Popular Fresh Water Aquarium Fish?

We have been looking for koi fish for these few days. As koi one of freshwater ornamental fish, let see what other options we have in the same group of this class. As you know most of the freshwater fishes are small, with shorter lifespan that also make their prices cheaper. Anyway some of them are really beautiful and have fairly long life that will be sell at so expensive price (up to million dollars). Freshwater fish are easy to take care of compare to the saltwater fish, so here we will see some of them.

10. Neon Tetra

Neon Tetra is really GMO product anyway still nice to see it in your aquarium as it can glow under UV light. Produced in order to help scientist to detect water pollution, but something not working according to plans so, it was turned into aquarium fish instead. It will add something beautiful to your aquarium but we still not sure the impact of this fish if we put it back into the wild – so keep this fish safely in your tank.

9. Sword Tails

Sword tails is another simple fish to keep same as Tetra but still nice to see as they will swim together in the small group in your tank. They are few colour variations from sword tails too, so the right colour choice will add extra vibrant into your aquarium. As sword tails are easy to keep, it is suitable even for young beginner to start their new hobby.

8. Fire Mouth Cichlid

Fire Mouth Cichlid is another easy fish for new beginner especially when they prefer a bit bigger colourful fish. With its bright red colouration on their underneath of its body. They might be more aggressive during the breading season. So it’s either you can keep it alone or provide proper protection areas (hiding place) so they can lay their eggs peacefully.

7. Goldfish

Goldfish one of the most popular fish to start with as it is easy to keep. Anyway there are still few simple rules to follow. Gold fish have beautiful colours and swim slowly in the water. Suitable for kids to start learning how to keep fish in the aquarium. With good care, gold fish can live much longer in the aquarium.

6. Gourami

Aquarium gourami is different than the wild types gourami. Just like any other aquarium type fishes, they are specially breed to produce wonderful colours to look more attractive. Gourami’s body is thinner but broader from the side. Gourami can achieve a bigger size and live much longer than goldfish. Gourami can be keep in small group and they have slower motion (and sometimes not move) - it will give you more time to see their details.

5. Discus

Another beautiful freshwater fish from Amazon River. They are wide range of colours from red, yellow, green, blue, oranges, brown, and cream with different shades. They also have different types of marking make it more attractive. With all the qualities, discus become great choice if you’re looking for colourful freshwater fish. Discus is considered expensive for beginner. So make sure you have some knowledge before start to invest on this fish.

4. Angelfish

They are many types of freshwater angelfish with many colours of them. The reason to make them special than any other freshwater fish is their shape. Angle fish has triangular shapes while they also come with various colours and marking. They are many types’ of triangular freshwater fish, but usually we still refer them as one group – Angelfish. Same as other types of fish has been breed to produce more colourful species for ornamental purposes.

3. Flowerhorn Cichlid

Flowerhorn Cichlid is another cichlid family produced from various crossbreeding of cichlid family. The most significant for this type of fish is the protruding head and the spots on their body. While they also have various colours, but the markings are considered more important. Most popular colour is red. While the most expensive Flowerhorn ever was sold for 600 thousand dollars during Malaysia exhibition in 2009.

2. Arowana

One of the most expensive freshwater fish other than koi. The different is, arowana is harder to keep and it’s rarely keep in open pond. Arowana known for its beautiful larger scales even though it will only have one or few dominant colours. They are some extant species from South America, one from Africa, several from Asia, and two from Australia. Larger scales make them resemble the Chinese Dragon another reason that make it so popular among Chinese keeper. Arowana requires larger space, and rarely keep in large number in one tank.

1. Koi

Koi is more colourful and beautiful to keep in open pond. Not like Arowana you can keep few koi in the same pond. Even though the price of koi can be expensive, most of them are at fair price when small and will be kept until they achieve bigger size. They are so many colours of koi with different types of scales, produces by koi breeders in order to get new types of koi. Koi are suitable in open pond as they are colourful when they swim together in small group.

Well, the more you learn the more you know about colourful species of freshwater fish - that you can get the same result with saltwater fish, where the care will be more complicated. With proper planning and understand what you want to achieve from your hobby will help you to know which fishes are suitable with you. Anyway, you need to start with something simple to develop the knowledge and some experiences before you get more serious with expensive fishes.

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Types of Koi Pond - Which One Is The Best?

Beautiful koi pond promote healthy fish and beautiful landscape.

Koi is one of the most popular pond fish. To make it even better, suitable ponds are needed to ensure not only the fish to be healthy but also to make it more enjoyable to see. The fish healthy should come first though the other aspects should come next. With proper planning, we can get beautiful fish with beautiful views of the koi pond landscape. So let see what are the possibilities that we can get through this wonderful hobby?

To build successful koi pond we need to understand to whole process of the koi cares so it will works for long term use. Koi lifespan can be considered as long for ornamental fish. It’s important to make sure that your pond design can accommodate all the needs for koi. Proper planning will make sure you safe lots of money and to avoid your lovely koi from diseases and other problems. Perhaps your pond can also encourage your koi to produce younglings. If you decide to have koi pond, you are also decided to learn many things related to koi cares – and it will be lifelong learning!

Successful pond requires proper planning.

Design

Technologies encourage more sophisticated designs for koi pond to be possible. New technologies not always means expensive and most of them can safe more money for long term use as they are more effective. When thinking about design, take advantage of the new technologies available so you can get the best designs that work as long as it can.

Koi pond’s design focusing not only to take make sure the fish can live healthily but also to blend in with its surrounding, for most situations your garden or some part of your home – that will be important. Proper planning will avoid future alterations and add more values to your home.

Ready pond also might work in some cases. Especially when you have future plan to build bigger pond. As the price of koi can be too expensive, you might want to start with smaller koi where the price is cheaper. So, there’s nothing wrong to start small, but to understand your needs.

The bigger pond the better - with proper care.

Size

Pond size is important for koi to be comfortably live and growing up. The volume of water per fish is the important factor in order to understand about the size of your pond. You also might need a deeper pond in case to allow your fish to grow up to supersize!

It is important to understand the size of your pond and the volume of water inside it in order to manage it properly. The filtration system requires you to decide how much water to filter per hour same as when you are applying chemicals to clean up or to cure diseases in your pond in the future.

The suitable size for koi will start at 23 to 25 feet long by 12 to 13 feet wide and 3 to 4 feet deep. Well that’s for the start. Anyway as we mention before, if you start with smaller koi, then you can use temporary pond with smaller size.

Important aspect such as filtration system need to be built at the early stage.

The Flow of Water

The consistent flow of water will give lots of benefits to your fish, to your pond and also to you as it produce wonderful sound of flowing water. Most of the time this feature come together with filtration system. By designing this feature in the form of waterfall or water fountain, will contribute to aeration for your pond – another important feature for healthy fish.

Waterfall feature increase aeration.

Filtration

Filtration system is crucial for koi pond as koi is sensitive to water quality. Good filtration not only to keep your fish healthy but it also will make your pond look more pleasant and need less cleaning work. Its’ better to leave it to the expert to do it, however the understanding how its work is also important. In some cases, the design can also contribute to the suitable filtration system. That’s how the whole system works – everything are link between one to another.

Well that’s too much on the design instead of the types of the pond. So, in order for us to make the right decision we need to know the important aspects of the design to understand our needs. By understanding the key features on the design – you can get more information about it from this link; we can easily identifies the right types of pond that we requires.

Open pond is more beautiful but hard to take care.

Open Pond:

Open pond is the most beautiful and usually large in size. You can get the best result as long as the quality of water can be maintain at its best. Anyway, this requires the best filtration system as sunlight and heat can caused the water to turn green. Make sure there are plenty of trees or shades to avoid the blooming of algae

Earth pond is more natural.

Earth Pond:

Earth pond is more natural anyway not suitable for ornamental koi as koi will increase the turbidity of water – they keep on stirring the substrate from the floor of the pond. Anyway, you can have earth pond for breeding purposes or just to keep koi as nursery pond. The turbidity can be minimize if the bed of the pond is made of sands and stones.

Now you can see your fish swimming in the water.

Hi-rise Pond:

Hi-rise pond can give extra benefits for the filtration system and also to add glass panel to allow you to watch your fish like in aquarium instead of just watching it from above. The bottom drain can easily be built with this type of pond as you don’t have to dig too deep for it, not to mention for future maintenance.

Stylish, but not for the fish!

Small Steep Pond:

Small steep pond as built next to building and with steeping stones crossing it is beautiful for ornament but not for the fish. Koi requires bigger space and deeper water to swim freely to allow them to grow. If you are planning to have healthy koi, then you might need a second pond instead of this type of pond – well it still useful for the younglings though.

Plastic Tank:

Maybe it’s not really a pond, but for temporary purposes – when you building their permanent pond, or during the maintenance and to transfer the fish, plastic tanks will be best alternative. Keep in mind there always be emergency cases where you need to put your fish into temporary place: so, plastic tank can be the best solution.

Proper planning will give you the best result.

Well, that’s the summary of the koi ponds. There are limitless of pond designs and it’s all depend on your own goals for your lovely koi. This is not the type of fish that you can take for granted for their cares, especially when your fish getting bigger in size. Keeping koi requires lots of patience, knowledge and proper planning – but you might end up with the next most expensive fish!

How Koi Become So Expensive?

Colourful Koi in the pond.

Koi one of the most expensive fish in the world. Maybe not all of us aware about it, however the most expensive koi ever sold worth 2.2 million dollars in today’s money! Keeping koi is not an easy job, while breeding koi will be twice as hard. If you ever wonder, how this fish become so expensive?

Like many other expensive pets, koi with high values are not originally from the wild species. They actually specially breed for certain qualities to meet few standards in koi classifications. Koi or also known as “nishikigoi”, are coloured varieties of Amur carp (Cyprinus rubrofuscus) that specifically breed for decorative purposes. Koi are distinguished by its colouration, patterns, and scales. Their beautiful colours varies from white, black, red, yellow, blue, and cream. One of the most popular koi known as Gonsake, which is the mixed of Kohaku, Taisho Sanshoku, and Showa Sanshoku varieties.

Kohaku - the most famous type of Koi.

Bekko - yellow koi with black markings.

Kinginrin - metallic colour scales types or known as "gold and silver scales". 

Koi is actually the carp species originated from Central Europe and Asia. However they had been domesticated to produced natural colour mutation for decorative purposes in China more than thousand years ago, and spread to all other part of the world. Today Koi more popular in Japan and there are koi enthusiast almost in many countries with Koi competition every year.

To produce beautiful Koi, its need to be carefully breed. In the wild Koi will quickly revert to its natural colouration within few generation. That’s why, beautiful Koi, only can be achieved through selective breeding by professional breeders. Anyway, no one can tell how the final result can be, it still depend on small probability for the breeders to get the right combination from the breeding process.

Koi farm in Niigata, Japan.

Shōwa Sanshoku (or Showa Sanke) - the black koi with red and white markings.

Some of the Koi Types.

There are few classifications to differentiate the Koi qualities such as colours, size and body shapes, and pattern. There also many varieties produced every year that widen the competition criteria.

There are many things to learn if you are interest to keep Koi as pet, especially if you have intention to compete in Koi competition. Even though carp is generally easy to keep, but it’s different for Koi. Perhaps we can see more details about this wonderful fish in the next articles.

Teknologi Penanaman Padi Di Luar Asean

Penggunaan 'drone' merupakan salah satu teknik pertanian moden yang giat dibangunkan.

Penanaman padi di kawasan negara-negara Asean merupakan tanaman penting kerana ia juga merupakan makanan utama penduduk di kawasan ini. Semenjak sekian lama ianya ditanam teknik penanaman padi tidak banyak berubah dan diusahakan secara kecil-kecilan. Tinjauan teknik penanaman padi di luar kawasan ini amat penting kerana ia dapat memberikan kita banyak pengajaran mengenai teknik penanaman yang lebih menguntungkan kepada para petani.

Penanaman berteraskan teknik yang diwarisi sejak turun-temurun bukanlah sesuatu yang tidak baik, namun bagi menambah pendapatan para petani, teknik penanaman ini perlu berubah mengikut peredaran zaman. Tanpa perubahan, hasil yang dihasilkan bukan sahaja berkurangan malah mungkin suatu masa tanaman penting ini akan mengalami kemusnahan serangan penyakit (yang sentiasa berubah sebagai tindak balas ‘survival’). Sehubungan itu, ini merupakan satu tajuk penting yang perlu dipertimbangkan secara mendalam.

Teknik penanaman padi secara moden yang diamalkan oleh negara-negara membangun amat berbeza. Oleh kerana itu artikel ini akan melihat secara ringkas beberapa perkara penting bagi kita membuat pertimbangan - kerana tidak semuanya dapat dilakukan di negara kita atas pelbagai sebab tertentu, namun begitu ia boleh dijadikan sebagai panduan dalam meningkatkan produktiviti tanaman penting kepada penduduk Asean ini. Jadi kita akan melihat beberapa proses penting dalam proses penanaman padi sebagai contoh sahaja. Antara pengusaha tanaman padi secara moden yang perlu kita contohi antaranya adalah Jepun, Australia, Amerika, negara-negara Eropah dan China yang giat membangunkan teknik penanaman padi secara moden. Walaupun bukan merupakan negara pengeluar beras utama namun teknik penanaman mereka lebih produktif.

Pengairan

Pengairan merupakan perkara paling penting sebelum memulakan proses penanaman padi yang merupakan sumber utama yang membolehkan padi ditanam dengan baik. Melalui teknologi moden, sumber air boleh diaturkan dengan lebih sempurna sesuai dengan pusingan tanaman dengan lebih kerap (bagi negara-negara Asean yang menerima hujan sepanjang tahun).

Melalui teknologi moden jumlah taburan hujan dan sumber air lebih mudah untuk diuruskan (sekiranya diberikan penekanan yang serius). Kolam-kolam takungan dan tali air lebih mudah dibina berbanding bagi para petani pada zaman dahulu. Jadi pengurusan sumber ini perlu dilakukan dengan lebih serius oleh pihak berwajib dan dimufakati bersama oleh para petani. Sistem penanaman berkumpulan yang perlu dicontohi adalah seperti yang diamalkan dalam teknik ‘Subak’ di Bali.

Penyediaan Tanah

Penggunaan jentera menjimatkan banyak masa kerja-kerja penyediaan tanah.

Mesin yang lebih kecil bagi sawah yang bersaiz kecil.

Penyediaan tanah merupakan antara proses penting dalam proses penanaman padi sama ada penanaman secara tradisional ataupun penanaman moden. Apa yang membezakan teknik penanaman moden lebih mengutamakan penggunaan jentera yang dapat menjimatkan masa. Melalui penggunaan mesin yang betul masa untuk kerja-kerja penyediaan tanah dapat dijimatkan jauh lebih pantas.

Walaupun penggunaan jentera besar lebih sesuai digunakan pada sawah padi bersaiz besar, terdapat juga jentera penyediaan tanah bagi para petani yang mempunyai sawah bersaiz kecil. Apa yang penting kerja-kerja dapat disiapkan dalam masa yang lebih singkat bagi membolehkan para petani menumpukan perhatian kepada perkara-perkara lain yang penting.

Sememangnya keadaan sawah di sekitar Asean adalah bersaiz kecil dengan bentuk muka bumi yang berbeza seperti sawah yang berada di lereng-lereng bukit. Ia bukanlah satu penghalang bagi penggunaan jentera-jentera moden kerana ianya boleh direka bersesuaian dengan penggunaan yang diperlukan. Apa yang penting, para petani perlu mengenal pasti keperluan mereka dengan jelas bagi memudahkan jentera yang sesuai direka.

Penanaman Benih Padi

Mesin mengalih anak benih padi.

Teknik yang lebih popular bagi petani di US dan Australia - menabur benih padi menggunakan kapal terbang.

Teknik penanaman secara tradisional mengambil masa yang agak lama dengan langkah-langkah penyediaan anak benih yang agak rumit. Walaupun ianya bagus bagi menjamin mutu penghasilan anak-anak padi yang lebih baik, namun masa yang diluangkan untuk proses penyemaian dan mengalih anak padi adalah terlalu banyak. Proses ini boleh diperbaiki dengan pemilihan biji benih yang baik dan keluasan tanaman yang lebih besar.

Walaupun terdapat teknik penanaman moden yang masih lagi mengamalkan teknik tapak semaian dan mengalih menggunakan jentera, namun kaedah semaian padi secara terus menggunakan kapal terbang merupakan teknik yang jauh menjimatkan masa. Melalui kaedah ini kerja-kerja penanam padi dapat dilakukan dalam masa yang jauh lebih singkat untuk keluasan sawah yang jauh lebih besar. Selain daripada penggunaan kapal terbang terdapat juga kaedah yang menggunakan mesin semburan benih padi selain menggunakan ‘drone’ yang lebih kecil berbanding pesawat.

Pembajaan

Pembajaan merupakan antara faktor penting bagi memastikan anak-anak benih padi dapat membesar dengan subur. Penggunaan baja secara organik ataupun menggunakan baja kimia perlu dilakukan dengan betul bagi mengelakkan pembaziran.

Terdapat juga para petani yang melepaskan haiwan ternakan seperti itik ke dalam sawah seperti di Thailand. Itik-itik ini bukan sahaja memakan serangga perosak di sawah, malah najisnya juga akan menjadi baja kepada anak-anak padi yang sedang membesar. Selain itik, pembelaan ikan juga boleh dilakukan di dalam sawah yang masih mengandungi air semasa proses pembesaran anak-anak padi.

Namun begitu penggunaan baja yang tidak dikawal boleh mengakibatkan kesan negatif kepada alam sekitar. Maka dengan itu, para petani perlu lebih aktif dalam mempelajari teknik-teknik mengkaji keperluan tanah dan pembajaan dengan tepat. Bagi memastikan hasil pengeluaran yang berterusan tanggungjawab ini perlu dilakukan bersama-sama kerana keseimbangan alam amat penting kepada para petani.

Penjagaan Makhluk Perosak/Penyakit

Penjagaan makhluk perosak lebih berkait rapat dengan teknik penanaman padi secara moden. Penanaman secara bermusim seperti yang dilakukan di Bali juga merupakan antara kaedah yang dapat mengurangkan masalah gangguan makhluk perosak. Namun begitu kawalan perlu dilakukan secara teliti untuk mengawal penyakit-penyakit lain tanaman padi.

Penyemburan racun serangga menggunakan kapal terbang dan ‘drone’ merupakan kaedah yang lebih sesuai bagi menjimatkan masa. Walaupun penggunaan ‘drone’, masih lagi baru, ia menunjukkan potensi yang lebih baik kerana ia diselenggarakan secara automatik. Teknologi ini mungkin akan lebih baik untuk masa-masa akan datang. Penggunaan ‘drone’ untuk tujuan ini semakin giat digunakan oleh China dalam membangunkan teknologi penanaman padi secara moden. Malah China turut membawa teknologi ini ke negara-negara lain yang berminat.

Penuaian

Mesin penuaian padi yang bersaiz besar.

Mesin penuaian bersaiz kecil.

Beras basmati yang dihasilkan dari California, US.

Teknik penuaian menggunakan mesin juga adalah jauh lebih baik dan pantas. Walaupun teknik penuaian biasa dapat mengurangkan pembaziran padi. Namun bagi tujuan komersial, penuaian dapat dilakukan dengan jauh lebih pantas. Ini kerana proses penuaian secara tradisional merupakan antara proses paling rumit sedangkan proses ini perlu dilakukan dengan pantas bagi mengelakkan kerosakan pada buah padi yang telah masak.

Terdapat pelbagai saiz jentera penuaian mengikut keluasan ladang yang sesuai. Penggunaan mesin yang sesuai adalah penting bagi memastikan ia dapat digunakan dengan berkesan. Melalui penggunaan mesin padi yang dituai terus dileraikan dan siap untuk dihantar ke kilang pemprosesan yang dapat mengurangkan lagi proses-proses kerja seperti mana yang dilakukan dalam proses penuaian tradisional.

Penyimpanan dan Proses Pengilangan Padi

Proses akhir dalam penghasilan beras adalah penyimpanan hasil tuaian padi sebelum beras boleh dijual kepada pengguna. Proses ini dapat memastikan beras yang dihasilkan tahan lebih lama dan tidak rosak. Walaupun ia nampak mudah, namun ia amat penting dalam menjamin kualiti beras yang baik.

Bagi memastikan penanaman padi di negara-negara Asean terus kompetitif dan meningkatkan taraf hidup para petani langkah-langkah yang  sesuai perlu diambil. Para petani sendiri perlulah berani mencuba kaedah-kaedah baru yang sebelum ini belum pernah dicuba. Sememangnya terdapat perbezaan ketara antara penanaman padi yang ditanam secara moden di negara-negara maju, namun begitu sesuai sebagai tanaman penting di negara-negara Asean, tanaman padi perlu dibangunkan semula memandangkan kepentingannya kepada penduduk di kawasan ini.

Penanaman padi moden mengutamakan penjimatan tenaga para petani dan menumpukan kepada proses pengurusan tanaman yang jauh lebih penting. Memandangkan keadaan yang sentiasa berubah dan persaingan yang sentiasa meningkat, maka urusan perancangan dan pentadbiran tanaman adalah jauh lebih penting. Bagi kebanyakan negara-negara di Asean urusan kaedah penanaman ini biasanya adalah di bawah nasihat jabatan-jabatan kerajaan yang perlu lebih aktif dan peka kepada hasil pengeluaran para petani. Maka dengan itu jabatan ini perlu secara aktif membantu meningkatkan kualiti pendapatan para petani sesuai dengan pembangunan semasa.

** Ikuti siri Rice Farming TV di YouTube untuk mempelajari lebih banyak teknik penghasilan beras dari California US;

~ Penghasilan beras dari Australia;