Wen Growth - 4 Tips

When it comes to achieving wen (head) growth on goldfish I feel as if it is some huge secret between goldfish keepers, and most of the research I have found on this topic doesn't seem to be completely true so, I am here to tell you what I find to be the biggest contributing factors to achieving wen growth on goldfish.

1. Temperature
Most people seem to have the impression that higher water temperatures help to set the stage for achieving wen growth, which could be true. Although I have found it is also the lower water temperatures which seem to yield the most changes to wen growth. Also from my research some have said their goldfish get the biggest wen growth in low temperatures around 54F, but I have found you can start getting wen growth results just from reducing your water temperature to 71F.

2. Food
From most of the research I have done a lot of people seem to feel certain foods (or brands of goldfish foods) will yield amazing wen growth results, and even goldfish companies try to promote their foods making them sound as if they are geared toward wen growth, etc. A fish with a healthy diet should thrive in general but in terms of wen growth I found it may be geared more toward the amount of food it's being fed rather than what you're feeding it. Now if you're feeding your fish a lot it's basically going to grow bigger at a more rapid rate, but this is more related to its body size and not its wen growth. I found feeding a goldfish less may allow the fishes body to not grow as fast at a more rapid rate and instead the nutrients of the food may actually go to contributing to the fishes wen growth. This may be another reason why one would see more rapid wen growth in colder temperatures as well because colder temperatures make goldfish slow down their activity level and they ultimately begin to eat less. So if you want your goldfish to have good body and wen growth, try using a quality goldfish food and finding/calculating the right amount to feed them while keeping the temperature and their activity levels in mind.

3. Genetics/Breeding
A lot of goldfish may seem to never achieve much (if any) wen growth and I find this could be more related to the fish's genetics and probably poor breeding standards to some extent. If you buy a small young colored up goldfish and it looks as if it really has no wen growth coming in currently than don't expect as your goldfish grows up that it will achieve any, because I have found more often than not it just won't really. If you want a goldfish with big wen growth, I would suggest looking for a goldfish that currently has some good wen growth coming in before you decide to raise that fish thinking that it will achieve wen growth as it grows.

4. Health
If you have a fish suffering from things like Swim Bladder Disease or some underlying issue (again certain problems could relate back to genetics/breeding), this could possibly be a reason why you aren't seeing any significant wen growth happening (although an excess amount of wen growth could actually become problematic for goldfish as well). Again, this can relate back to also providing the fish with a healthy diet. Another part of a fish's health is having a clean habitat, most serious goldfish keepers tend to do rather large water changes, either doing them daily or weekly is what seems to be the norm. If you aren't sure when to do your water changes at least test your aquarium water weekly and see what your water stats are, in doing this it can help give you the knowledge you need to keep your aquarium healthy and provide your goldfish with the best habitat for achieving things like wen growth.

Petco Online Rep Experience

I often feel like most people (or at least myself) with pet fish (or perhaps not just with fish) often question another persons aquatic,etc advice. I often find doing research and experimenting is generally the best route to take (that's why I have this blog in the first place, right?! hah). Onto my point...

I recently decided to see how Petco's Online Interactive Rep Chat was and I quickly began talking to an online Petco representative named "Abby" whom I asked "aside from appearances, what is the difference between the Aqueon Pro and the regular Aqueon aquarium heater?". The response I ultimately got from her was based on the customer reviews she had read, and so Abby's response was that the Pro series supposedly lasts longer. Seriously, that's all that she could tell me...well, that and how they currently are having a sale on the item (like duh, its Black Friday week, heh).

Overall, this Petco Chat help line was not really anymore helpful to me than what I could have learned on my own and both of these items have a lifetime warranty. So, her response really tells me that aside from looks... they are the same. Was this the response I was looking for...not really, I was desiring more since both the items according to her are basically the same since I know they both have a lifetime warranty, and yet the Pro costs more, and... for what reason? Well, we already know Abby can't really help us so... that's where I come in.

Actually, I already knew the answer as to what the difference was between the two heaters (or at least one) from my own personal knowledge. The difference is that the Pro heater is fully submersible underwater which allows it to be added anywhere inside the aquarium and positioned in any direction; the regular heater can only be positioned vertically as the top part of the device is marked showing a waterline, this waterline means that you are not suppose to fully submerse this heater underwater. Although they both say on the label they are "submersible" this does not mean they are fully submersible however, you may not realize this until you open the package and read the directions/warnings inside. Although, one way to know if it is or not is to look at the device itself and if it shows a marked waterline on it, then it's more than likely NOT fully submersible.

So, based on this Petco experience, I really doubt I'll be asking them for advice online anytime soon. Of course if they start getting more knowledgeable people working for them I might ask for advice, but even then I'll probably still be a bit skeptic.

*Aside from other things on Petco I came across their fish forum online and I could not agree more with THIS article on fish rights which, I think all us fish fanatics and lovers can agree with, thanks TacoLuv for posting.

Creating Depth in an AquaScape - Simple Tips

When it comes to picking an aquarium background to go with your substrate here's what I recommend.

If you choose a dark background like black, you'll generally want your substrate to be light in color in order to create a sense of depth in your aquarium.

So that also means, if you have a light colored background or perhaps no background with natural light coming through you'll probably want to go with a darker substrate such as black.

For those of you that perhaps have a dark background and dark substrate you'll want to add in tank decor that's light in color, like a lot of lush green plants for instance.

So if you perhaps have a light background and substrate you'll want your decor to be darker/deeper in color.

Black is great for making decor/plants appear fuller than they are by creating a shadowing affect under decor/plants. That being said if you have a light colored substrate and want to add depth you could always use dark colored stones around the areas you want to add more depth to. Or if you have dark substate use light colored stones/pebbles/etc in the areas you want to highlight.