How to Avoid Unwanted Fish Breeding in Your Tank Youve got your aquarium beautifully balanced to be a healthy environment for the fish youve carefully selected, but you check the tank one day and you notice a number of tiny fry (baby fish) swimming happily around. This will upset that delicate tank balance, disrupt your carefully planned aquatic art and make more work for feeding, cleaning and maintenance. But what can you do to prevent unwanted breeding? The Problems With Excess Fish It may seem like the more the merrier ought to be the motto in any aquarium – after all, breeding fish must be healthy, happy and comfortable, right? Not necessarily. Many fish breed very easily and produce great numbers of offspring, simply because very few will survive to adulthood. The more fish in your tank, the more you will need to feed them, the more feces they will produce and the harder your filtration system will have to work. Smaller tanks can quickly become overpopulated, and a crowded tank will more easily host diseases that can kill every fish you have. Algae growth may increase as there is more organic material in the water from excess fish, and it can be difficult to reestablish a good chemical balance if your tank is overcrowded. For many aquarium hobbyists, unwanted breeding can be one of the biggest problems they face.
