IMO How to set up a tank to stay healthy and immune

Whenever it rains hard, I go on my morning walk with a tweezers and a plastic bag to put in the earthworms I collect. Do I look weird? I certainly do so I pull a hood over my head so no one recognizes me.

Skinny earthworms that wriggle in the water are probably the best food you can give them especially for the gut bacteria. Now as I said at the very beginning of this thread I am an electrician and not a bacteria God so I am not sure what is the best bacteria for fish.

I do feed them with all the dirt on them that I collected them in. I have been doing this since I looked like this.



And so far I have no problems.......No fish problems anyway. I also don't have the heartbreak of psoriasis.

I started my tank by adding garden soil and I still do that occasionally because dirt and associated bacteria is a good thing.

In an aged, healthy tank you should see the beginning of the food chain. I have my pumps off now because I like to see the life that rises to the surface. Some of this living stuff is pods and some is the progeny of worms, shrimp and crabs. We can't easily see it but hermit crabs and all crustaceans spawn all the time. These creatures won't grow to adulthood in our tanks because we don't have the natural sunlight and microscope foods these creatures need to eat.

Right now my mandarin is at the surface trying to eat these things from the surface tension of the water.

Seeing this microscope life is essential to a tank and all healthy, old tanks would have it. If the microscope creatures are doing well, the rest of the creatures we spent a lot of money on should also do well.

Of course any medications would kill these things, especially copper as they are invertebrates.









 
i have read this complete forum. i must admit this has opened my eyes to somethings i have never thought about before. i have had fish for nearly 50 years. mostly fresh water. i had a 200 gal for about 10 yrs. then got divorced. i am now starting a 100 gal tank that i hade built by joe at glass cages. i have had some fish die over the years for reasons i did not understand. in the early years i had maybe only 2 or 3 fish that had diseases that i could see, ich, whole in the head. i have always strongly believed to get the tank to take of itself. maybe i have inadvertently done the very thing you are talking about. i would feed earth worms once and while but only because i thought fish like worms. works for fishing. but mostly live fish for feeding.
 
Back
Top