides and red on the fins. Tetras are our usual stand-by. They're hardy and usually stay in groups while they swim, so they make a nice visual in the tank.
We also picked up three silver Hatchet fish. We've had a few of these before and they lasted a decent amount of time (cause of deaths unknown). The hatchets typically stay swimming at the top and they have a unique look to them. Their little pectoral fins are angled up and look like wings. And they have a "belly" that drops down from their otherwise straight body and looks like a hatchet or a pelican's beak pouch.
We've tried a few different methods for introducing new fish into our aquarium, but have found a tried and true way for us. We used to have a small, hospital/waiting room tank, but it became more work to keep it going and their seemed to be very little benefits.
If possible, we try to schedule a tank cleaning to coincide with the introduction of the new fish. This breaks up any territories the current fish may have, and in all the excitement of the cleaning, no one's paying attention to the new guys. If we can't get a cleaning done, we give some snacks to the fish, which again takes their minds off the newbies. (Silly fish, so easily distracted.)
We float the bags of new fish on the top of the aquarium for 20-30 minutes, which acclimates the fish to the water temp in the tank. Then over the next half an hour, we add about 1/2 c. of aquarium water to the bagged fish every 10 minutes. This acclimates the fish to the chemical make up of our tank.
After the third installment and waiting period, we net the fish and move them into the aquarium. And dump their water out! Don't add the water from the bags to your tank - their could be all kinds of ick and sick that you don't want your fish to get.
And then the fun part... watching all the activity and interactions of the fish. Ahh, that's the life.
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