Starting a Successful Aquarium

            My speech is about starting a successful aquarium.

            The first thing you will need to do is decide whether to get a new or used one. New aquariums are pricy, but have better equipment and are less work to set up.

            If you are lucky, and willing to take time and effort to prepare it, you may opt to buy a used aquarium. Notwithstanding, the equipment may not be much or any good. Extensive cleaning will be necessary.

            Next, and most importantly, you will need to pick the size—in most cases, the larger the better. A small aquarium would be about ten to twenty gallons; medium, twenty to thirty gallons; and large, forty and up. Miniature aquariums, which would be one to five gallons, are not recommended. Smaller aquariums are more difficult to take care of and frequently present problems in special cases.

            If you were fortunate enough to find a used aquarium, you will need to clean it to remove all the bacteria from prior occupants of it. Put proper aquarium gravel in—other gravel will have undesired effects which can harm fish.

            Then you would dechlorinate your water in one of two methods: you can add a special dechlorination substance to your water, or let it sit for several days, which will have a similar effect. While on the topic, test your water. You can buy pH and DH test kits. PH is how acidic the water is, and DH is how “hard” in mineral content the water is. Ask your dealer about specific ph and DH requirements for whatever fish you choose.

            It is not guaranteed that a used aquarium will have all the equipment, or that it will work. Ask these questions when examining it:

·        The pump—does it circulate the water well?

·        The filter—is it clean?

·        The light—does it illuminate the whole aquarium?

·        And the heater—will it warm the aquarium to its proper temperature?

If you have a new aquarium, it will be much easier to set up, but still make sure your water is safe for aquatic life and that you have proper gravel.
            In either case, your aquarium must be furnished with plants. See a retailer for recommendations for plants for your aquarium size and shape. Remember, plants are important! Do not skip them, as they put much-needed oxygen in the water, consume harmful carbon dioxide, and help make a more natural setting for future inhabitants.

Provide decorations for the aquarium, as well. They will make it look better and give necessary hiding places for your fish. They need these because if they have a place to hide where they can reside, they will be friendlier; and if you have a vicious fish who would harm the others, decorative caves and such are good sanctuaries for smaller fish. Also, if you plan to breed, plants and other decor provide privacy for those being bred.

Next are tools for aquariums, which would be a gravel vacuum and a net large enough, or small enough, for your aquarium. A gravel vacuum siphons dirty water from the aquarium’s gravel, as well as waste which would be harmful if left in. The vacuum allows the aquarium to be cleaned without removing all its contents—including the fish, leaves the water they are used to, and would not remove helpful bacteria and microorganisms that are good for fish. You will need the net for obvious reasons. Both of the aforementioned tools are mandatory.

Last but not least, purchase food. This does not need to be done in advance, and it will be helpful to know what fish you buy before you get food for them. Anyways, there are three kinds of food available: dried, once alive, and the best by far, live. Dried food is the easiest and cheapest, but least preferable. Better would be foods that were once alive, such as several species of dried worms. The best is live, which would include many worms (including earthworms), mosquito larvae, small aquatic organisms, et cetera. One excellent choice would be the minute insect known as daphnia. It is rich in nutrients aquarium fish need and healthy.

However, one more food remains. I once bought a fish from a pet store, and a week later, it had fry, or baby fish. Though you can simply grind up flake foods into a powder for them, as I did, fry foods are also available. Allegedly they are better for young fish, but I would not be surprised if it was just a scheme to buy some more expensive things at a store.

Finally, you must establish or cycle the aquarium. This puts necessary ammonia-(which is toxic to fish)-eating bacteria in the water. Begin by procuring a number of certain types of fish—I will provide instructions in a moment.

Now, it is time to begin buying your fish. Mollies (my favorites) are good cyclers, so you might get a few of them. When you have selected your first fish, ask your dealer for some old gravel from the fish tank in which it was located. It should contain some of the helpful bacteria you need to establish the aquarium. If you cannot acquire some used gravel, simply offer to buy new gravel and trade it for some already used.

The fish store must be your last stop of the day, as your fish’s bag will only support it for a short amount of time—not more than an hour—and the time decreases considerably in hot temperatures. When you get home, allow the fish’s bags to float in your aquarium for fifteen to twenty minutes, which will slowly shift the water temperature in the bag nearer that of the aquarium. When that time is up, either net the fish or pour it into the aquarium. Pouring it presents the risk of letting parasites from the store’s water into your water, though this is somewhat unlikely, while netting the fish and releasing it in your water could shock it, which might result in death if the temperature is too different, but eliminates the chance of any parasites from the store entering the water. Some dechlorinators also act as shock preventers, so if you elect to net the fish, adding some will minimize the danger of shock as well.

Regardless, wait about two weeks or how long your dealer advises for your aquarium to cycle. Once this is done and you are ready, return to the pet store.

Be certain you select fish “compatible” to each other, or fish that will do well in the same fish tank. A store associate should be able to assist you with this. Some good starting fish (for a community aquarium) would be some of the following: goldfish; mollies, which prefer higher pH and DH levels; tetras, many types of which are easy to care for, but are required to be in schools and a medium to large tank; danios, which are expensive; guppies; and cichlids, who might eat smaller fish, and vary greatly in size.

Special but also easy fish include Siamese fighting fish, which are a species of betta. Miniature aquariums are suitable for them, and they may even be kept in a quart jar, though it is not a good idea. They are aggressive (hence the term “fighting” fish), so they should not be kept with other fish.

Corydoras catfish are also special fish; and, in fact, they are essential to a healthy aquarium. Corydoras catfish will eat leftovers that would otherwise become toxic. They are ideal community aquarium fish, never getting more than a few inches, and docile, with a lifespan of over twenty years if treated well.

In case you are wondering, a community aquarium is an aquarium where many different species of fish mix nicely and live together without fighting each other.

Everything is set up now, and you have your fish chosen and in the aquarium, so how would you care for them?

Every week, do a ten percent water change (with the gravel vacuum), and every month, a twenty-five percent water change. Test your water biweekly. All three of these are mandatory!

One thing you will need to do frequently that many beginning fishkeepers have a problem with is feeding your fish. Too much food is often given to them; tropical fish will not overeat—they will stop when they are full—but the extra food in the tank will become toxic, as mentioned earlier, and can kill your fish. They will not eat food that has sat on the bottom and has spoiled, with the exception of the Corydoras catfish, but they alone are not enough to prevent this situation entirely.

To help correct the situation, feed only once, or twice, daily, only what they eat in under five minutes. Everything else is too much (unless, of course, you have floating food and the bottom feeders have not had it fall to them yet). Be sure that all of the fish get enough to eat.

Something peculiar experienced fishkeepers have observed is that many people who are so conscious about their diets neglect taking care of those of their fish’s and feed them only one type of dried food. Alternate styles, brands, and varieties of foods, and switch between dried and live. This aids in the prevention of malnutrition in the case that a brand does not have all the vitamins and minerals fish need, and in various diseases that may result from only one food in a fish’s diet. Live foods are the best but clearly more expensive.

Always check for sick or injured fish. Upon finding any, remove it to a miniature aquarium reserved for this purpose, called a “quarantine tank”, to let it recover. If you do not, you may risk spreading sickness to the other fish, or, if it is injured, losing it to another. Normally community aquarium fish would not attack each other, but if one is damaged and weak, they may attempt to eat it. Be prepared to visit a store to acquire medicine if any fish becomes diseased. Also be prepared to replace equipment if it fails.

Supervise to be certain the general welfare of your fish is good, and feel free to make adjustments in their environments as you see fit to improve it, as long as it does not violate any rule for successfully running an aquarium.

That’s it!

Fishkeeping is fun and easy for nearly any age. While there is currently not a 4-H fish project, caring for an aquarium can help teach the responsibility needed for the 4-H horse, goat, cow, or other projects that are of interest to you.

    Captain Jonathan Flipper, the most aggressive of the chinstrap penguins, rubbed his flippers together with delight. Tonight is the night, he thought as he gazed out the sides of his place at the aquarium.
    "Beaks ready?" he demanded.
    "Yes, sir!"
    "We haven't been assigned to this mission for nothing! If we weren't the toughest of the chinstraps, we would stay home and manufacture--which we are clearly going to do upon escape."
    "But Captain--"
    "No buts, sergeant. On three, peck!"

Penguins

            Penguins are a wonderful type of animal that is widely enjoyable. Here is my report on them:

            For starters, penguins are aquatic birds ranging in size from one foot to four feet; and in climate of their habitats, the equator to the Antarctic. They were perfectly created for the environments they live. Penguins can store fat (for energy and to keep warm), possess flippers instead of wings, have dense feathers to keep water and cold out, are streamlined to swim better, are camouflaged perfectly (the white front and the white ice or sky above; and the black back and bottom of the body of water), can porpoise (jump out of the water in the manner of porpoises and dolphins), and can even drink salt water, the excess salt coming out a groove in its beak. It is commonly but falsely believed that penguins live at the North Pole. I will now explain why.

            Firstly, there are no penguins living in the northern hemisphere naturally. Secondly, the majority of penguins live in warm climates, often in the tropics. Lastly, the penguins that do live in cold areas—such as the Antarctic—live nowhere near the pole and instead live on the coast of Antarctica.

                        Penguins are generally threatened by various species of seals, including leopard and fur seals, which often do not even eat the penguins. On the other flipper, penguins are the predators of fish, crustaceans, and squid.

To conclude my introduction, the specific details of penguins start now.

Genus Generalization: Eudyptula, the “Little Penguins”.

            Eudyptula is Latin for good little diver, so the Little Penguins could be said to be the good little divers. These eat fish and crustaceans, are the smallest penguins, live in Oceana, have a bluish color to them, and include the little (blue) penguin and the white-flippered penguin.

            The little blue penguin weighs only a kilogram and stand only a foot tall, making it the smallest penguin. It lives mostly on the east coast of Australia and the west coast of New Zealand. It is one of the few penguins to live inamongst civi­lization, making being run over by vehicles a danger. Unlike the other penguins, the Little Blues do not seem to mind people, and often have to cross cities to get back to their nests. In Australia, there is an annual “Penguin Parade”, where all the pen­guins are going at one time to their nests from the ocean. The streets are closed for it, and people come out to see the penguins. To pay them back, some make their nests under the houses of people, and make noise all night long. Actually, a colony of 200 penguins took over an area which had been used for the 1956 Olympics’ swimming match.

Predators of this penguin include animals such as foxes, cats, and dogs, which would not be any problem for different penguins. Little blue penguins have a distinctly blue color (how else would they get their name?), lay two eggs, and live a maximum of over twenty years, though most only live to be six and one-half years old.

            White-flippered penguins are very similar to little blue penguins, although they are larger and have white markings on their flippers. They are not as blue as the little blue penguins by far, however, but until fairly recently they were believed to be a subspecies of the little blue. They are sixteen inches tall (one foot four inches), but weigh around the same amount as the little blue penguin. Nevertheless, white-flippered penguins live only in a small area on Banks Peninsula (a place in New Zealand) and Motunau Island, which is off the coast of Banks Peninsula.

Genus Generalization: Aptonodytes, the “Great Penguins”.

            Aptonodytes is Latin for flightless diver. These are the largest of all the penguins, and have bright and exclusive orange or yellow patches over their ears. (By exclusive I mean only the great penguins have them.) These penguins include the king penguin and the emperor penguin, and their diet is composed of mostly krill (with some other crustaceans), some fish, and minor amounts of squid.

            According to the most reliable sources I had access to, Emperor penguins stand just under 4 feet tall and weigh under 100 pounds after feeding, and consider­ably less before feeding. The heaviest penguin ever weighed was 101 pounds, and he was on his way back to feed his chick by (like all birds) regurgitation.

            When it is time to lay eggs, emperor penguins from all over Antarctica meet in large groups on the Antarctic mainland. They make this trip so that in the sum­mer, when the ice melts, the chicks will not fall into the water before they learn how to swim. Once they are far enough away from the water, the females lay one egg, transfer it to the male for safekeeping, and head off to the ocean to eat, after losing nearly half her weight laying the egg and traveling to the ocean. Three months pass; the harsh Antarctic winter with chilling winds gives them no mercy; the sun does not even rise.

            The penguins huddle together to conserve heat, taking turns at the deadly outside and warm inside of their formation, which resembles a turtle. During the last days of their fasting, the eggs hatch and little emperor penguin chicks peek out and peep for food, which is given to them. Although the males are almost starving, and living off fat, they manage to feed them a white substance saved in their throats for this moment.

            A day or two later, the females arrive. The males head off to sea, so famished that the weakest ones do not survive the journey. Also, some of the females had been eaten by leopard seals while eating. If even one parent does not survive, the chick also dies because it cannot get enough to eat from one parent. But now they eat.

            Emperor penguin chicks are gray, with black beaks and black markings on top and the back of their heads, with large white circles around their eyes that extend below their beaks and form a white bib. Also, their feet are black and their appetites ravenous.

            When they grow, they get hungrier and both parents must work simul­taneously to satisfy their need for food. To keep warm and safe, the chicks gather in a crèche with a female who could not find a mate to guard them against petrels and skuas, Antarctic birds of the air which prey on anything they can find, living or dead, and their favorite dish is young emperor penguin. The guard will slap the skua or petrel with all the strength of her flipper if it tries to harm a chick, and often other adult penguins join in. If it is not fast it will be crushed by dozens of flip­pers, so often it has an accomplice: the faster one is the decoy, while the other carries off the chick, or  the stronger one collides head-first with the guard while the faster one steals a chick. The second approach is more risky, as the bird could injure itself severely in the collision.

            Finally, it is summer and the chicks are molting (growing new feathers). When they are done, they are fledglings and can safely swim in the water—at least, as safe as it can be in leopard-seal infested waters…

            The average lifespan of the emperor penguin is twenty years, although they can live up to forty years of age.

            At three feet tall, the king penguin is the second-largest penguin. Although the emperor penguin normally weighs over seventy pounds before feeding, the king penguin’s weigh is only twenty- to thirty-five pounds. King penguins, unlike emperor penguins, are not as densely formed and therefore weigh considerably less per cubic inch.

            The king penguin is very much like the emperor in most respects, including how they treat their eggs; notwithstanding, their beaks, feet, and flippers are longer, since they do not need to conserve as much heat as the emperor penguin does. Another way to tell them apart is to look at the penguin’s chick. If it is fat, brown, fluffy, almost the size of an adult penguin, and with flippers that touch the ground, it is a king penguin.

            Although all penguin chicks are quite curious, the king penguins’ are much more so than the average penguin. In fact, one researcher tells of a king penguin chick and his friends examining a sleeping seal that came ashore. One even climbed on top of it!

            Only two king penguin chicks are raised in three years, giving the king penguin the longest chick-raising period of all.

Genus Generalization: Eudyptes, the “Crested Penguins”.

            Eudyptes is Latin for good diver. This certainly describes these penguins (act­ually, all penguins). The crested penguins have bright, yellow crests on their heads (except for the chicks), red eyes, and a noisy attitude. They eat mostly fish and some crustaceans, and lay two eggs.

            Erect-crested penguins, as you may guess, have their crests erectly posi­tioned. At approximately ninety degrees to each other, the two parts of the crest look somewhat like a >, except the halves do not meet. The penguin is two feet tall and weighs ten pounds.

            The Macaroni Penguin is the typical crested penguin, and is also the most num­­erous of all penguins. It is eleven pounds and has a height of twenty to twenty-eight inches.

            The macaroni penguin earned its name from its crest pattern. In the 1800s, a group of people formed a club and wore their hair a certain way. The people in the club called themselves ‘macaronis’. When this penguin was discovered, the club was popular enough to be widely known, and the explorers who discovered this penguin thought it resembled the way the ‘macaronis’ always wore their hair. It ap­pears that the macaroni penguin, like its namesakes, has hair worn in a pattern.
            For some reason, the macaroni penguin eats its first egg. It is located throughout small islands in the southern hemisphere.

            The Rockhopper penguin also lives throughout the southern hemisphere. It only stands under two feet and is under seven and a half pounds, making it the small­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­est crested penguin. The rockhopper penguin, true to its name, can jump six feet to get from rock to rock, and also is a good climber. However, this under-two-foot-terror is the noisiest of all the crested penguins, to the point of a researcher com­­menting, “A rockhopper colony…sounds like a hundred rusted old wheel­barrows…all being pushed top speed at once.” Indeed, the rockhopper is loud.
            Rockhopper penguin chicks look like a different species. Without the straight, sharp-looking, diagonal crest and red eyes, they look more like a gentoo pen­guin (see someplace below) then any sort of crested penguin.

            Royal penguins are exactly like macaroni penguins, except for the face and loc­ation: royal penguins have a white face, and only live on several small islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are so much alike the royal penguin was thought to be a sub­­species of the macaroni penguin for a long period of time. In conclusion, the royal penguin earned its name from someone thinking its crest resembled a crown.
            Barely larger than the rockhopper is the Snares [Island] penguin, native to the Snares Islands. Only its second chick survives. It looks almost like a smaller ver­sion of the erect-crested penguin.

            Last of the crested penguins is the Fiordland penguin. It is two feet tall and eight pounds, similar to the Snares and erect-crested penguins.

Genus Generalization: Sphenicus, the “Banded Penguins”.

            Sphenicus is Latin for wedge-shaped. They are called banded penguins be­cause each of them has a black band (or two) crossing its chest. These penguins live in the warmest climates out of all the penguins, even at the equator and Africa. Banded penguins live mostly on small islands near large continents. All of them lay two eggs, live where it is too hot for other penguins, and most have a patch of un-feathered skin around their eyes to allow excess heat to escape. While most penguins are quite shy—tourists seeing penguins are told by their guides to sand at least ten feet away—these penguins can be approached as close as a meter without disturbing them. They eat mostly fish, and some squid.     

            Magellanic  penguins were named for Ferdinand Magellan, who discovered them (or at least one of his crew) on his trip around the world. They are eleven and one-half pounds, twenty-eight to thirty inches, and live both on and off the cost of Argentina, though occasionally some go as far north as Brazil. They also live on the Falkland Islands. Sea lions and giant petrels are their main danger, but if they are not eaten, Magellanics normally live to be twenty-five years or up to thirty.

            Humboldt, or Peruvian, penguins live in Peru. They are twenty-six to twenty-eight inches (two feet and two to four inches), and have a weight of around ten and a half pounds. When they are ten to twelve weeks, the fledglings head off to sea. The Humboldt lives to a maximum of over thirty years in captivity.

            Galápagos penguins live at the Galápagos Islands. Sometimes a penguin will swim to one of the miniature islands north of the equator, making a small exception to the “No Penguins in the Northern Hemisphere” rule. They are the smallest of the banded penguins, at one foot seven-to-nine inches and five and a half pounds.

            The Galápagos lays one to two eggs at a time. On a good year, a pair of Galá­pagos penguins can lay eggs three times per year. (Contrast that with the ki­ng pen­g­uin!)  Despite that, it is the rarest penguin. Fortunately, these penguins can swim to catch food while molting because of the warm water where they live. Other pen­g­uins cannot do this because they could freeze themselves in the water without their proper feathers.

            African [Black-footed] Penguins are the only penguins to live in Africa, the main­land or otherwise. They weigh four and a half to eleven pounds, and are over two feet and four inches tall. Sometimes both of this penguin’s two chicks survive. The ones that do become blue—not black—until they are older. This penguin dives around 100 feet on average but its maximum diving depth is over 400 feet. When at sea, living its normal life, the African penguin, like all others, relaxes itself to be able to float, but unlike most other penguins, it does not come back to land until it is ready to breed or molt. It can swim at about four and three-eighths miles an hour usually, but up to twelve and one-half miles per hour as its top speed.

Genus Generalization Pygoscelis, the “Brush-tailed Penguins”.

            Pygoscelis is Latin for elbow-legged, and how these penguins earned that name, I cannot guess. Those penguins are located on the Antarctic coast, Antarctic islands, and sub-Antarctic islands. The brush-tailed penguins have the longest tails of the penguins and live in the coldest environment (excluding the emperor pen­guin). The penguins of this category eat crustaceans and fish and squid. Their be­havior is greatly varied. As the saying about the three brush-tailed’s goes, “if threatened,

“a gentoo penguin will retreat,

“an Adélie penguin will stand its ground,

“and a chinstrap penguin will charge!”

            Gentoo penguins are slightly under three feet and under nineteen pounds. Unlike other penguins, it lays two equal eggs. Since it does this, when there is enough food to feed two most chicks survive.

            The diving habits of the gentoo penguin include diving up to 450 times per day. Its average depth is only approximately one-third of a hundred feet to three and one-third hundred feet, with a maximum of two-thirds of a thousand feet. While pen­guins are slow and clumsy on land while graceful and quick in the water, the gentoo penguin can run faster that a person for a short distance—call that slow!
            Everything in the world has its priorities, and that includes penguins. The most important thing to a gentoo is its family, and it will compromise all else for it. Also, some colonies of the gentoo penguin are located near people, such as at the Falkland Islands. Farming and farm animals, which is what is near the pen­­guins there, do not seem to bother them at all; horses and cows can pass by without even provoking a reaction.

            At under two feet and about ten pounds, the Adélie penguin is by far the most popular penguin, thought by many to be the only penguin, and often believed to have a white-feathered face, of which the opposite is clearly true of both. The beak and feet of the Adélie are often pictured as yellow and/or orange, but are actually black as well. Researchers, too, prefer this penguin; it is the most re­­searched penguin. The Adélie can camouflage quite well without any brightly dis­tracting colors to reveal its position to predators and prey alike. Here is the life cycle of an Adélie:

1.      Eat, eat, and eat some more

2.      Males head to nesting area

3.      Nests are made and territory is claimed

4.      Females arrive and eggs are laid

5.      Chicks are raised and fed

6.      Everyone goes back to the sea to fatten up

7.      The adults molt, expending their energy reserves

8.      Repeat, starting at #1

            The top priority of and Adélie penguin is its nesting ground, and it will aban­don and risk everything else to ensure it gets its proper nest location. But also, the n­­ests of Adélies are so closely positioned that they can almost reach the next nest in line if it wanted, but they are also far enough apart so that they cannot quite reach the next nest, and a penguin can walk through to get back to its chick with food. Finally, Male Adélies always return to the vicinity, if not the same spot, as the nests in which they were raised to build their own.

            Now for the chinstrap penguin. It is three pounds and feet, normally, and is the most aggressive of all eighteen species of penguin. It is also the most numerous of the brush-taileds. It lives mainly on the Antarctic Peninsula and is my favorite.
            Apparently when seen, the chinstrap penguin has a black strap across its chin, making it look like it is wearing a helmet. It is often called a “stonecracker” pen­guin because it is so loud. However the chicks lack the distinct ‘chin-strap’ mark. Unlike other penguins, the chinstrap often does its swimming at night.

Genus Generalization: Megadyptes

            This category of penguins has only one species in it—the yellow-eyed pen­guin.  They eat all fish shorter than ten inches and squid. They are also located from the southern coast of New Zealand to Campbell island, and everywhere in between. They are solitary and lay two eggs.

            The yellow-eyed penguin is often falsely believed to be the rarest penguin, but in fact is only the second-rarest. (As you have read, it is not as rare as the Galá­pagos penguin.) It is the most solitary of all the penguins, to the extent of moving its nest if it can see another penguin’s nest. To recognize it is easy; it is two and a half feet tall, and has a clearly marked yellow band across its head and around its eyes, which are also yellow, which is furthermore exclusive to this penguin. As many live in New Zealand, a yellow-eyed penguin appears on the back of a New Zealand five-dollar bill.

            To conclude my report, I would like to clear up several things:

·        There are eighteen species of penguins.

·        There are six genera of penguins.

·        Penguins can live in warm or even hot areas.

In addition,

·        There are no penguins in the northern hemisphere

    Who doesn't like penguins? I certainly do; I am writing a book about them. Watch for it. I encourage readers to research penguins for themselves. Did you know that Adélie penguins are thought to be the only penguin by most people?

    Another Pygoscelis penguin (Latin for brushtailed) is the chinstrap penguin.

The Emperor Penguin is the largest, weighing up to 70 pounds after eating; the Little Blue penguin is the smallest, rarely weighing over two pounds.

If you can, please offer some penguin names for my books in the "leave comment" area.

I am running out of time, so see you next time.

Bye