Top 10 Pufferfish You Can Keep in Freshwater and Brackish AquariumsOut of all the oddball fish, we’ve always had a fascination with puffer fish because of their highly intelligent nature, helicopter-like maneuverability, and large, inquisitive eyes. Plus, they have unique defense mechanisms, such as inflating like a living water balloon and carrying the tetrodotoxin poison that discourages would-be predators. (Note to self: do not try to eat a pet puffer.) Most pufferfish are semi-aggressive to aggressive carnivores with ever-growing teeth like a beaver, so ...
Care Guide for Pea Puffers – The Smallest Pufferfish in the WorldPea puffers are one of the coolest oddball species you can keep in a smaller-sized aquarium. They’re known for their helicopter-like maneuverability, independently moving eyes, and of course, ability to inflate like a tiny water balloon. In this practical care guide, we answer your most frequently asked questions about these amazing, little creatures. What Is a Pea Puffer? Carinotetraodon travancoricus – also known as the pea puffer, Indian dwarf puffer, Malabar puffer, and pygmy puffer – is ...
How do you clip a pufferfish’s teeth?If the hard foods are not filing down their beaks enough, your puffer’s teeth may become so overgrown that they can no longer properly eat. To prevent them from starving, you need to clip the tips of their teeth using a pair of sharp cuticle trimmers. Do your research to find out which method works best for you, but a common technique is to add 2-4 drops of clove oil per 1 liter (about 4.25 cups) of water. Add the puffer into the mild anesthetic solution and it should become sedated within a ...
How to Set Up (and Maintain) a Brackish AquariumIf you have been keeping freshwater aquariums for a while, you may feel like you’ve already tried everything in the hobby, such as nano tanks, aquascaping, African cichlids, and ponds. Consider setting up your first brackish fish tank that will allow you to try an entirely new category of animals. Many aquarists get a little nervous about making brackish water, but in our opinion, it is quite easy for anyone who has kept freshwater tanks before. Learn what it takes to create and maintain your...
Care Guide for Amazon Puffers – Freshwater Puffer for Community TanksPuffers are fascinating fish in the aquarium hobby because of their unusual, globelike shape and intelligent personalities, but many species grow incredibly large, require brackish water, or are too aggressive to be kept with other tankmates. Fortunately, the Amazon puffer is one of the few freshwater “community puffers” that only grows to 3 inches (7.6 cm) long and can live with other fish. Find out how to care for this amazing oddball and see if it’s the right pufferfish for you. What is th...
Tetraodon MBU - The Under Water Giant PuppyThe Tetraodon MBU puffer is the largest freshwater species of puffer fish. Getting 22+ inches in a home aquarium. With the fish getting so big, most aquarists struggle to keep one healthy. While my largest one has only gotten to 22 inches, I suspect they’ll grow to as large as 30 inches depending on how they are raised throughout their extended lives. The first question is always what size of an aquarium? Some say 300 gallons, some say 1000 gallons etc. The reality is the foot print is much m...
Meet the Rosy Barb: Your Aquarium's Beautiful Algae-Eating Superstar!This week at the Aquarium Co-Op retail store in Edmonds, we received some special new fish! We received the beautiful Rosy Barb, a Flagtail Prochilodus, Golden Dojo Loaches, and Amazon Puffers! This week I would like to highlight some awesome plants! We brought in Java Fern, Micro Sword, Bacopa Caroliniana, and Crypt. Wendtii Red. For this week's tank tip I wanted to share a video highlighting Cory's best tips for preventing algae in your aquarium!
How to Feed Frozen Fish Food to Your AquariumFeeding only fish flakes or wafers to your aquarium fish is like the human equivalent of only eating protein bars every day. Yes, they contain a well-balanced mixture of nutritious ingredients, but wouldn’t it be nice to treat your fish to a sumptuous roast chicken dinner every once in a while? Then you should try frozen fish foods. This premium-grade fish food is packed with high-quality proteins, healthy fatty acids, and gut-loaded vitamins. After live foods, frozen foods are the next close...
5 Easy Ways to Get Rid of Aquarium Pest SnailsBladder, ramshorn, and Malaysian trumpet snails are often called pest snails in the aquarium hobby because they reproduce very quickly and are difficult to remove once introduced to a fish tank. They can enter your fish tank by hitchhiking on live aquatic plants or even at the bottom of a fish bag from the pet store. Are pest snails bad for my fish tank? Despite having the nickname of “pest snails,” they are actually quite useful in aquariums and are a natural part of the aquatic ecosystem. T...
Huge Anubias Plants this Week at Aquarium Co-Op!This week the retail store got in some great fish orders including some new Assorted Discus, Sterbai Cories, Red Head Tapajos, Schoutedeni Pufferfish, Dwarf Petricola Catfish, and Apisto. Borelli 'Opal'. We also got in some jumbo-sized Anubias Hastifolia as well as some lush Java Moss Mats and colorful Anubias Coffeefolia! These plants are easy to care for and appreciate liquid fertilizer. All three species as well as other mosses and rhizome plants ...
New Deliveries at Aquarium Co-Op! 🆕This week at Aquarium Co-Op's retail store we got in some beautiful Small Assorted Discus, Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish, Magenta/Purple Mystery Snails, and Pea Puffers! As far as plants this week, the Pogo. Octopus and Dwarf Sagittaria that we have in our Easy Planters are looking especially full and nice! Also, our Dwarf Aquarium Lilies are looking lush and happy as well with multiple shoots per bulb. For this week's Tank Tip I wanted to talk about the importance of quarantining fis...
How do you deworm a puffer?Pufferfish are especially prone to internal parasites like tapeworms, but the dewormers only get rid of adult worms and do not affect unhatched eggs. Therefore, you must apply multiple deworming treatments to ensure all the eggs have hatched and are eliminated. For our personal puffers, we treat them with the quarantine medication trio and then wait two weeks. Next we follow up with a 5-day treatment of Fritz ParaCleanse (using the instructions on the box) and then wait a month. Afterwards, w...
How do you humanely kill a pest snail?Feed your extra snails to snail-eating fish (like puffers and loaches), give them to other hobbyists who own snail eaters, or crush them for a quick death. For more information, read our full article on how to get rid of aquarium pest snails.
5 Amazing Wild Betta Species that You Should Try BreedingEveryone has heard of Betta splendens, the colorful, flowy-finned betta fish you see in pet stores. But did you know there are several other species in the Betta genus that can be kept in home aquariums? As with B. splendens, most of them come from the vegetation-filled swamps and marshes of tropical countries in Southeast Asia. Because of the low oxygen levels in stagnant waters, these anabantoids have a special labyrinth organ that allows them to swim up to the water surface to gulp air. Th...
Care Guide for Mystery Snails — Entertaining and Useful ScavengerMany aquarium hobbyists don’t like pest snails like bladder, ramshorn, and Malaysian trumpet snails because they can rapidly increase in population even if you only start with one. In contrast, mystery snails (Pomacea diffusa and P. bridgesii) are really cool, little pets that you can buy at your local pet or fish store for only $3–4. They cannot self-fertilize or change their sex, which makes it much easier to control their breeding, and unlike their larger apple snail relatives, they won’t ...
Top 12 Tank Mates to Keep With Cherry ShrimpCherry shrimp (Neocaridina davidi) are exceptionally popular in the freshwater aquarium hobby because of their dazzling array of colors, but unfortunately, their petite size makes them irresistibly delicious to other fish. If your goal is to breed as many shrimp as possible, your best course of action is to keep a species-only tank with no other types of animals living in it. However, if you primarily want to keep adult cherry shrimp as pets with a few surviving offspring, then keep reading t...
Top 10 Pufferfish You Can Keep in Freshwater and Brackish Aquariums
Out of all the oddball fish, we’ve always had a fascination with puffer fish because of their highly intelligent nature, helicopter-like maneuverability, and large, inquisitive eyes. Plus, they have unique defense mechanisms, such as inflating like a living water balloon and carrying the tetrodotoxin poison that discourages would-be predators. (Note to self: do not try to eat a pet puffer.) Most pufferfish are semi-aggressive to aggressive carnivores with ever-growing teeth like a beaver, so ...
Care Guide for Pea Puffers – The Smallest Pufferfish in the World
Pea puffers are one of the coolest oddball species you can keep in a smaller-sized aquarium. They’re known for their helicopter-like maneuverability, independently moving eyes, and of course, ability to inflate like a tiny water balloon. In this practical care guide, we answer your most frequently asked questions about these amazing, little creatures. What Is a Pea Puffer? Carinotetraodon travancoricus – also known as the pea puffer, Indian dwarf puffer, Malabar puffer, and pygmy puffer – is ...
How to Set Up (and Maintain) a Brackish Aquarium
If you have been keeping freshwater aquariums for a while, you may feel like you’ve already tried everything in the hobby, such as nano tanks, aquascaping, African cichlids, and ponds. Consider setting up your first brackish fish tank that will allow you to try an entirely new category of animals. Many aquarists get a little nervous about making brackish water, but in our opinion, it is quite easy for anyone who has kept freshwater tanks before. Learn what it takes to create and maintain your...
Care Guide for Amazon Puffers – Freshwater Puffer for Community Tanks
Puffers are fascinating fish in the aquarium hobby because of their unusual, globelike shape and intelligent personalities, but many species grow incredibly large, require brackish water, or are too aggressive to be kept with other tankmates. Fortunately, the Amazon puffer is one of the few freshwater “community puffers” that only grows to 3 inches (7.6 cm) long and can live with other fish. Find out how to care for this amazing oddball and see if it’s the right pufferfish for you. What is th...
Tetraodon MBU - The Under Water Giant Puppy
The Tetraodon MBU puffer is the largest freshwater species of puffer fish. Getting 22+ inches in a home aquarium. With the fish getting so big, most aquarists struggle to keep one healthy. While my largest one has only gotten to 22 inches, I suspect they’ll grow to as large as 30 inches depending on how they are raised throughout their extended lives. The first question is always what size of an aquarium? Some say 300 gallons, some say 1000 gallons etc. The reality is the foot print is much m...
Meet the Rosy Barb: Your Aquarium's Beautiful Algae-Eating Superstar!
This week at the Aquarium Co-Op retail store in Edmonds, we received some special new fish! We received the beautiful Rosy Barb, a Flagtail Prochilodus, Golden Dojo Loaches, and Amazon Puffers! This week I would like to highlight some awesome plants! We brought in Java Fern, Micro Sword, Bacopa Caroliniana, and Crypt. Wendtii Red. For this week's tank tip I wanted to share a video highlighting Cory's best tips for preventing algae in your aquarium!
How to Feed Frozen Fish Food to Your Aquarium
Feeding only fish flakes or wafers to your aquarium fish is like the human equivalent of only eating protein bars every day. Yes, they contain a well-balanced mixture of nutritious ingredients, but wouldn’t it be nice to treat your fish to a sumptuous roast chicken dinner every once in a while? Then you should try frozen fish foods. This premium-grade fish food is packed with high-quality proteins, healthy fatty acids, and gut-loaded vitamins. After live foods, frozen foods are the next close...
5 Easy Ways to Get Rid of Aquarium Pest Snails
Bladder, ramshorn, and Malaysian trumpet snails are often called pest snails in the aquarium hobby because they reproduce very quickly and are difficult to remove once introduced to a fish tank. They can enter your fish tank by hitchhiking on live aquatic plants or even at the bottom of a fish bag from the pet store. Are pest snails bad for my fish tank? Despite having the nickname of “pest snails,” they are actually quite useful in aquariums and are a natural part of the aquatic ecosystem. T...
Huge Anubias Plants this Week at Aquarium Co-Op!
This week the retail store got in some great fish orders including some new Assorted Discus, Sterbai Cories, Red Head Tapajos, Schoutedeni Pufferfish, Dwarf Petricola Catfish, and Apisto. Borelli 'Opal'. We also got in some jumbo-sized Anubias Hastifolia as well as some lush Java Moss Mats and colorful Anubias Coffeefolia! These plants are easy to care for and appreciate liquid fertilizer. All three species as well as other mosses and rhizome plants ...
New Deliveries at Aquarium Co-Op! 🆕
This week at Aquarium Co-Op's retail store we got in some beautiful Small Assorted Discus, Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish, Magenta/Purple Mystery Snails, and Pea Puffers! As far as plants this week, the Pogo. Octopus and Dwarf Sagittaria that we have in our Easy Planters are looking especially full and nice! Also, our Dwarf Aquarium Lilies are looking lush and happy as well with multiple shoots per bulb. For this week's Tank Tip I wanted to talk about the importance of quarantining fis...
5 Amazing Wild Betta Species that You Should Try Breeding
Everyone has heard of Betta splendens, the colorful, flowy-finned betta fish you see in pet stores. But did you know there are several other species in the Betta genus that can be kept in home aquariums? As with B. splendens, most of them come from the vegetation-filled swamps and marshes of tropical countries in Southeast Asia. Because of the low oxygen levels in stagnant waters, these anabantoids have a special labyrinth organ that allows them to swim up to the water surface to gulp air. Th...
Care Guide for Mystery Snails — Entertaining and Useful Scavenger
Many aquarium hobbyists don’t like pest snails like bladder, ramshorn, and Malaysian trumpet snails because they can rapidly increase in population even if you only start with one. In contrast, mystery snails (Pomacea diffusa and P. bridgesii) are really cool, little pets that you can buy at your local pet or fish store for only $3–4. They cannot self-fertilize or change their sex, which makes it much easier to control their breeding, and unlike their larger apple snail relatives, they won’t ...
Top 12 Tank Mates to Keep With Cherry Shrimp
Cherry shrimp (Neocaridina davidi) are exceptionally popular in the freshwater aquarium hobby because of their dazzling array of colors, but unfortunately, their petite size makes them irresistibly delicious to other fish. If your goal is to breed as many shrimp as possible, your best course of action is to keep a species-only tank with no other types of animals living in it. However, if you primarily want to keep adult cherry shrimp as pets with a few surviving offspring, then keep reading t...
