Izzy's Medical Guide to Tropical Fish Disease

To give your fish a healthy " environment sealed in glass" implies a certain understanding of their behavior and all of the biological and chemical properties that affect them both in their natural and artificial habitat. The home aquarium is a piece of "portable nature" only to a limited extent; it should be considered as an artificial, and even also artfully arranged garden. Most species come from the tropics, where they live in clean waters with low conductivity and hardness, with high oxygen levels, and with a lot of dissolved organics. While it is possible to chemically adjust your aquarium to match the fish's natural waters, it is almost impossible to approach their degree of cleanliness. This is because of the small amount of aquarium water. In nature fish have vast quantities of water in which to feed and leave its droppings. In the aquarium , fecal dilution is limited. The more the fish swims, the more pollution accumulates. Polluted water harbors microorganisms that are harmful to the fish. Many of these are organisms, and bacteria and fungi that live on the bottom of the tank or in the water, and they can cause disease. In the wild, with large quantities of water, it is not confronted with these organisms. The fish can ward off infection, and in the aquarium, these disease causing organisms multiply. The fish are constantly picking them up, and are trying to stop the organisms from multiplying on their body. The fish easily succeeds if it is fed well and if it feels at home in the tank with proper water quality and landscaping. With good hygiene, you can make it tough for disease to survive. Remove dead fish immediately and regularly vacuum debris from the bottom as well as the corners and nooks in the tank. Just as waters in the wild, the aquarium has a biological self-cleansing cycle. YOU must recognize and adapt this process in order to effectively care for the water in the tank. The better this process of self-cleansing is achieved, keeping the water quality high, the rarer any disease will be present.