FISHIOLOGY

I will discuss a common believes that snakeheads love frogs. This is a misconception that most people have about snakeheads. This believes derived from frogs being the No. 1 choice traditionally for snakehead fisherman. The main reason local fisherman uses frogs as bait to fish snakeheads is the environment of the snakeheads habitat. Most time they lived in weedy or tangled parts of the water. Malaysian Snakeheads fisherman mainly targets Channa Striata, Channa Marulioides and Channa Lucius that happened to live most timed in the swallow part of the lake with conditions like these. Fisherman uses frog as bait because of the way the frog is rigged that allows weedless casting. This way you can cast into the weed area without getting your bait snagged. Popular local weedless frog rig (http://www.umpan.com.my/korang-tanya-umpan-jawab-s2s1-teknik-pancing-haruan/katak/) I have personally tested when circumstances allowing it, I cast a live tilapia with the hook on its mouth not w...

According to some hearsay stories or believes, the numbers of red fishes from kalimantan derived from the plants Stenochlaena Palustris (kelakai). During the dry season the kelakai would flourish and when monsoon season comes the area would be flooded. The waters of kalimantan area will be exposed to the tannins of the Stenochlaena plants that are rich in red flavonoids and other properties. Of couse these plants also lived in most parts of asia and we don't get the red fishes as how kalimantan fishes. Perhaps the genetic of kalimantan fishes will be able to react to the plants tannin? This we will never know. But anyhow I'm attracted to the ideas of how certain plants alters the color base of many fishes in the kalimantan continent and I've put them to test. 3 weeks after consistently soaking the red Stenochlaena, the fish do show some hue of red. How long do I need to continue for this treatment? I dont know. Perhaps until I ran out of the red Stenochlaena which i...

Lets take a look at the configuration of filter media. Over the years my preferred method is go sponge-less at the inflow. Many people who had seen my sump tank is not convinced it will work. but this has been done for more than 6 years. The reason I go sponge-less is because my inhabitant are most time monsters with very bad eating habits. Debris will be flying everywhere and if they are filtered at the sponge, they will rot there. So to over come this I let the debris go directly into my sump tank, in my sump tank I've a section for live fish and ghost shrimp. These will be my cleaner crew. At the end of the section I do keep a flat sponge to filtered out rubbish leaving the sump tank and food material caught there will be minimal. At the first compartment I've added K-1 since last year. How good is K-1? I'm running spongeless and my cleaning crew used to be all fatty. Since I've added K-1 they will crushed everything to bits and pieces and now I've to re...

Remarkable results What I was hoping for

How to kick start your filtration system (Biological) Ok what do you do after you purchased all your branded filters and medias'? You set up, throw in a few guppies and you let it cycle. In short, you wait for "Bacteria" to move into thier new house. Some shop offers you to buy bacteria booster or bacteria starter. Are there another way around this? well yes infact its free, why spend the money when you can get the real thing for free and guaranteed to work? If you've another matured tank running, just take a  few pieces of the used media or sponge from your existing tank and put into your new filtration system. Tadaaaa.... you've just migrated a few millions bacteria and all the bacteria you need is there. If you dun have an existing tank around, you can get it from your friends (but do make sure the fish is healthy), as for me I get it from lfs, select a tank that you've checked that are disease free and take a piece of sponge, pack it in water with 02 (...

Filtration system in our tank is the engine, this is my favorite part of the aquarium. I've spend the last 20 years toying with my filter system. I've had multiple setup with different types of media and configurations. I'll share what I've came out from all these years tinkering under neat the tank. First, allow me to introduce you what is a filter system. It means filter lol. Ok you've the most basic part just add a sponge which it'll do 2 things at once. Remove floating debris (mechanical filter) and later on when the bacteria matures it'll also act as a biological filter. Biological filter is the goal in your filtration, failed this and you failed everything. Please bear in mind this important fact. Beneficial bacteria - Nitrogen Cycle Understand that no matter how many thousands you pay for your filter system be it the latest Eheim or those fancy media like siporex, it all has only 1 job function that is a place for the bacteria to thri...

The new formula seem to be working good. Looks promising as the white patches is now securely formed and the black patches is beginning. Will monitor the progress closely. This new formula is quite risky to try on the fish. Highly stressful and twice I thought I'm losing the fish. Have to stop the treatment and wait for the fish to recover before restarting.

I was having an interesting discussion yesterday with a salesman promoter or trader whichever you choose to call him. It is about Probiotic and beneficial bacteria. He brought this up in a fish group and as usual being the vocal one, I told him I don't believe in things like this. He jumped to the conclusion that I meant I do not believes in the existent of bacteria which of coz not being the case here. I meant I do not believe in buying bacteria or bacteria in a bottle. For me buying bacteria is like having to buy oxygen. Why do you need to pay for something that is free? According to his logic, aquarium is a confine space that after awhile bacterias will perish and that is why we need to top up. If I remember correctly, things tat I've been doing for decades, I cycle the new tank, throw in a few tiger barb and wait for midnight where an angel will come and pour in some bacterias into my tank and after a few weeks, walaa the tank is now officially cycled. God pro...

Since sp Borneo is recently a hit in Malaysia, I would like to share some information on how to  identify the fish.  Known by many names back home in Indonesia, peyang, peang or red maru. Sp. borneo is mainly found in West and Central Kalimantan (period). Intriguingly baby sp. borneo is unknown or unsample except for the Sampit variant. They've been not much data on this fish until lately. Information are still flowing in and I will update on this sp. So time being I would advise to stay away from young fish below 10". Channa sp Borneo's band stretched all the way to the belly almost and in some cases is a full continuous band to the other side of the body. The full band are the first 4 band counting from the tail up. Finnage of the sp. Borneo is all Black on the adult with pattern fading away from fry until about 12". The inside of the pectoral fin will show orangy color even when the fish is in blackout mode. The body near the tail will show bla...

How to check what causes PH up in your tank? Slow and sure method is to take a sample and placed them in a pail and do a before and after 3 days test to check if it influence the PH. Fast easy method especially if you intend to buy certain type of substrate in lfs and to be absolutely sure it doesnt bring up your PH is to do the vinegar test as in video. Pour on to a dry sample, if it frizzled then it'll bring up the PH, if it doesnt as in the lava rock then you're good to go.

The Fish that started it all. (April 2014) I would like to share a story, the beginning of my fish keeping hobby that eventually got stuck with me from childhood till today. This is about a fish that had been hiding away from me for the past 30 odd years. This was the fish that inspired it all. When I was around 9 yrs old, my dad took us for a holiday trip to Singapore, we visited the Singapore Aquarium if I remember correctly. And in one of the tank on display I could not help but was instantly mesmerized by the blue fish, the body of the fish is painted in shocking blue color. I remembered clearly written on the side Toman - Channa Micropeltes because this was the first time I was introduced to the scientific names of fishes. After returning from the trip my crave for snakehead developed, I got a few snakeheads but never in blue. I asked around but nobody had ever seen or even heard of the blue Toman. I bought micros from fish shop and grow them till adult and to my disappointm...

These are gutter system, can be purchased at most hardware store.

Over exposure to strong light you'll notice yr maru turned colorless. Best is low light and you'll see the band forming strong all the time. Too dark eg black sand black side n back will make the fish dark colorless n no band showing. Ive tried this with 18w T5, 36W high output, led low n high same result. I've tried tanning wit nan light... Fish turns black. Tanning with fullspectrum high out put also produce black fish. I notice unlike most fish maru respond differently with light. When u off the light for many hours, the moment u on yr light u see the fish in full color. Most fish is dull in the dark but maru shows thier best in dark environment. Banding will be strong. U can play around, just keep in mind yr target is the fish should always show its band strongly. And the most important of all fish keeping is low NO3. How do we not do water change and yet maintain a low NO3? Answer is Plants, low light plants like java is good, or u can plant terrestrial plants...