Aquarium - How To Prevent Diseases In Your Aquarium

Introduction

If you have an aquarium, it is almost a reality your fish will become sick. But there are some things you can do to prevent your fish from getting sick.

Immune System

Like humans, your fish also have a developed immune system that can fend off the different bacteria that enters your tank. Your task is to help keep the immune system of your fish healthy and strong.

The one thing that can reduce the immune system of your fish is stress. So your task is to prevent your fish from becoming stressed.

Prevent Stressing Your Fish

There are a number of ways that you can stress your fish. If you know what they are you can prevent stressing them and stop your fish from developing illnesses. Here are some ways that you can stress your fish:

Water Quality - One of the top reasons fish get stressed is a change in your water quality. It is important that you monitor the quality of your tanks water frequently. Even a small change in your waters quality can stress your fish.
Light Cycle - Having an irregular light cycle on your aquarium can stress out your fish. I have placed my aquarium light on a timer. It is on for 12-hours and off for 12-hours.
Overstocking - Putting to many fish in your aquarium can stress them out also. To many fish can reduce the oxygen available,guppy fish, develop too much waste and not allow them to swim as much as they want. The rule of thumb I use is five inches of adult fish for every five gallons of water.
Over-Feeding - I know, I fall into the same trap and I feel sorry for my fish when they look at me with their big round eyes pleading for food. Take it from me it is all staged. They can go for days in the wild without food. There are many recommendations on how much to feed your fish, but what you want to do is ensure there is no excess food in the substrate. This food will just rot and develop bacteria.
Temperature Change - Even a degree or two of temperature change can stress your fish. Ensure you have a good heater to keep your water at a constant temperature. Since I replace 10% of the water in the tank every week, I need to be careful there is no large temperature swings. I have the replacement water at room temperature before adding it to the tank and add a little at a time to ensure no major temperature change.

Conclusion

The main thing you need to do to prevent disease in your fish is not to stress them. The things that can stress your fish are changes in water quality, irregular light cycle, over-stocking, over-feeding and water temperature changes.