Fish

[Allen Jiang]

What fish should I get?

[TCLynx]

Might help if you also let people know where you are and what the climate is like there so they might be a bit more informed when they make a recommendation.

 

Here in the USA I like to recommend Channel Catfish and Bluegill because they can survive most climates and are native.  (I don't like worrying about heating my water.)

 

In OZZ I would recommend probably silver perch as the stand by for most anywhere.  People in the more tropical areas might grow jade perch and people with a cooler climate might grow trout.  I believe there are also a few other choices.

 

Of course all of the above is assuming a system big enough to grow edible fish (as in bigger than a 200 liter fish tank.)  How big is the system you are looking to get fish for?  You might just want to get some goldfish if it is a tiny system.

[Allen Jiang]

it's a 60L system

[TCLynx]

Better look for something like goldfish or guppies.

[Allen Jiang]

ok so can goldfish survive in muddy water?

[Allen Jiang]

how do you introduce fish to your system?

Allen Jiang said:

ok so can goldfish survive in muddy water?

[TCLynx]

Goldfish seem to survive most anything.

 

You might want to look up fishless cycling though if you want to get the bio-filter running without worrying so much about killing fish.  There are plenty of discussions about it and here is a blog post I did about it.

 

But if you want to just jump in with fish.  Well fish usually come in a bag with some air in it.  Float that bag in your fish tank (be sure to shade it from the sun when you do this) for 15-20 minutes to let the temperature equalize.  Then you open the bag and you might scoop a little of your system water into the bag so the pH can equalize a little bit too.  Then you net the fish out of the bag and gently put them in your fish tank.  It is generally advisable NOT to simply pour the transport water into your system.

[Allen Jiang]

how much time do you allow it to equalize for when you scoop your water in?

[TCLynx]

I usually only do a few minutes since it isn't like you can really go about measuring the pH change while holding the bag and the transport water is usually pretty polluted by the time you get them home so you don't want to take too terribly long about it.  If you have an extra air stone I suppose you could scoop some system water into a bucket and place the fish in there with their transport water and the air stone for a few minutes.

 

If you plan ahead perhaps you could even prep a salt dip for them before you place them into your system.  Just gotta put some effort into making sure all the water is roughly the same temperature.  A salt dip can sometimes help protect from bringing fish diseases into your system from the aquarium shop.  Don't leave a fish unattended in a high concentration of salt water, This is just a brief dip to try and remove bacteria and parasites from the outside surface of the fish.  Then you net them from the dip and gently place them into your system.

[Allen Jiang]

thanks

[Allen Jiang]

where can you get koifish from?

[TCLynx]

A pet store or aquarium shop are a good place to start.