First, I’d like to thank anyone who takes the time to read this and responds and I apologize for the length of the post!
So, I’ve not had an aquarium since I was a little kid and I’ve decided to set one up. I’m in college housing and am limited to a 10 gallon tank so I bought the Marineland LED 10 gallon aquarium kit, which is really awesome.
I got 6 Guppies last week and they seem to be doing really well, but I’ve got a couple of questions and while I’ve been reading this forum and others I still don’t feel like they’ve been satisfactorily answered. In no particular order…
1. I know overfeeding is bad. I give them a little food once a day and it’s usually gone in 5 minutes or so, but sometimes I get the impression that they may be hungry still. I don’t want to overfeed them, but I don’t want to starve them either. Water temp is 78 degrees if this matters as far as metabolism, etc. And I’ve been alternating between flakes and dehydrated brine shrimp. Sometimes when I go up to the tank they start what I can only call the “feed me” dance and I don’t know if they are really hungry or just teasing.
2. I’ve got the Penguin biowheel that came with the tank and I installed an airpump/stone. There seems to be a fair amount of water movement in some parts of the tank, but there are areas where they can get out of the current and just “sit”. My question, sometimes it looks like they go swimming really fast into the current and then let it push them away. It looks like they’re playing to me, but I don’t know if fish do this or if I’m reading too much into it. So, do fish play?
3. This might sound dumb, but do they need the tank light totally off in order to sleep? I’ve not seen any of them sleeping, though they are pretty relaxed and stuff in the morning and are typically just floating around until they see me moving around and then they “wake up”. At night I’ve been shutting the tank’s white LEDs off and leaving the blue “moonlight” LEDs on. I like the ambient light it provides, but I wonder if the fish sometimes just need a “dark” night without any lights.
Thanks!
So, I’ve not had an aquarium since I was a little kid and I’ve decided to set one up. I’m in college housing and am limited to a 10 gallon tank so I bought the Marineland LED 10 gallon aquarium kit, which is really awesome.
I got 6 Guppies last week and they seem to be doing really well, but I’ve got a couple of questions and while I’ve been reading this forum and others I still don’t feel like they’ve been satisfactorily answered. In no particular order…
1. I know overfeeding is bad. I give them a little food once a day and it’s usually gone in 5 minutes or so, but sometimes I get the impression that they may be hungry still. I don’t want to overfeed them, but I don’t want to starve them either. Water temp is 78 degrees if this matters as far as metabolism, etc. And I’ve been alternating between flakes and dehydrated brine shrimp. Sometimes when I go up to the tank they start what I can only call the “feed me” dance and I don’t know if they are really hungry or just teasing.
2. I’ve got the Penguin biowheel that came with the tank and I installed an airpump/stone. There seems to be a fair amount of water movement in some parts of the tank, but there are areas where they can get out of the current and just “sit”. My question, sometimes it looks like they go swimming really fast into the current and then let it push them away. It looks like they’re playing to me, but I don’t know if fish do this or if I’m reading too much into it. So, do fish play?
3. This might sound dumb, but do they need the tank light totally off in order to sleep? I’ve not seen any of them sleeping, though they are pretty relaxed and stuff in the morning and are typically just floating around until they see me moving around and then they “wake up”. At night I’ve been shutting the tank’s white LEDs off and leaving the blue “moonlight” LEDs on. I like the ambient light it provides, but I wonder if the fish sometimes just need a “dark” night without any lights.
Thanks!
