There is reef aquarium and some nano aquariums featured in the video. Enjoy the water greenery!

The effects of continuous exposure to ammonia in fish can be lethal and will cause severe gill damage leading to suffocation, kidney damage due to inability to osmoregulate, and the increased inability to secrete ammonia from the body resulting in metabolic and physiological imbalance. Even at lower levels, ammonia can reduce growth rate and damage to gill filament tissue in a fish, loss of equilibrium, convulsions and then death.

Ammonia exists in two forms, namely, un-ionized (NH3) and ionized (NH4+). Both forms are measured together and are referred to as total ammonia.

The levels of ammonia in an aquarium can be reduced by a efficient and effective biological filtration. With good filtration, ammonia level should always be kept zero. The aquarium design, number of fish and feeding regime are factors that affects the level of ammonia concentration.

This plant has high CO2 requirements and is suitable for background focal point in larger aquariums. Its strong coloration and large foilage provides a stunning contrast to green stem plants in large aquariums of 55 gallons.  In medium to large aquariums, it can be used as background plants.

Propagation is easy by trimming the top to promote side shoots growth.

Full coverage is in “Aquatic Plant of the Month” by Efren Leonida in TFH September 2009 Issue.

The challenge to feed the shrimps is to provide the natural sources of nutrition that are lacking in an aquarium. Try provide a good variety of quality shrimp feed such as different types of frozen feed (artemia or midge larvae), fresh vegetables (courgettes, spinach), algae wafers.

Catappa Leaves or herbs (stinging nettles) should be added to the diet on a regular basis as supplements and to provide a touch of variety.

However, shrimps require more care than fish.  Shrimps are sensitive to changes in aquarium conditions and react in particularly to:

• an increase in copper levels from domestic water copper pipings;
• medical products for fish;
• algicides that contains copper;
• ammonia and nitrite level;
• excessive concentrations of various kinds of fertilizers; 
• pesticides (insect sprays);
• solvents (nicotine);
• hard chemical water conditioners (e.g. products that contains phosphate to reduce GH and KH).

The above factors in any combination may lead to fatal losses of the shrimps. Heed these tips and you will be able to keep beautiful shrimps in your aquariums.

All fish need to eat generally what Mother Nature intended, and there will always the case that an aquarium kept fish simply does not get enough of the variety of food they need.  There are different kind of fish food available, dry food such as flakes or pellets, live food as in any creatures that move to attract the fish to eat them, liquid food for the young fry, or frozen food of the dead living things. Some fish are. 

The most convenient method to feed your fish is flake, which is formulated by nutritionists to supply all the protein that a fish need. Feeding flake is not sufficient, a fish diet needs to be varied, just like us!  Live food such as tubifex worms, blood worms can be fed.  The disadvantage of feeding live food is the tedious manual process of getting them cleaned to reduce the risk of passing unwanted bacteria that will infect the fish. To be safe, one can hatch and rear brine shrimps to adult stage before feeding, which are generally clean.

Frozen food is an alternative to feeding live food and these food can be either bought from the stores or home made. All that is needed is to get these food stay frozen and kept fresh in the freezer. Getting frozen food ready for feeding is easy. Just get the food thawed properly without heating them to maintain as much nutrition value as possible. Good frozen food should contains good nutritional value for the fish.

Make your fish happy, by feeding them with a good rotation of variety of diet between dry, live and frozen. 

If you are lucky, your fish may let you fondle its head while it feeds off the food from your hand!  Do you know which fish does that?

It is necessary to have an efficient aquarium chiller in tropical or countries experiencing summer season to do the effective chilling job for the aquariums. As most fish and water living beings come from cold waters in the nature, it will be ideal and perhaps necessary to replicate these conditions with, in most cases, a temperature lower than 30°C. Most will thrive well in the temperature ranging between 22°C to 28°C.

As the water temperature increases, so does the fish metabolism and lower dissolved oxygen levels in the water. The higher the bio-load in an aquarium, the greater the risk that oxygen will become depleted when the water gets warmer. Under increased water temperature condition, fish, invertebrates or corals will suffer.

One of the advantages of using a chiller is the automation of the chilling process that will allow you to go for a holiday and be away from your aquarium without worries. One of the obvious cons would be running a costly chiller will consume more electrical energy which translates to higher electrical bills! The larger the aquarium, the more powerful chiller you will need to do an effective job. So unless you are on a budget, consider manual jobs like using ice-bottles for a start and start saving for that chiller.

When buying a chiller, the aesthetics, quietness, energy consumptions, built, quality and warranty will be one of your considerations besides the budget, in deciding which brand of chiller you will go for. But if you can afford one, you will definitely be making your fish happy.

Within the reef aquarium, phosphates will greatly affect the formation of coral skeletons by reducing calcification by over 50% and by inhibiting the deposition of strontium. It is suggested by Borneman that phosphates are a direct poison to calcification. 

It is prudent for the aquarists to use a good phosphate remover product for curbing the unsightly algae boom problems.  There are many phosphate remover products available, which are commonly found in aluminium oxide or other iron based products.  Good phosphate remover media should not leach back the phosphate content back into the aquarium once the media is exhausted after prolonged use.

Enjoying the underwater world in your own space is one of the wonderful dynamics of the Nature Aquarium. Densely planted aquatic plants growing and colorful fish swimming about are a sight to behold. Even in a small aquarium you can find the drama of nature. Just imagine aquatic plants producing tiny bubbles of oxygen and fish swimming gracefully. The nature captured within the glass is full of life, and it soothes your mind and calms your heart.

Download the PDF copy of HOW TO Layout-Making Manual and start a Nature Aquarium.

Source: ADA Singapore

Featured Freshwater Planted Aquarium Video

You would have dreamt of keeping one of those aquariums and be part of your life. So you venture into researching for more information of your interest. Freshwater or Marine Aquarium? This was a very similar decision I took back in my younger days. And to start off with an advise, freshwater is an easy start for most novice, cheaper and easier to maintain. Marine aquarium are more for the advanced. Lot’s of novice started off into the marine aquarium hobbying during the “Nemo” craze period few years ago, and many of them gave up being unable to maintain the delicate sea creature without proper knowledge of aquarium keeping.

Featured Marine Aquarium Video

However, marine aquarium keeping can be very rewarding for the experienced, as the ocean creatures are indeed exotic, and beautiful than anything a freshwater aquarium could have given you. Marine aquarium keeping is demanding in respect of maintenance, and if you cannot afford the time and money, it would be a very bad idea and disastrous, which most likely ended up your interest in the hobby being short lived.

Whichever you choose, any aquarium will add a touch of your personal character to any place where you keep it.