Practical Fishkeeping December 2024

THIS IS THE first issue that I have personally been Editor for, and what a great issue it is. The results of the long-awaited Readers' Poll are announced with some super stores featuring in all categories. Dive into the results on pages 64-67 and plan your next shopping trip. We also have a Brazilian biotope step by step featuring some beautiful tetras, a guide to keeping and breeding vampire crabs and my friend, and previous editor, Nathan Hill, even features somewhat in Ivan Mikolji's piece on what it takes to name a fish. With so much else to read about, I will keep this short so you can get stuck into the good stuff. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed bringing it all together. Stay in…

WIN AN AQUADIP CARE PACKAGE • AQUADIP Liquid Filter Medium - 500 ml • AQUADIP Plant Food+ - 500 ml • AQUADIP Liquid Carbon - 500 ml • AQUADIP H2O Maker - 500 ml • Plus AQUADIP Aquascaping Towel Fancy being featured in the next issue of Practical Fishkeeping Magazine? Showcase your work and share your photographs with the Fishkeeping community – if you have a tank you're proud of, we want to see it. For a chance to be included, simply send us your tank photos with a little bit of information about you and your tank. This month's Star Letter will receive an Aquadip care package!* Submit yours to us via email at editorial@practicalfishkeeping.co.uk or visit our website here: practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/gallery. WINNER! TANK OF THE MONTH STAR LETTER –…

ORIGINATING FROM HUNGARY (near Transylvania) I had my fair share of vampire stories during my childhood. It was very spellbinding to hear tales about the blood sucking creatures of the night. Despite growing up, I still enjoy reading a good vampire book or watching related movies. That's why when I heard about vampire crabs, I immediately decided that I should keep them if I ever got the chance. I had to wait more than fifteen years for that opportunity, but my patience bore fruit in the end. Please read on for my vampire diaries. Who are they? It would be nice to begin this paragraph with a poetic description of some kind of a small vessel crashlanding in England during a thunderstorm and releasing a horde of tiny ten-legged vampires…

STEP-BY-STEP Brazilian biotope PERHAPS ONE OF the greatest joys of this hobby is surely the friends we make within it. Whether by meeting people at events, online, or while walking through aquatics stores, we find ourselves connected to others with a shared passion for fish, aquaria, and nature in general. One of my most fortuitous aquarium store visits was when I was nineteen, to my local Maidenhead Aquatics store near Cambridge. I'd been told by my mother that in the back of a garden centre was a “fish shop” and, although I was sceptical, I went on my bike to see. I'd just returned from a year living in Costa Rica and Brazil and was at that point getting back into the aquarium hobby, after a hiatus since I was…

STEP 1: The tank is cleaned and prepped, with the lights and light screen installed. STEP 2: The pieces of wood are added, cable tied to stones to ensure they don't float. STEP 3: Once all the wood is added, a deep layer of Nutribase is poured around the wood. STEP 4: A layer of aquarium sand is used to cover the Nutribase. STEP 5: The Philodendron is put into place behind the wood. STEP 6: The Epipremnum is added and secured with cable ties. STEP 7: The Helanthium is planted into the substrate using tweezers. STEP 8: The tank is filled, and botanicals are added. STEP 9: Tannin-stained water from the stewing of botanicals is added. STEP 10: The filter and heater are turned on and the tank is…

IT'S WELL-DOCUMENTED THAT fish choose to navigate through their chosen environment in a multitude of different ways. Piscine perambulators seek the respite of the substrate, with weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondose) utilising their pelvic and pectoral fins to stroll about, handfish using their pectoral fins like, well, hands, while brackish-dwelling mudskippers traverse the silty sediment by 'crutching', a movement akin to skipping. Up in the water column, the aptly named, ambush-hunting crazy fish (Butis butis) will hover in a variety of upturned positions, waiting to strike, while the upside-down catfish (Synodontis nigriventris) spends 90% of its time inverted. Many free-swimming fish employ a standard propulsion technique - a horizontal stance in a forward direction. Termed Body-Caudal Fin (BCF) swimming, their anatomical design allows them to flex their bodies and generate undulatory…