Home Fish Aquarium Guide

We’ve had our 5 gallon tank setup and running for over a year now. (14 months.) When we started this second foray into fishkeeping I had studied and learned and felt much better prepared than our shortlived first attempt. My biggest concern was the small tank and going against the recommendations of keeping Zebra Danios in such a small tank. I had picked them due to most reports indicating that they are fairly hardy and so should survive our early mistakes. I resolved to do more water testing than before and at this point it is at a point where it can run for several weeks between changes. (This is a planted tank and so our nitrate levels never seem to get that high.)

Continue Reading “Learning from Experience”

The Friday before Christmas it snowed, and snowed and snowed. Most of Friday we expected power to go out. It finally did Friday evening. We have a danio (currently just one) in a 5 gallon tank (yes a bit small.) He has been in the tank for almost a full year now. (We got him around the New Year of 2009.) The tank usually stays near the comfortable 72-76 degree Fahrenheit range. However, I was very concerned about an extended power outage. We have a fireplace that I spent some time last fall cleaning out, but we still don’t know for certain that our chimney is safe and so with an extended outage in cold weather we’ve evacuated across the road to my parents who have a wood stove in their basement. (And one other thing we don’t have which is a good load of wood….) I wrapped the tank up with bathroom towels/blankets and hoped for the best.

Continue Reading “Weathering an Extended Power Outage in a Fish Pet Tank”