Healthy Fish Tips

Healthy Fish Tips: 5 Easy Ways to Keep Your Fish Healthy
By Keith Pardee

One unfortunate aspect of fish keeping is the possibility that your fishes will become ill at some point in time. If you are a responsible fish keeper then you probably worry about this and check them for signs of disease on a regular basis. While this practice is both responsible and wise, you should be far more focused on the prevention of disease than the treatment of disease. With this in mind, I have created a list of the 5 important tips to follow to prevent disease in aquarium fish. I call them “Healthy Fish Tips”.

Healthy Fish Tip #1 - Water changes, water changes, water changes: This is probably the most important of the healthy fish tips. Regular water changes remove contaminants and waste byproducts from the aquarium and replace them with fresh clean water. Typically you should perform water changes on a regular schedule so that all of your water changes add up to about 100% in a month. Some common examples are 25% water change once a week or 15% water changes twice a week.

Healthy Fish Tip #2 - Consistent Temperature: This is another important healthy fish tip. Unlike humans fish cannot regulate body temperature so variations in water temperature are very stressful to a fish. Research the recommended temperature range for your fish and make sure that all of the fish in your tank can live in the same temperature range. After finding out what temperature is acceptable to all of your fish species set your temperature there and try to keep it from changing much. Be especially careful when performing water changes that the water is not too hot or cold when you change it.