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.