Revamp Your Tank This New Year!

January Newsletter 2016
RamGot the winter blues? We have some great products that will help you spice up your tank, whether it be new food that keeps your fish vibrant all year round, or brightening up your aquarium with decorative rocks and aquarium plants. Never kept plants before? We can help walk you through the process.

Don’t forget to check out January’s Fish of the Month, the White Fin Hy-511 Tetra. Why does it have numbers in it’s name? Scroll down to find out!

What's new?

Hikari Cichlid Sinking mini wafers
One of our most trusted brands in fish food, Hikari, has released a brand new food just for your young cichlids! This color enhancing, sinking food is a miniature wafer, approximately 1.3-1.5mm, making it perfect for small fish. These wafers contain high grade carotenoid, which helps your fish keep their beautiful colors all year round. The food is also high in natural proteins, which will help your fish grow up healthy and strong.
Check out some of the great rocks we have in stock this month! We even have show size pieces of lace rock!aquarium lace rock and petrified wood

plants 101

Amazon sword aquarium plantThe dreary weather making you feel down? Turn your freshwater aquarium into a summer paradise with the addition of aquarium plants! Not only do plants give the illusion of a tropical paradise, they also provide a necessary service to the aquarium by removing CO2 and nitrates, and oxygenating the water. The transition to a planted aquarium is not nearly as difficult as many aquarists think!

It’s best to start out keeping hardy plants, such as Amazon swords (pictured above), java fern, and anubius. These are plants that all do well in medium lighting (meaning you don’t need a specialized light) and can handle a wide range of water parameters.

seachem flourishMany aquarium plants require the same water parameters as your fish. A stable pH around 7.0 and water temperatures of 78 degrees Fahrenheit. However, like fish, plants may require “food” in the form of nutrient supplements and/or fertilizer. You can add plant substrate to your aquarium, which allows plants to easily take root and also provides them with necessary nutrients. Liquid additives, such as Flourish products, provide your plants with much needed micro and macro nutrients, such as phosphorus, iron, potassium, and trace elements.

Ask us about plants next time you visit the store! We’ll help you find the perfect plants for your aquarium.

Fish of the month: white fin Hy-511 tetra
Also known as candy cane tetras, the White Fin Hy-511 tetra may have caught your eye because of it’s strange, numbered name. When a species of fish hasn’t been assigned a scientific name yet, scientists often use numbers to identify a species. “Hy” refers to the genus (Hyphessobrycon), while the “511” is a stand in for the species name.

This beautiful schooling fish is not a picky eater, and will devour small pellet, flake, and live foods. Males and females of this species are easy to tell apart because males have a noticeably taller dorsal fin then females. White Fin Hy-511 tetras are great community fish, and do very well in planted tanks.

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