If you’re in the Toronto area, you should definitely check out these independent pet shops.  While each of these has its own pros and cons, these hidden treasures are my favourite places to peruse and shop for fishies and supplies.

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01. Finatics Aquarium – 599 Kennedy Road
Scarborough, ON -M1K 2B2 – (416) 265-2026 – http://www.finaticsaquarium.com/
Great for: Serious African cichlids

02. Aqua Tropics – 2821 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON – M6P 1Y6‎ – (416) 604-3530‎ – http://www.aquatropics.ca/
Great for: New World cichlids

03. Frank’s Aquarium – 8380 Kennedy Road, Unit C18
Markham, ON – L3R 0W4 – (905) 477-1950 – http://franksaquarium.ca/
Great for: Little fish, shrimp

04. North American Fish Breeders – 2260 Kingston Road
Scarborough, ON – M1N 1T9 – (416) 267-7252 – http://northamericanfishbreeder.com/
Great for: Marine life, custom tank solutions

05. Menagerie – 549 Parliament Street
Toronto, ON – M4X 1P7 – (416) 921-4966 – http://www.menageriepetshop.com/
Great for: General pets/supplies, plants!

06. Gold Garden Pet Shop – 4779 Steeles Avenue East #B02
Scarborough, ON – M1V 4S5 – (416) 321-8890
Great for: A little bit of everything!

07. Lucky Aquarium – 4350 Steeles Avenue East #F104A
Markham, ON – L3R 9V4‎ – (905) 477-8778‎
Market Village 2nd Floor – http://www.luckyaquarium.com/
Great for: A little bit of everything!

08. M & J Aquarium – 2101 Brimley Road #101
Scarborough, ON – M1S 2B4 – (416) 508-9218 – http://www.minjiang.ca/
Great for: Custom tank solutions, blood parrots

09. Aquapets – 680 Silver Star Boulevard #303 & 305
Scarborough, ON – M1V 5N1 – (416) 292-1688
Great for: A little bit of everything!

10. Maple Garden – 673 Gerrard Street East
Toronto, ON – M4M 1Y2 – (416) 466-9811
Great for: Affiliation with Aquapets

11. Wong’s Aquarium – 590 Gerrard Street East
Toronto, ON – M4M 1Y3 – (416) 461-5362
Great for: BIG fish and really random hours!

12. Critter’s Castle – 1607 Queen Street East
Toronto, ON – M4L 1E5 – (416) 461-6130
Great for: General pets/supplies

M’kay, first off, truly wicked title, eh? Yeah, thought of that all by myself! 😛 Anyway, moving on…

So, it often makes me smile when someone tells me s/he has a “fairly large” tank, and then when I ask for the dimensions, the tank ends up being somewhere around the 15 gallon mark. I offer for you, the enthusiastic fishkeeper, my interpretation of tank sizes, based not on human perception of the tank, but on the size of fish one might put in them. Small tanks are for small fish. Large tanks are for large fish. Multiple large fish must be kept in an XL tank. Make sense?

Taking the whole spectrum of common sizes of tanks available in Canada (with Hagen, Miracles, Perfecto/Marineland and Aqueon being the four big brand names), I give you the following grouping of tanks, based primarily on each tank’s footprint and, of course, its capacity. The primary concern for a fish is swimming area, and while added height does have the benefit of additional volume, it does not necessarily add any new territory, unless you have different species that separate into various strata within the tank. Let’s review…

Note:
H = high/tall, XH = extra-high/tall, B = breeder/short/wide, L = long. Measurements are given as length x width x height in inches (sorry!) and volumes in approximate US gallons (again, sorry!).

BOWLS & CUBES

Included just for comparison, the biggest of fish bowls usually max out at about 1 gallon. Yes, ONE gallon. Please think about this before housing your fish in one of these torture devices. What’s that? You have more than one fish in one of these?! Not cool, dude. Not cool. These make a great place to hold your fish nets, however!

TINY TANKS (itty-bitty micro-tanks)

These are good for not much else besides hospital/isolation tanks, shrimp, dwarf frogs, temporary breeder tanks for smaller species, fry raising tanks or to give your pet Betta some actual swimming room. No, you should not keep Goldfish in tanks this small. Don’t do it. Ever.

Common sizes:

2.5 (12 x 6 x 8 )
3.5 (14 x 8 x 8 )
5.5 (16 x 8 x 10)
10H (16 x 8 x 20)

SMALL TANKS (starter tanks)

Not to say that if you own one of these tanks you’re new to the hobby, but chances are one of these will be the first of your collection, or at least the first tank a particular fish inhabits before swimming up to some larger quarters.

Common sizes:

10   (20 x 10 x 12)
15H  (20 x 10 x 16)
16H  (20 x 10 x 19)
19XH (20 x 10 x 22)
20XH (20 x 10 x 24)

15   (24 x 12 x 12)
20H  (24 x 12 x 16)
25H  (24 x 12 x 20)
28H  (24 x 12 x 22)
30H  (24 x 12 x 24)

18L  (30 x 12 x 12)
25   (30 x 12 x 16)
28   (30 x 12 x 18)
35H  (30 x 12 x 22)

28B  (30 x 18 x 12)

MEDIUM TANKS (3-foot & narrow 4-foot tanks)

Note that 30 gallons is generally the smallest sized tank in which one should keep ANY kind of adult goldfish.

Common sizes:

23L (36 x 12 x 12)
28L (36 x 12 x 15)
33  (36 x 12 x 18)
37  (36 x 12 x 20)
45  (36 x 12 x 24)

42B (36 x 18 x 15)
45B (36 x 18 x 16)
50H (36 x 18 x 19)
55  (36 x 18 x 20)
65H (36 x 18 x 24)

40L  (48 x 12 x 16)
48   (48 x 12 x 19)
50   (48 x 12 x 20)
60   (48 x 12 x 24)

LARGE TANKS (4- & 5-foot tanks)

Common sizes:

65L   (48 x 18 x 19)
66    (48 x 16 x 20)
75    (48 x 18 x 20)
80    (48 x 16 x 24)
90    (48 x 18 x 24)
110H  (48 x 18 x 30)

125XH (48 x 24 x 24)
150XH (48 x 24 x 30)

110XH (60 x 18 x 24)
120XH (60 x 18 x 26)

EXTRA-LARGE TANKS (6-foot tanks)

Common sizes:

100L (72 x 18 x 19)
124  (72 x 18 x 22)
135  (72 x 18 x 24)
150  (72 x 18 x 27)
150  (72 x 18 x 29)

180  (72 x 24 x 24)
220  (72 x 24 x 30)

XXL TANKS

Aquaria in this category are truly monumental, in excess of 6 feet long and/or hold more than a kilolitre of water! Yeah, that’s about 265 gallons. (Red terror or wolf cichlid colony, anyone?) These are the biggest of the big, the tanks you see in store windows, museums and in the homes of the truly crazy, crazy fish nuts. (No, I don’t own one…yet!)

Common sizes:

265 (84 x 24 x 30)

So, into which category does your tank fall?

Okay, so we’ve all seen the cool gadgets and neat products one can buy at the pet shop, right? It’s an unfortunate truth, however, that many of these products are ridiculously-overpriced, unnecessary and often available from other source at a fraction of the cost. This post will guide you, the good aquarist, to saving money and avoiding dumping lots and lots of money into your tank, so you can instead spend it on…MORE FISHHHHHH!!! 😀

Water Conditioner:

This is a time-saving product and nothing more, and should be used only when one needs to make large water changes using water straight from the tap. Instead, get some big jugs or buckets, fill them with cold tap water and let them age for 24 hours before adding them to your tanks. This will allow the chlorine to evaporate and has the exact same effect as ion-exchanging chemical alternatives. If you do get a water conditioner, make sure it’s one that treats in drops (and not capfuls) per few litres of water. Some of the better water conditioners also help with slime-coating, break down chloramines, ammonia and other harmful compounds, so these can be beneficial with more sensitive species, however, be sure this is required before using a product you may not need.

Water clarifiers, waste control products & filter cycle-aids:

…are all a giant waste of money. Don’t bother with any of them. Instead, clean your tank when you’re supposed to, and ensure you’re vacuuming your gravel once every week or two. When starting a new tank, seed bacteria colonies by swapping inserts from already-cycled filters, or otherwise just be patient!

Medications:

Instead of rushing out in a panic to buy medications, start by being patient and avoid “quick-fix” remedies. Firstly, it’s been suggested by a very experienced store associate fellow that most issues you will have with your fish are 90% to do with water quality and 10% to do with compatibility. Secondly, it’s environmentally unsound to be dumping chemicals into our water supply unnecessarily. This means that rather than running out to your fish store to buy medication when things go wrong, first look to your water parameters and fish interaction. A lot can be prevented by simply keeping on top of your water changes and ensuring your fish actually belong in the same tank! While your friend might keep a hugely-overstocked aquarium with no problems, you may have grouchy individuals in your tank that don’t fare so well….or bad upkeep practices…or both! In a cycled tank, ammonia levels should be zero, while nitrate levels should be reasonable close to zero as well. If have nitrate concentrations of 5-10 ppm, your water change routine is sound, but if you have concentrations approaching 20 ppm or more, consider refining your cleaning routine, increasing filtration, adding plants or removing fish. Once your water is in check, next look at personality. Do your fish get along or is one being constantly bullied or chased? High stress breeds disease, so do what you can to reduce stress on your fishies.

Infections can often be treated by adding salt to your water at a concentration of about 15 mL per 20 L (1 tablespoon per 5 US gallons) and increasing the temperature a degree or two above normal (but never ever more than 29 °C).

If none of these remedies work, then and only then, should you reach for your medications. But even with these can you find alternatives, so read the ingredients carefully. And remember: “sodium chloride” is just the fancy term for salt. If you pick up a product that is just salt and colouring, put it back down, walk away and read below.

Salt:

Instead of buying “aquarium” salt for $7/kg, go to your local drug store or bulk food store and buy sea salt. As long as your salt is untreated and does not contain additives (such as the iodine in table salt), you do not need to pay any more than $2.50/kg!

Silicone:

Instead of buying over-priced “aquarium-safe” silicone at your pet store for $15-20/tube, there are alternatives:

• GE/Momentive Specialty Construction 1200-Series Silicone is great stuff. I’ve broken the glass before I’ve been able to remove seals made with this stuff, it’s that strong! This product would be what I’d highly-recommend for any large-scale application. It comes in clear, white, black and alumin(i)um colours for $4.91/tube wholesale, and $12/tube singly. Unfortunately, however, it is often hard to find!
• A next-best choice (for smaller projects) is GE Window & Door Silicone I (Silicone II is toxic to fish!!!). This is available at almost all hardware stores for $6-8/tube.
  

Please note:

• Silicon is an element with symbol Si and atomic number 14. It’s is the tetravalent metalloid semiconductor used in the production of microchips.
• Silicone is the gooey silicon-containing synthetic polymer that is used as a construction material.
• One has an E on the end, the other does not. Please learn the difference!
• (Sorry, pet peeve!)

Tank Dividers:

Your local craft store should carry some plastic canvas mesh that is used for cross-stitching crafts. Sliding some report cover bindings, available at your local stationary/office supply store, around the edges makes a sheet of this material rigid enough to be used as a tank divider. Also, the egg grating they used for covering large-scale fluorescent light fixtures can be easily cut into dividers of any size. This material is a lot more rigid, but only works for larger fish that can’t swim through the holes. Both solutions allow water to flow freely, but fish to be kept apart.

Caves:

Instead of buying a half-a-coconut cave for your fish for $7, go to the grocery store, buy a yummy whole coconut for $1, enjoy the insides, then saw off, sand down and boil the remaining shell before using it as a cave for your fish. Alternatively, clay flower pots are usually less than $1 at your friendly neighbourhood hardware store. Also, for custom breeding caves, you’d be amazed what one can construct out of flower pots and silicone using a Dremel tool, a hacksaw and sandpaper.

Breeder Boxes:

Instead of buying a floating breeder box for upwards of $8, head back to the grocery store (or maybe you’re already there buying coconuts!) and buy yourself a 2 litre bottle of Coke (no, not Pepsi…it’s gross). Once the bottle is empty, cut the top part off it near where the bottle starts to slant inwards, then take a thumb tack, skewer or something else that’s small and pointy to make holes in the sides and bottom. These should be small enough to keep the fry in, but big enough to allow water exchange. This little contraption may not float by itself, so you’ll have to clip it to the side of the tank with a document clip, but you’ve made yourself an instant breeder box for $1.50…that even comes with a free 2 L of pop! Yum!

Lighting:

Hardware store fluorescent lighting can usually be found for about a third of what aquarium lighting costs. You don’t get the fitted, custom canopies, but some hanging solutions are readily available, as are ones that can sit atop glass lids.

Other supplies:

Can be found at the drug store, dollar store, etc…
– cheap pantyhose instead of bags for filter media
– scrubber pads/sponges for cleaning
– Instead of scrub brushes, look for baby bottle brushes for cleaning the filter tubing
– eye droppers for feeding
– flower pots
– cute ornaments
– glass vases
– rocks, marbles, shells, glass/plastic “jewels”
– fake plants
– long shoehorns make a great breeding ground for some egg-laying species, especially angelfish.

If you want to start breeding fish, here are a few pointers to help you along…

1. Provide sheltered nesting spots. Parents-to-be need to feel safe in order to breed. Give them a spot to call home and defend that is behind visual barriers and safe from dominant fish that will impede their mating.  This may mean giving the pair their own tank, but sometimes one or more dither fish are required so that the pair unite and and put their combined aggression into defending their nest together, rather than fighting amongst themselves.

2. Mimic natural conditions. Egg-laying fish tend to breed in pits they dig themselves, in caves they can seal off or on inclined surfaces. Provide the appropriate medium for your particular fish (sand, gravel, rocks, clay, plant leaves, floating roots,  etc.). Some may require warm, acidic water, where others require cool, basic water. Some prefer still water, where others will insist upon heavy currents.

3. Provide environmental triggers. Spawning season in nature is sometimes triggered by a sudden change in water conditions – melting snow, spring rains, surface runoff, etc. Sometimes a water change is all it takes, but you may have to monitor and carefully-control your water parameters to provide ideal mating conditions.

4. Condition the parents. Addition of high-protein foods will encourage fish to come into breeding condition. Blood/glass/earth worms, shrimp, smaller fish, etc. all help to condition your mating pair.

5. A watched pot never boils – have patience! Fish will often breed when you aren’t looking, don’t want them to or least expect it. Go play Sudoku, have a cup o’ tea and come back later.

For plants to thrive, they must be able to undergo photosynthesis, the conversion of carbon dioxide, in the presence of light, into food they can use to grow and flourish. The light is provided by your fluorescent aquarium bulbs, roughly 1 watt per 2 L of aquarium water as a minimum. If you want to go hardcore, aim closer to 1 watt per 0.75 litres, with bulbs changed every 6 months. Also, note that incandescent bulbs (you know, the ones with the tungsten-coiley-filament-doohickey inside) require much higher wattages for the same amount of light, and deeper tanks may require more light to penetrate all the way to the bottom. I power my 54 L (60 x 30 x 30 cm) planted tank with two 15 W T8 bulbs (one Power-Glo for sweet visuals and one hardware store Plant & Aquarium bulb because I’m frugal).

You can calculate the CO₂ level in your tank by measuring the degree of carbonate content and pH levels with your favourite water test kits.

CO2 (ppm) = 3 x °KH x 10^(7.0 – pH)

The ideal concentration of dissolved CO₂ is in the range of 10-25 ppm. Any less than this and your plants won’t get enough. More than this can have a negative effect on your fish.

Two easy things you can do that will increase the CO₂ concentration in your water are:

• lower the pH of your water using acidifying compounds (driftwood, peat moss, alder cones, etc.). Note that “lower” doesn’t mean “low”. Plants should be kept in near-neutral water, so don’t go too crazy! “Acid rain” = bad!
• create a CO₂ injector (and possibly a reactor) setup to add dissolved CO₂ to your tank. There are lots of instructions available on the Web for the do-it-yourselfer.

What I did… [ — COMING SOON! — ]

References:

• Thanks to the author of the article that provided the handy formula above, which I can’t quite locate at the moment!
• Water Hardness (a thorough chemistry-based discussion)
• Intro to pH
• Photosynthesis
• °KH

Okie, so you’ve bought your brand spankin’ new fish tank and are all excited about how big it is, right? Right!? But is it really as big as was advertised? The United States stubbornly refuses to adopt metric, which has kept the aquarium industry in North America bouncing back and forth between S.I. and Imperial units, causing round-off errors when units are converted between systems. Unfortunately, there is also a small amount of exaggeration that happens if the wrong measurements are taken or rounded up improperly. Also, there is a big difference between how much volume a tank occupies in space and how large a volume of water it can hold, a discrepancy that increases the larger your tank is. Tanks should be measured from the insides of the glass (not the outsides, not the frame) for an accurate measurement of the capacity. Lastly, since anything solid in your tank will displace some of this water and reduce the total water volume in the tank, some of your tank (roughly 10%) will be taken up by rocks, gravel, decorations and even the fish themselves. If you don’t believe me, sit down in a full bathtub and watch what happens.

On a side note, something similar happens when you buy a new iPod or a hard drive. Manufacturers typically define a “gigabyte” as a billion bytes, rather than as  2^30 (or 1,073,741,824) bytes – the standard definition of a gigabyte. Further, another chunk of space (~7%) is taken by the filesystem to format your drive, so in reality, an iPod that is sold as “160 GB” actually has only about 138 GB of usable space! But I digress…

Some important things to realise when calculating your tank’s actual volume:

• Take measurements between the insides of the glass, not the outsides.
• 1 US gallon = 231 cubic inches = 3.785412 litres
• 1 Imperial gallon (deprecated) = 4.546092 litres
• 1 litre = 1 cubic decimetre = 1000 cubic cm
• 1 millilitre = 1 cubic centimetre = 0.001 cubic decimetre
• 1 L = 1 dm³ = 1000 cm³ = 1000 mL
• 1 decimetre = 10 centimetres = 0.1 metres
• 1 inch = 2.54 centimetres

Volume Calculations

Rectangular tanks

To calculate this volume, we’ll need three inside measurements:

• length (left-to-right)
• width (front-to-back)
• height (depth of the water)

Total volume of a rectangular tank in litres using measurements taken in cm:

volume = (length)(width)(height)(1 L / 1000 cm³)
volume = (length)(width)(height)(0.001 cm^-3) L

Divide this value by 3.785412 for US gallons.

— OR —

Total volume of a rectangular tank in US gallons using measurements taken in inches:

volume = (length)(width)(height) / (231 in³/gal)
volume = (length)(width)(height)(1 in^-3)(/231) gal

Multiply this value by 3.785412 for litres.

For example: [ — COMING SOON — ]

Hexagonal tanks

To calculate this volume in litres, we’ll need two (or three) inside measurements taken in cm:

• side length (one of the six sides)
• height_tank (depth of the water)
• diameter (distance across the tank between two sides (not corners!))

Total volume of a hexagonal tank in litres = area of base_tank x height_tank x (1 L / 1000 cm³)

So, what is the area of the base_tank? Well, the base_tank is just a collection of six equilateral triangles, so we can calculate their six areas from the formula A = (1/2)base_tri x height_tri and multiply by six for the area of the whole bottom of the tank. The base of each triangle is the side length of the tank, while the height of each triangle is the found from the Pythagorean Theorem as h = sqrt( side² – [(1/2)side]² ). You’ll find that h = ( (√3)/2 )side. Alternatively, this value is the same as half the diameter of the tank (distance between two opposite sides), which you can measure if this is easier for you. So, the area of the base_tank = 6 x (1/2) x side x ( (√3)/2 ) x side = 6 x (1/2) x side x (1/2) x diameter

Total volume of a hexagonal tank in litres:

volume = (√3)(3/2)(side²)(height_tank)(1 L / 1000 cm³)
volume = (0.00259808 cm^-3)(side²)(height_tank) L

— OR —

volume = (6)(1/2)(side)(1/2)(diameter)(height) (1 L / 1000 cm³)
volume = (1.5)(side)(diameter)(height)(0.001 cm^-3) L

Divide this value by 3.785412 for US gallons.

For example: [ — COMING SOON — ]

I will leave it up to you whether or not you take another 10% off the volume of your tank to account for gravel, decorations and occupants.

So, now that you know all of this, how big is your tank really?!

Weight Calculations

Another related topic here is how heavy your tank is. Maybe you just moved into a new apartment and you need to check if the floor is strong enough, or perhaps you want to have a bedroom aquarium and don’t want to find your tank in your living room because your floor isn’t to spec.

To estimate the weight of your tank when full:

• Water weighs about 1 gram per mL or 1 kg/L
• Aquarium gravel is typically sold in 2 kg, 5 lb/2.268 kg, 10 kg or 25 lb/11.340 kg bags.
• Decorations you can easily throw on your bathroom scale for a good estimation.
• You can usually find the empty weight of your tank on the box or from the manufacturer’s Web site.
• 1 kilogram = 2.204622 pounds

So, the weight of the tank when full = empty tank + gravel + decorations + water.

It’s just that easy! Think your floor will hold? 😉