Is your Flowerhorn suffering from any disease or dying in a lesser time? You might be seeking information regarding this. We have a solution to this. How can you increase the lifespan of your flowerhorn to keep it with you for a longer duration?
The lifespan of Flowerhorn cichlids is known to be about 10 to 12 years. Flowerhorns need a minimum tank size of 55 gallons. A tank that has a capacity of 125 gallons will be better for this fish. You need to focus on water parameters and water temperatures to prevent your fish from diseases. The lifespan of your fish depends on feeding and filtration as well.
Flowerhorns are known for their temper, unusual appearance, and vivid colors. They are mostly famous for their distinctively shaped hump on their heads. These fish are named Flowerhorn because of their heads. These fish become large and require quite a large space.
In this article, you will learn about the life expectancy of your flowerhorn. Along with that, you will learn things that will prolong your Flowerhorn’s life.
The Lifespan of Flowerhorn Cichlids
Flowerhorn cichlids have a lifetime of 10 to 12 years. Flowerhorns usually need a temperature of 80–85 °F and a water pH of 7.4-8.0.
A tank size of 125 gallons will be enough for an ideal flowerhorn. However, for breeding a pair of flowerhorns, you will need a tank size of 150 gallons. However, this isn’t a guarantee.
To increase the lifespan of your Flowerhorn you need to provide it with the optimal environment and living conditions. For starters, you want to make sure your water is right. Never put a flowerhorn in an aquarium that is not cycled.
Not exercising patience when it comes to cycling your aquarium can result in the death of your flowerhorn.
Wait for your tank to cycle properly before adding a flowerhorn to your aquarium. After cycling the water, you need to make sure that the temperature is conducive to the longevity of your flowerhorn.
For increasing the lifespan of your fish you have to follow the forces explained below.
Size Of Tank
Flowerhorn usually requires a tank size of a minimum of 55 gallons. An ideal flowerhorn requires 125 gallons. If you plan to keep a pair, they will need a tank size of 150 gallons.
The reason why your flowerhorn cichlids need a larger space is for comfort as flowerhorns like to roam around. Giving them enough space will let them turn around in comfort.
The size of the tank depends on the size of your flowerhorn. If you are getting a smaller-sized tank, it will harm and affect the lifespan of your flowerhorn.
Cycling of The Water
Your flowerhorn cannot live in dirty water. For the good health of your flowerhorn, you need to cycle the water often and focus on the health of your fish.
What type of water does flowerhorn need? Find out here.
If you want your flowerhorn to be healthy, then never put your flowerhorn in dirty water. You should cycle the water and wait until the water cycling process completes.
After completing the water cycling process, you need to maintain the water temperature and quality of the tank. This will keep your flowerhorn healthy and increase its lifespan. If you want to enhance the lifespan of your fish, keep the temperature of your tank between the range of 80 – 85°F.
You must maintain this temperature if you want your flowerhorn to live longer. If you keep focusing on the ideal temperature, pH, and water quality, your flowerhorn will have a longer lifespan.
Food and Tank Environment
Maintaining the proper health of your flowerhorn is very important. You need to know that different species of fish require different diets to be healthy. Flowerhorns also need their specific diet for staying healthy. You need to focus on the quality of food you provide to your flowerhorn.
As the saying goes, “Good food choices are good investments.”, your flowerhorn will stay healthy which will benefit the longer lifespan of your fish.
You also need to focus on the aquarium environment while understanding the diet. Usually, flowerhorns are to be kept in pairs. Tank mates should be wisely chosen for your flowerhorn if you plan to do so. This will greatly affect their behavior and aggressiveness.
If you are hoping for good health for your fish, focus on the tank environment too.
Some best recommendations for this cichlid are:
- Hikari Flowerhorn Fish Food
- OKIKO flowerhorn Cichlid Fish
- Fluval A6581 Bug Bites Cichlid Pellets
- Amzey Dries Shrimp Fish Foods
- Appetizing Shrimp Mealworms
- Tetra Jumbokrill Jumbo Shrimp
- Ocean Pellets Humpy Xo Flowerhorn Food
Filtration And Water Quality
Flowerhorn fries and adult flowerhorn both need filters for maintaining their good health. Flowerhorns are very sensitive to ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites. To keep the water throughout, the large tanks need a water change frequently. It is better to not compromise while buying a good filter.
The filtration process is a necessity to provide quality water. Timely filtration of the tank water is very crucial for the good health of your flowerhorn. This directly affects the health of your fish.
Filtering the tank water is highly recommended as it offers long-lasting benefits in the lifespan of your flowerhorn. You can find various kinds of filters for your tank. Make sure you get the right one for your aquarium.
Penn Plax Aquarium Cascade Canister Filter is a good filter choice for your flowerhorn.
Clean Aquarium Tank Water
Cleaning the tank not only makes the tank look clean, but it provides your flowerhorn happiness and keeps them healthy. Over time, the nitrates, and metabolites build up and affect the health of your flowerhorn.
Changing Aquarium Water: Step By Step Guide
Hobbyists may make common mistakes that later cause negative results. Some mistakes may also result in the death of your flowerhorn. One common mistake is changing water. If you are also facing this problem as a hobbyist or a beginner, here are some tips for the water change.
Materials Needed
- Siphon Pipe
- Glass Cleaner
- Aquarium Thermometer
- Water Conditioner
Best Way To Clean The Tank
First of all, make sure to plug out the heater and close the filter. If you are using the underwater lights in your aquarium, you need to switch off that too.
The fish poop gets trapped inside the substrate and results in gas building up. And when the gas gets released into the aquarium, the level of ammonia gradually spikes up. This results in fluctuation of the water parameters that may result in the death of your fish.
Use a siphon pipe to drain the water. You can use a normal pipe but a siphon pipe is better compared to a normal pipe. It can also be used to clean the gravel and fish poop too. So whenever you clean the water, make sure to clean the gravel too.
Lights in the aquarium cause algae formation and reduce visibility. Use the glass cleaner to remove the dirt from the aquarium glasses.
Before refilling the water, check the water temperature and make sure the temperature of both the tank and the water ready to get refilled is the same. A temperature difference of 1° is fine.
You can now switch on the lights, heater, and filter after refilling the tank.
Quarantine New Fish
As fish come from different wholesalers and retailers, they are exposed to different parasites and diseases. If you need to add new tank mates to your aquarium, it is important to quarantine them before placing them among existing fish. Quarantine provides healthy aquarium space for your flowerhorn.
Adding new tank mates directly to your aquarium brings new microbial challenges and causes existing flowerhorns to suffer as well. Along with that quarantine also helps new fish to adjust to new water parameters and food.
The basics are to quarantine new fish in a separate tank, but with the same water parameters.
Basic Quarantine Tank Checklist:
- Glass tank(20 gallons)
- Heater
- Thermometer
- Basic Filter or Air-driven Filter
- PVC pipe
- No gravel
Note: These are just basic standards to quarantine new fish. More advanced ways can also be used.
Fill the quarantine tank with as much water as you can spare from the main tank. Keep the newly purchased fish in the quarantine tank with proper equipment for about 2-4 weeks. Give them a proper diet and change their water weekly. Also, provide enough hiding spaces.
After the quarantine period is finished and assuming new fish have shown no signs of illness or diseases, they can be shifted to the main tank.
Good Tankmates For Flowerhorn
Choosing the best tank mate can add life expectancy to your flowerhorn as it reduces aggressiveness and fights among them.
If you want to give your flowerhorn a mate, you can keep them as a pair with minimum tank size being considered. Tank mates of other species are also possible. Species like Oscar, Silver Arowana, Big Cichlids, Plecos, and Spotted Hoplo Catfish are some of the fish that can go as a tankmate for your flowerhorn.
Avoid keeping snails or shrimps as they can be eaten by your flowerhorn. Mostly, smaller-sized fish should be avoided as they can be easily eaten by flowerhorn. Hence, lesser aggressiveness causes lesser injuries and death possibilities.
Use Better Substrate
As glass bottoms irritate fish, the substrate gives your fish a better orientation. Moreover, the substrate is a colonizing and breeding ground for beneficial bacteria to build colonies.
The substrate with a height of about 2-2.5 inches is better for your tank as deeper layers of a substrate with finer gravel sizes can be a danger. Food particles can sink into the deeper layer and over time will produce hydrogen sulfite that is very toxic to your fish.
Gravel substrate should not be used for larger fish, as they can swallow it with the food and become impacted in the fish’s intestines. This stops the passing of any waste and creates a serious health risk to your flowerhorn.
Hence, bare bottom, large pieces of tiles, and sand substrates are better choices for Flowerhorns.
For gravel substrates:
For sand substrates:
- Carib Sea ACS05820 Super Natural Moonlight Sand for Aquarium, 5-Pound
- Carib Sea ACS05840 Super Naturals Crystal River Sand for Aquarium, 5-Pound
Provide Hiding Spots
Flowerhorns need hiding spots when they are stressed or feeling unwell. They tend to hide due to new changes in the aquarium environment. Another reason that your flowerhorn needs hiding places is due to the new fish added to the tank.
If the tank is placed near the noise sources, it will cause the flowerhorn to stress a lot. To relieve its stress and to feel safe, your flowerhorn needs a hiding spot. It is better to give them enough hiding spots to decrease their stress level, hence preventing health issues.
Natural Large Coral Driftwood for Aquarium Decor Reptile Decor, Assorted Driftwood Branch 9-14″ 2 Pcs, Fish Tank Decoration is quite the deal for the flowerhorn tank.
Flowerhorn: Health Monitoring
Don’t you want your flowerhorn to be healthy? Frequent monitoring of the health of your fish helps a lot.
You can know the condition of your flowerhorn through its activities and behavior. If you see any unusual changes in the behavior of your fish, then it might have some issues with its health.
Indeed, every kind of health issue cannot be known. But behavior and activities are the main factors to observe.
Tips: Keeping Your Flowerhorn In Good Health
Do you wish for your flowerhorn to live long? Here are some tips you can follow.
You will need to understand proper care requirements if you want a long lifespan for your flowerhorn.
Flowerhorns need large tanks because they grow up to the size of 30-40 cm. They tend to dig the bottom of the tank and eat the plant inside the tank. Keeping good quality water plants as decoration helps the flowerhorns to be happy and healthy. You can put some snags and rocks at the bottom too.
I recommend you keep a pair of flowerhorns or tank mates through partitions. This will reduce the danger of death through fighting. It is better to not keep your flowerhorn with other species due to its aggressive nature. This will probably cause stress to your flowerhorn. Simultaneously, this will cause severe injury to other fish in the tank.
Conclusion
If you succeed in giving proper care to your flowerhorn, it will surely live up to 12 years. However, there is no guarantee for this even if you give them proper care.
To increase the lifespan of your flowerhorn, you need to frequently check its health, give your fish a proper diet and give it an adjustable environment. Most importantly, do an appropriate percent of water changes and filter cleaning according to the required time.
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)
What are the biggest mistakes that the hobbyist makes while cleaning the water?
The biggest mistake is they let the fish out of the tank. If you do so, the habitat in which your fish was living gets changed due to which they suddenly get introduced to water parameter changes.
This results in adjustment difficulties for your flowerhorn. Gradually, this may result in the death of your flowerhorn.
Another mistake you might make is cleaning the filter and tank on the same day. The beneficial bacteria will get removed from the substrate. In the process of refilling the water, the bacteria also get filled during the process.
Due to this, the level of beneficial bacteria will fluctuate and spike ammonia. So, keep in mind to not clean the filter on the same day you clean your tank.
Additionally, do not change the full water in the tank which is the wrong process. Keep in mind to change only 20-40% of the water whenever you need to change the water.
What percent of water can you change?
You only need to change 20-40% of the tank water if you change it weekly. Increase the percentage up to 60-70% in case you are not able to do timely cleaning if the level of ammonia has spiked up.
Are algae good for your flowerhorn?
Including algae in the diet of your flower may give the required fiber which prevents the occurrence of bloats. Also, it is a source of oxygen and healthy for flowerhorn.
Flowerhorns may cause detrimental effects. Overfeeding causes flowerhorns to be less active and make them dull.
However, overfeeding algae to flowerhorn is not a good idea.