Tropical Fish Keeping: These Four Key Points Cannot Be Ignored

The weather in Shenzhen has been changeable these past few days, cold one moment and hot the next, and many customers' beloved fish have fallen ill, listless, refusing to eat and unwilling to swim, which is really distressing. The worst part is that sometimes you see a fish dead first thing in the morning, and it affects your mood for the whole day! So today we will focus on the four factors that are often inseparable from illness in ornamental fish.

1. Environmental causes.

1. Water temperature: when the water temperature changes drastically, the fish's body, due to its weak adaptability, undergoes pathological changes and may even die.

2. Water quality: once the water quality environment is poor, it can cause tropical fish to become ill or die.

3. Substrate: this mainly applies to friends who raise fish in ponds. Once the substrate environment deteriorates, the fish's own immunity declines, and disease occurs later.

2. Biological causes.

1. Pathogens: the pathogens of ornamental fish include fungi, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, etc. These pathogens are the chief culprits affecting the health of ornamental fish.

2. Algae: some algae, such as oodinium and water net, have a direct impact on ornamental fish. Water net often entangles ornamental fish and causes their death.

3. Enemies: these mainly include aggressive fish from improper mixed stocking, aquatic insects, blue-green algae, etc.

3. Causes from the fish itself.

1. Physiological reasons: fish's ability to respond to and resist external diseases varies with age, physical health, nutrition, size and so on. For example, wheel worm disease is a common epidemic at the fry and fingerling stage, but as the fish grows older, even if parasites are present, it generally will not cause disease.

2. Immune capacity: after pathogenic organisms enter the fish body, they are often engulfed by the fish's phagocytes, which also attract white blood cells to the injured site to engulf the pathogenic microorganisms together, showing an inflammatory response.

4. Human factors:

There are quite a few of these, for example accidentally cutting off the power to the fish tank, so the fish become ill or die from lack of oxygen, and so on. During the keeping process, people often need to change the water, top up the water, net the fish and clean the fish tank, and sometimes improper handling makes the fish jump onto the ground or bump into utensils, causing split fin rays, fallen scales and mechanical injuries. This makes it very easy for germs to invade through the wounds and infect the fish. For example, branchial necrosis and saprolegniasis are infections contracted through this route.

When catching live bait and collecting aquatic plants in nature, and when feeding and transplanting them into the fish tank, because disinfection and cleaning work is not thorough, germs and pests are often brought into the fish tank, harming the fish's health. For example, ich disease and branchial necrosis are all infections that develop this way.

Domestic ornamental fish rely entirely on artificial feeding. If feeding is improper, or the fish are sometimes hungry and sometimes full, or they are fed dry bait for a long time, with a single variety of bait and a lack of animal-based bait, then the tropical fish will lack nutrition, become physically weak, and easily become infected and ill. If the bait fed is spoiled or rotten, it will directly cause tropical fish to become ill.

In addition, the stocking density of ornamental fish must be reasonable. High density is not good for the fish to swim, easily causes oxygen deficiency, accelerates water pollution, is not good for the normal life of tropical fish, and easily makes the fish ill.

A reasonable analysis of the above four causes shows they are inseparable from fish illness. Once you understand them yourself, you can also prevent the tragedy from happening again, and you will not be at a loss after a problem arises, consulting everywhere without getting a reasonable solution.

If you have anything unclear about the content of the above article, you can leave a message at the end of the article to consult me~