Blue Algae ( cyanobacteria )

Most aquarium hobbyists know and fear this type of algae, well actually it's the organism cyanobacteria. The appearance of the blue algae is often a slimy blue green carpet, quickly spreading throughout the aquarium surfaces. It easily comes of in sheets, that smell rather nasty. Blue algae can make your aquarium look like a sewer within a week, and they especially develop in new aquarium setups. In most cases blue algae are a clear sign that something is terribly wrong with your aquarium water.

Every successful breeder of tropical fish knows that feeding live foods to their charges is one of the best ways to maintain healthy and active fish.

Live foods are overall high in protein. They stimulate spawning, and help to intensify coloration. Live foods enhance the natural tendencies of fish to forage for their food as they would in their natural environment.

Corydoras aeneus

The large corydoras family contains at least 120 different species, and a lot of these are widely available in aquarium shops all over the word. Their popularity is not surprisingly, they have nice coloring, are very outgoing and are always busy foraging the bottom of the aquarium for food. In a tropical community aquarium they are an excellent choice as a schooling fish for the lower areas, and if you are looking for a good bottom cleaner for your discus or angel tanks, you could give it a try. In my discus tank a small group of Corydoras aeneus is cleaning up the bottom nicely, they even recycle the poop of the discus.

Java Moss : Vesicularia dubyana

The aquarium background is one of the most challenging decorations to create or buy, when properly setup it has both an aesthetic and a functional value. There is a wide range of commercial products on the market, some are absolutely stunning imitations of a river bank or a rock formation. But there is also an excellent natural option by using Java Moss
( Vesicularia dubyana ) to create your aquarium background.

Angel Fish Pterophyllum altum (back) & scalare (front)

After keeping and breeding Angel fish for a couple of years I decided to replace them for a group of discus fish, that was about 10 years ago. At that time the beautiful Altum Angel fish ( Pterophyllum altum ) was widely available and also the 'natural' colored Scalare Angel fish ( Pterophyllum scalare ). After setting up a new south American community tank a group of Altum angel fish was number one on my wish list, so I started looking around for a group of semi adult Altum's.

Cyprichromis leptosoma

The most popular African cichlids come from Lake Malawi and lake Tanganyika. The cichlids from lake Malawi are generally more colorful, but the cichlids from lake Tanganyika have a more diverse breeding behavior. Malawi cichlids are all mouthbrooders, while the Tanganyika cichlids can be substrate spawners, shell dwellers or mouthbrooders. It is best to keep the fish from the two lakes separated, mainly because of the different demands in water quality.

There are several species of shelldwellers in lake Tanganyika, but this one is definitely my favorite, Lamprologus ocellatus. Shelldwellers are maybe not the most colorful fish form the lake but they make up for this lack of color trough their really interesting behavior. The Lamprologus ocellatus is a small fish of about 4 to 6 centimeters ( about 2 inches ) but they can easily be kept in community tanks with much larger fish, I keep them in my community Tanganyika tank with nearly adult Frontosa's without a problem. If a big Frontosa comes to close they will attack it, most of the time the couple will atack together, and if the Frontosa comes to close they just return to their safe shell's to hide.

Thanks to Disney's Motion Picture 'Finding Nemo', almost everybody is familiar with clownfish.
Clownfish, or Anemonefishes, from the family Pomacentridae, are one of the easiest tropical marine aquarium fish to breed. Clownfish regularly lay eggs in aquariums. They have quite large eggs and larvae, and since the larvae easily eat cultured live foods, raising them is somewhat simpler than it is with many other marine species.