Fishy Tales - Tales from an Aquarium

Just came across this fascinating post on face painting with a fish theme.
Check out the complete series.

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Hailing from the blackwater or clearwater streams in southeastern Colombia, eastern Peru, and western Brazil, including the tributaries of the Solimões, the neon tetras are a beautiful fish with an almost fluorescent blue or greenish stripe running down their bodies from the mouth to the tail fin. A wide red band goes from the middle of the body to the beginning of the tail. The rest of the is a mix of white and clear or natural colors.
For long time, I confused the neon tetras with the cardinal tetra, till I realised that the red band in the cardinal begins at the mouth and continues till the tail. Read more »

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All of us will have some time or the other, have consigned our pet fish to the great big aquarium in the sky (in most cases via a short trip through the toilet bowl). While such a step is no doubt inevitable, there are a number of steps we could take to ensure that it happens only after the fish has lived a long, and happy life.

#1 Make sure the tankmates are compatible
This cannot be emphasised enough. Make sure that the fish you are keeping are compatible with each other - keeping 2 male siamese fighting fish for instance is a sure recipe for disaster. Similarly, some fish like cichlids have an aggressive attitude and live best with other fish of a similar nature. Make sure you research the qualities of your fish well before you buy them. Read more »

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Okay, so I thought hard,and came up with these 4 reasons which make keeping fish totally irresistable.

Reason # 1 - They don’t shred your bedsheet
I had a dog once, and though I still remember Candy with extreme fondness, my mother will never let me forget the time that Candy scratched her new bedsheet to shreds, and all because we left her alone at home for the evening. With fishes, you can be sure they are never going to do that - unless, you keep piranhas, and have the habit of dipping your bed sheets in blood. Then if you were to dip your bed sheets in the tank, God help you (a suggestion here - don’t even attempt to salvage the bedsheet from the tank). While on the topic, the fishes will never scratch that victorian bed post, etc. etc. Read more »

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One of the first ornamental fishes available to western aquarium keepers, having been imported to Europe as early as the 1800s, the Paradise fish hails from the ditches and paddy fields in East Asia, ranging from the Korean Peninsula to Northern Vietnam.
These are remarkably hardy fish surviving in virtually any water conditions, thanks to their labyrinth organ, and need very little care making them very good for the novice. In the wild, they are predators, eating insects, invertebrates and fish fry - which is probably what leads to their rather aggressive attitude (I think I can attribute the disappearance of my neon tetras to my paradise fish). However, my paradise loves peas as well. Read more »

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