The often dismissed but very necessary part of the tropical fish hobby, the infamous quarantine tank. Do you really need one to be successful in this hobby?
For freshwater fish you may be able to get by without having one. Freshwater fish are generally more suited to captivity because they are usually tank raised and don't seem to break out in disease as readily as their saltwater counterparts. However, if newly acquired fish do come down with something, you will surely wish that you had one ready to go. One newly bought fish that is introduced to your main tank can easily wipe out the entire tank population. Better safe than sorry, right?
For saltwater aquarium keepers, I would say that you definitely need a quarantine tank. Marine specimens are mostly wild caught and not used to being kept in captivity. Their journey to a dealers tank is usually much longer and much more stressful for them. Stressed out fish will usually come down with some kind of disease if they don't simply die from the whole ordeal. Saltwater fish keepers will usually have other things in the main display tank such as invertebrates and live rock, that they don't want to expose to the harsh medicines necessary to treat one or two fish. Some medicines can wipe out all of the invertebrates in a tank, so be sure to research any medicine before using it in your tank.
Quarantine Tank Setup
You don't need to go all out here. A simple 10 - 20 gallon aquarium will suffice for most people. If you have larger fish then obviously you want to get a bigger quarantine tank. All you really need is a bare bones setup with the following equipment:
Some type of filtration (a hang on the back of the tank power filter will work, just use filter floss without the carbon since carbon will remove medication from the water, being counter productive) Heater A powerhead and/or an airstone for increased surface agitation Test Kits for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate Fish Net - don't use the same net for your main tank
Fill the quarantine tank with water from the main tank and then turn everything on in the quarantine tank.
Freshwater and Saltwater Fish Quarantine
For newly acquired fish you will want to acclimate them to the water in the quarantine tank and monitor them very closely for a period of two to three weeks. Monitor the water parameters with your test kits and check for signs of parasites or bacterial infections.
If the newly acquired fish does come down with something you will need to use the appropriate medication and you will need to keep them in quarantine for a further two weeks to make sure that you have indeed treated them effectively. If after a few weeks no problems develop, you can then acclimate them to the main tank water and then introduce them.
If a fish comes down with something while in your main tank, just net them and plop them into the quarantine tank. There should be no need to acclimate them because you used water from your main tank. If you didn't use water from the main tank you will need to acclimate them to the quarantine tank water. Diagnose the problem/disease and treat appropriately. After the disease clears up you will still want to keep the fish in quarantine for a week or so monitoring the water parameters with your test kits the whole time.
Conclusion Freshwater hobbyists may get away with not using a quarantine tank, but saltwater hobbyists would be crazy not using one. Save yourself some money, headaches and especially the fish by having a quarantine tank. The fish in your main tank will thank you for it.
Auctions on eBay are inherently boring, with nothing more than black text on a white background, and maybe a few photographs of the item in question. Sellers can get lost in a sea of boring auctions, as buyers skip from item to item with nothing really sticking out in their mind. For stay-at-home moms running their own home business from eBay, using HTML is a cheap and easy way to give their auctions a little burst of life.
HTML stands for hypertext markup language, which is the "language" of the internet. Every single website you visit using HTML to work. There are many different things you can do with HTML, and additional languages that work in conjunction with HTML to make some presentations that really pop online. For more details www.mining-auction-gold.com HTML in and of itself, however, is not hard to learn. There are a few basic tags that you can use over and over again to spice up your auction pages, and it won't cost you but a few minutes of your time to do it.
The best way to learn basic HTML is by surfing the web. Thousands of websites online offer free tutorials on the basics of HTML. Find one that focuses strictly on HTML for eBay, and you'll find everything you need to know about working with HTML on eBay. Basic tags, like bold and italic, can help you build a better auction. You can also find codes for changing font and background colors, adding in your own images, and creating links so that buyers can e-mail you directly from your auction, or visit your website.
If you want to do more with your auction than what HTML offers, then the next step is to do some research on CSS. CSS stands for cascading style sheets, and gives you more control over the look of your auction. CSS isn't much harder to learn than HTML, but it lets you change your link behavior, scrollbar, cursor, and even add a background image to your auction. Be sure to adhere to the rules of eBay, however; CSS generally applies styles to the entire webpage, and eBay requires than any style changes made may only apply to your auction.
Once you have gotten a grasp for the basics of HTML and CSS, you can go as far as making your own auction templates. Design an auction template that you would like to use for all of your auctions, and then you can simply copy and paste your auction information into the template every time you list a new item. For more details www.auction-extreme-package.com This can save you time, and give your auctions a more uniform and professional look.
If you are having trouble working out the kinks with your auction's template, you can always visit eBay's forums, right on their website. There is a section dedicated entirely to helping sellers set up their own customized auction templates, and they are more than willing to help you figure out what you're trying to do, for free. As you work with HTML more and learn how to appropriately apply it, you'll soon become a master of it yourself, and then you may find yourself helping others who are just starting out as well.
Both Mike Magnum & Pritpal are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Mike Magnum has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fishing. Mike is an editor at FishLore.com. Designed for beginners, provides