Table of contents for March 2026 in Practical Fishkeeping

I THINK IT’S interesting how in our hobby, appreciation ebbs and flows, surges and quiets and goes through cycles. I am referring to how we view species of plants and fishes and how this changes over time, impacting their popularity. Think of it this way, if you have been in the hobby for a while and you walk into a fish store, you might glance briefly at the neon tetras (Paracheirodon innesi), offer a passing glance to some kribs (Pelvicachromis pulcher), or roll your eyes at yet another tank filled with tiger barbs (Puntigrus tetrazona). These fish have long been in the trade, are staples of community tanks (sometimes with terrible results) and are ubiquitous. However, can you image how totally amazing they would have appeared to fishkeepers when they…

OVER THE LAST couple of months, we have covered choosing the right aquarium, lighting, wavemakers and filtration for marine aquariums but the shopping list is not quite finished yet. This month it is time for some of the other key pieces of equipment to get their turn in the spotlight. Heaters Being tropical marine fish, the water should be around 25°C (77°F) at all times, so you’ll need a heater and a thermostat. Don’t skimp on this essential piece of equipment and rely on a £20 heater to look after £2000 of livestock. Get the best heater you can to hold temperature in range at all times, coral reefs are incredibly stable habitats meaning corals are not well adapted to deal with temperature swings. Return pumps Return pumps are an…

STEP 1: Get your tank or tub ready. Choose something manageable and suitable for the fish you’ll be quarantining. You can either have a bare bottom or thin layer of substrate. STEP 2: Keep it simple. Add a hiding place or two (PVC pipes amd small plastic plants work well) if needed to reduce stress, but not tons of décor that blocks your view. STEP 3. Fill up the aquairum with water and use a good dechlorinator to make the water safe for both the fish and the beneficial filter bacteria. STEP 4: Add the equipment. A sponge filter or small HOB is fine. Add some media from a mature tank to help kick start the filter’s bacteria. I often keep a small filter running in another aquarium just in…

IT’S CRAZY HOW time is flying. It seems as if it was only yesterday when I received my very first group of shrimp. But, in fact, it was well over two decades ago when my good friend put a dozen of pale red cherry shrimp in a bag for me – despite my objections. I simply didn’t see the appeal of keeping aquatic arthropods instead of fish, taking up valuable aquarium space. It’s not that I didn’t like shrimp - quite the opposite. I absolutely loved prawns on a salad bed with a Marie Rose sauce, but these tiny “cherries” were too small to eat - so for my “usual” purpose they were totally useless. Nevertheless, I gave them a home in the coldest tank of my fish-house and -…

1 The tank is cleaned and prepped. Then the light background panel – with a green to yellow gradient foil – and the LED light are installed. 2 Next, the substrate is added and smoothed out. The soil is at its deepest in the centre of the display with a maximum depth of 12cm (4.7"). 3 The three pieces of wood are added to the aquarium and placed to create an interesting, but natural, structure. 4 Here, the Echinodorus are planted by hand and their roots and rhizomes pushed down firmly into the deepest part of the substrate. 5 A 50/50 mixture of dechlorinated tap water and rainwater is slowly added to the tank. The water is maintained at 20°C (68°F). 6 Next, the Aquario pipework is installed and the…

WITH THE INCREASED use of dry rock over live rock, you might hope that marine pests have become a thing of the past. Unfortunately, these little critters – that can cause havoc in a reef tank – still have plenty of routes into our systems through which they can invade. This can be via buying corals on small pieces of rock, small frags and other sessile invertebrates that have not been treated with a coral dip, or even second-hand equipment if it has not been sufficiently cleaned. So, it remains critical to know how to deal with these plagues of pests. But before you go reaching for a bottle of chemical, why not consider a form of natural pest control? There are predators for many of the pests out there,…

MANY QUESTIONS CAME to mind as our small speedboat fights its way from the island of Koh Rong to the pier in Sihanoukville, through the high waves of the Gulf of Thailand. Will the strap that ties the captain to the steering wheel hold? How can I rescue both my wife, and the little bag with the fish in, from a sinking boat? Was it all worth it? While large crowds of tourists head mainly for beach vacations in Thailand or Vietnam, Cambodia’s coastline remains largely undeveloped. Koh Rong is one of the few islands with notable tourist infrastructure. Its original character is striking, with beautiful, mostly empty beaches and the opportunity to explore well-preserved forests. The island’s rivers can hardly compete with the colourful underwater world of the ocean,…

WHEN YOU THINK of the Rio Negro, the image that springs to mind is almost universal among fishkeepers: slow-moving blackwater streams, tea-stained depths, limited visibility, sandy shores with leafy sediment and a labyrinth of tangled roots and fallen branches. That’s exactly what I expected when I set off on my Amazon fish-watching adventure – a trip I’d dreamed about for many years. But what I discovered at the Rio Cuieiras waterfalls, a tributary of the Rio Negro, was something entirely different. Our expedition started in Manaus, the bustling heart of the Amazon. From there, we travelled up the Rio Negro in our comfortable hotel boat, which looked very much like a paddle steamer. We anchored for a few days near the São Sebastião community along the Cuieiras River. I’d never…

THE CARIBBEAN HAS long been regarded as a diver’s paradise, and for good reason. A sprawling patchwork of islands, spread over a million square miles, they encompass almost every type of underwater habitat imaginable – from wrecks and reefs, pinnacles and walls through to coral and sponge gardens. For an underwater enthusiast, it’s simply a case of choosing where, rather than whether, to go. When faced with this seemingly impossible choice of destinations and looking for inspiration, my marine aquarist head kicked in. Having recently upgraded my tanks and now having more space to utilise, I’d always been keen on housing a jawfish, so what better way to determine how to maintain them than to observe them out in the wild. Hailing from the family Opistognathidae, these substrate-burrowers caught my…

AFTER RECENTLY PICKING up some cardinal tetras for an upcoming YouTube video I was confident in my process and getting ready to add them to the main aquarium. But when checking over these fish in the bag, something didn’t seem quite right, despite the fish looking perfectly fine in the store tanks. Fish normally act weirdly during transport but this was different. Something didn’t seem quite right; whether it was their colour, swimming habit or something else that I could not quite pinpoint. So, I placed them into one of our quarantine tanks and less than 24 hours later I was looking at a few cardinals with a bad bacterial infection. Luckily, I caught it early, it didn’t infect the main aquarium, and I managed to save the majority of…

WITHIN THE AQUARIUM hobby, all sorts of bottom-dwelling, cyprinid-adjacent fishes are referred to by the name ’loaches’. So, we have the hillstream loaches of the family Gastromyzontidae, of which the Hong Kong plec (Beaufortia kweichowensis) is probably the best known. Then there’s the Nemacheilidae, or stone loach family. This includes one species, Barbatula barbatula, that can be found in the clear streams and rivers flowing across the UK, as well as some occasional aquarium imports, like the sumo loach (Schistura balteata). Mind you, if there is a ‘true’ loach family, then it’s the Cobitidae. This family is found across Eurasia, including one species, the spined loach (Cobitis taenia), which occurs in a handful of rivers in the UK. Basically, all sorts of carp-like fishes seem to have evolved into loaches.…

Did you hear about Gioia Shrimp? Well, before the PATS 2025 show I had no idea that they existed but after seeing them listed as an exhibitor, I thought it was wise to give them a visit. I’m always interested in products made for shrimp but I hoped it wasn’t just a company who sells more of the same stuff, rebranded. After a friendly chat with the founder-owner Enzo Granados Gioia I was assured that this was not the case, quite the contrary: Gioia Shrimp is proud to be a company producing their own products – and they do it mainly in France. The manufacturing is not automatised, and many of the things they sell – especially the food items – are handcrafted in their workshops. It’s not easy for…