Distinguishing Marine Velvet From Ich Before You Treat The fish looked fine at the store. A few hours after acclimation, it was flashing against the rockwork — a quick, almost casual scrape, the kind of behavior most aquarists dismiss as a fish adjusting to new water. By the next morning, the gilts were moving faster…
When Disasters Strike: Saving Your Clownfish After a Power Outage It’s the moment every aquarist dreads. The lights flicker, the hum of your filter goes silent, and suddenly you’re staring at your clownfish—those vibrant, fearless little personalities you’ve watched dart through your anemone—gasping at the surface. Your heart races. Your mind jumps to the worst-case…
The Fish That Made Everyone Rethink Copper The call came on a Thursday evening, just before the shop closed. James Wolten, who runs a small coral propagation setup out of a repurposed garage in the Perth suburbs, had noticed something wrong with a newly arrived powder blue tang. White spots, clustered around the gill plates…
The Betta That Wasn’t Supposed to Make It The fish arrived on a Tuesday afternoon, shipped in a bag no larger than a sandwich. The courier had left it on the doorstep in direct sunlight — three hours, maybe four. By the time it was opened, the water inside was warm to the touch, and…
The Day the Rainbow Didn’t Look So Rainbow The first sign wasn’t a white patch, not really. It was a shimmer that looked wrong—like someone had taken a single scale on my largest male rainbowfish and replaced it with a tiny piece of frosted glass. I noticed it at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday, which…
The Fish That Looked Like It Had Velvet, but It Didn’t — and That Was Worse The trouble started on a Thursday, which is already a bad day for aquarium issues. Thursday means you’ve got the weekend ahead, but not quite enough time to fix something before the local fish store closes for the night….
My Journey to Mastering Freshwater Fish Diseases: Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs I still remember the day I set up my first freshwater aquarium like it was yesterday. I was so excited to bring home my new pets and watch them thrive in their new environment. But, as the days went by, I started to notice…
