Freshwater Aquarium Fish - Discus

Multiple colours of discus in aquarium.

Symphysodon or more popular known as discus is one of the most popular aquarium freshwater fish for since long time ago. This explained why there are so many varieties of discus in the market to make sure there always new characteristic introduce into the market every year. Discus originally native to Amazon River basin is actually part of cichlids genus. Today most of the fish breed and live in the aquarium.

Not like gourami that little tougher to water condition and diseases, discus is more sensitive and considered as ‘fragile’ fish. It’s not suitable for starting your aquarium hobby – unless you already started with few other easier to keep fishes for some period of times. Anyway for some qualities this fish has, you might want to try to keep it in your aquarium at some points.

Wide varieties of colours and patterns.

Gathering in groups.

There are three main species of discus; Symphysodon aequifasciatus (blue), Symphysodon discus (red), and Symphysodon tarzoo (green). Anyway by selective breeding, aquarist successfully produced many varieties of colours for this fish. So there are many beautiful discus fish you can keep - if you like to see all of these beautiful colourations and patterns.

As any other cichlids discus has thinner body from the top, but flatter and beautifully almost round from the side. This shapes rarely found in freshwater fish, that’s another reasons why discus become so popular. Discus also has patterns on its scales. As mentioned before, they are many new patterns produce by aquarist all over the year.

Discus behaviour itself is wonderful to watch. It’s highly social behaviour and prefer to be in groups up to dozens of individuals and only separate itself from the group during the breeding season. Discus will take care their young for the first four weeks. They also will secrete a mucus for their young to feed on. For all that reasons, discus still maintain itself as popular aquarium fish for so many years.

Let see some of the varieties of discus. More details of this fish will be included in the future articles. 

Bright colours and stunning patterns.

Beautiful stripes and spotted.

Another beautiful breed of discus.

Selective breeding make this colours possible.

Freshwater Aquarium Fish - Gourami

Gouramis usually swim in group.

Another beautiful aquarium fish known as gouramis consist many types of colourful fishes. There are huge number of fishes in this family from smaller size fish to a bigger one. Gouramis are easy to keep in the aquarium as they are more tolerate to aquarium environment. The most important is they are also colourful – the important factor to make it as beautiful aquarium or ornamental fish.

Gourami has thinner body if looking from above and broader from the side. They have smaller scales (some bigger size gouramis have bigger scales such as Giant gouramis; Osphronemus goramy) and they all make beautiful ornamental fish. Even though gouramis also popular as a food source in many areas where they can be found.

Same as any other ornamental fishes, gourami also been breed to produce more varieties of colours. Here we want to see these varieties to know the possible colours you can get from gouramis.

We hope to highlight more details about gourami in the future post.

Giant gourami can achieve a very big size. 

Chocolate gourami has unique colouration. 

Dwarf gourami with blue scales.

Pearl gourami with white spots and bright orange underneath it.

Another types of gouramies with white spots on it.

Kissing gourami has brighter colour.

Typical colours of wild gourami.

Terrarium Suitable For Ornamental And Education

Terrarium best as decoration and good as educational material.

Terrarium usually made from small container (clear/glass materials) that will allow light get through it. The container can be open or closed and small opening to allow care for the plants grows inside it. Even though terrarium is very beautiful as ornamental it is also very important for education to understand more about plants growing process and behavior.

Construction of the first terrarium is produced inadvertently by botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1842. He made observations of insects and the insects left the flask unattended. As a result, spores contained in the flask grow and produce terrarium. This later became a favorite at the time (Victorian Era) among the British people. But at first it was not known as terrarium but as 'Wardian Case'.

This finding was used by Ward to send the plants from England to Australia by building a bigger 'Wardian Case'. Even after traveling for months at sea, the plants were found to be in good conditions. The same method was also used to bring plants from Australia (Sydney) to England (London). This method proves that plants can be stored in a sealed container without ventilation and are capable of living.

Terrarium more popular for decoration.

Closed terrarium provides moist environment for the plants in it.

Among the plants that are suitable for terrarium.

Even so, before you build your terrarium, there are few things that you need to pay attention. This because you need to think about a few important factors to allow the plant stored in your terrarium can produce enough cycle for itself to continue its life. In fact, several other factors should also be considered before producing the terrarium; container size, container type, species of plants, location of the terrarium, the amount of moisture, the plant material (soil, sand, stone, fiber, etc.) and the budget of the terrarium - if you planning is right, your terrarium may endure for a very long time.

Closed Terrarium

Closed terrarium suitable for indoor tropical plants like orchids, mosses, ferns and ‘air plants’ that need high moisture as in tropical forests. However for its care, it may have to be opened once a week to reduce excess moisture in the walls of the container, this also able to prevent the formation of fungus that can affect plants inside your terrarium.

Terrarium should be watered when the soil moisture is decreasing (without the formation of water vapor on terrarium’s wall). The use of plant materials (medium) also carefully sorted to reduce infections in plants. Appropriate plant material used is 'peat moss', 'vermiculite' and also 'perlite'. These materials should also be in "sterile" for killing micro-organisms that can cause infection.

Terrarium provides a very good environment for these tropical plants.

Terrarium for tropical and aquatic plants.

Open Terrarium

Open terrarium is more suitable for water-storage plants (succulents) that are not suitable for damp and closed conditions like cacti and other dried plants. Open terrarium allows excess water vapor to be removed from the terrarium. Another thing open terrarium also ideal for plants that require a lot of sunlight, where it avoids excessive heat from sunlight trapped in the container.

Open terrarium easily maintained but at risk of infection.

Terrarium with various sizes of plants in it.

Terrarium not only beautiful as a decoration/ornament, but it also allows the growth of plants to be observed more closely. Cyclical process of moisture, air and water vapor in a closed terrarium indirectly describes the process air cycle in the earth's atmosphere and the importance of plants in that process. So if you are unable to make your own terrarium, maybe you can just buy it to get all of its benefits.