Do You Ever Look Back...

[Erisna]

and think, "My goodness, my poor fish!"

Ever since I joined this forum, I've been thinking about our old fishtanks a lot. My family had a fishtank from the time I was 3 until I was maybe 12. It was a 20 gallon tall aquarium, with the stock filter and lighting (as far as I remember, I was just a kid) and an assortment of poor, unlucky fish who happened to be hardy enough to survive our inexperience and lack of education.

As best as I remember, this is what our stocking was for some time...

3x Neon Tetra
2x Zebra Danio
1x Tiger Barb
2x Jewel Cichlids (I think they were a mated pair?)
1x Striped Raphael Catfish

... Yeah. Lots of poor lonely schooling fish. The catfish was a tough little thing though- he lived for about 7 years, including a period where we completely lost interest in the tank for several months and ignored it without even feeding regularly. Once he got stuck in a small fake log ornament we had in there and my dad had to pry the poor fellow out! I think he was probably stunted, since I don't remember him being more than 3-ish inches long.

Also, we were clueless about maintentance... Water was partially changed MAYBE once every two weeks. Lights were left on 24/7. The poor catfish only ate leftovers, we never fed him anything special. He also had to live on gravel and probably tore his barbels all to pieces. Cycling? What's that? Oh, just chuck a tiger barb or two into the aquarium and leave him for a few weeks before adding the other fish... And that's exactly what happened.

May all those poor fish swim happily in some fishy heaven...

Sorry, I'm rambling now, but I was just thinking of how much I've learned in such a short time and was wondering if any of you had similar stories to mine.

 

[hensonc4098]

My dad still doesn't do water changes And then the once in a blue moon that he does, he wonders why his cories spawn... lol

 

[BlueDragon]

Oh, yeah. I do. If you want me to be honest then I was in tears more than once when I had to do my re-cyle with my poor Fish in there 'cause it reminded me of how badly I'd looking after my Goldfish as a kid. They were loved Fish, but I really didn't have a clue. A tiny ten gallon tank with two Shubunkins, a Fantail, a Black Moor and a Weather Loach in there, no filter, no light and in the end no Fish : (
When I had to re-cycle my new tank (if it was fully cycled to begine with which I'll never know) I was reminded of this and I was upset 'cause I thought it was all going to just end up the same. That I'd messed it all up again. I got back into Fishkeeping 'cause I wanted to try again and make things right, to have some happy and healthy Fish. And it just seemed like it was never going to happen.

But although I did loose a few of my Fish I now have a very happy and healthy main tank with happy and healthy Fish and some newly introduced Fry! And of course I have a smaller tank full of lively babies : 3 They're all doing really well, very colourful and lively. So although it was years in the making I think I'm starting to get there now : )

 

[fluttermoth]

Not really no!

Apart from the black moor I got when I was three (and I can hardly blame myself for that!) I think I've always kept my fish properly.



Mind you, part of the reason for that was that, for various reasons, I wasn't allowed to have any fish until a good ten years after I wanted them! Did a lot of reading in that time

 

[Dieses Madchen]

When I was in high school, I wanted a fish tank in my bedroom, so I bought a 10g tank with my own money and I had this thing for Tiger Barbs. No cycle, no dechlor, and no access to internet, and never thought to read a book. Needless to say, my fishkeeping lasted about 2 weeks, and then I gave the tank to my sister for a turtle.

Thank you TFF for making me the successful keeper I am today!

 

[crazyforcordoras]

My first tank(that i completely owned) was a 10 gallon tank. The stock, before i got more experianed and made it a biotope, was

1 Auratus Cichlid
1 Convict cichlid
1 Rainbow Shark
1 Peppered cory(believe it or not, the cory survived to be in my biotope)

 

[Tizer]

only recently when i put 60 neons into my tank. i didnt expect my firemouths to chow down on them all. Oh well

 

[crazyforcordoras]

your firemouths ate SIXTY neons!? Wow!

 

[Tizer]

took em a few weeks i was down to 15 before i noticed, lol

 

[minnnt]

Love the fact you didn't notice before 45 were missing.

Muppet.

 

[Geordiehc]

My grandmother had a tank when i was young that i used to help her with

Aprox 100 litres
1 Male Betta
2 Female Bettas
aprox 10 Neon Tetras
2x angels
aprox 20 guppies as well as a second 100 litre tank full of them breeding
6 tiger barbs
4 mollys
1 pleco

Alot of fish but she did regular maintenance, like washing the filter every month in the washing machine! rofl

Luckily ive learned so much for my own projects in fish keeping from this forum, but even still after realising how bad things were its suprising how successful it was

 

[MBOU]

My first ever fish purchase was an impulse buy...

Yes... you could say impulse buys are generally a bad idea.. but it can hardly be worse (shy of tank busters of course) when your impulse buy is two young discus

And worse still... I didnt even have a tank

My housemate hada tank and we both worked in an aquatics shop though i had just started. She had a Roma 125 with a few rainbows and cories in. Running on RO water... so *thankfully* I got away with it... but we travelled hours and hours to a shop i wasnt likely to get a chance to go to again and I had the chance to get a gorgeous pigeon blood and blue turq discus for £15 each (3"). Couldnt say no and i spent about 2 hours staring at them and we left and sat in the car twice before i gave up and went back and got them....

Not long later we fell out and I moved in with my now Ex and the poor discus got brought with me, I really should have left them. They ended up moving tanks 5 times (trying to set up tanks properly) And we were all stressed but along with it, i had never wormed them and by the time i did, clearing out the worms did more damage and worms had knackered their insides and they died.

If i hadnt stressed them so much, they wouldnt have died... simple as.

I regret an awful lot of choices... a lot of them werent a choice.. its more i regret backing down and letting my ex buy the fish he did. We never had space for numerous stingrays as adults so I dont know what he was thinking and in the end... it always went wrong when he got his way and i got the blame for it

 

[LucyB]

We've all been there...

70 litre with 2 silver sharks, 5 firemouth cichlids, 4 sucking loaches, and an unknown number of platies and red tetras that I can't remember the name of.

Don't think too badly of me - I had to have them because our bigger tank was leaking badly. I can't remember how large it was but it was HUGE! The silver sharks looked tiny in it...


Surprisingly enough I had 2 breeding pairs of Firemouths and they spawned for me several times. I raised the fry successfully and gave them to my LFS for store credit.

 

[JohnDyer]

Had a 10 gallon tank, put all sorts of fish in it. It must have had more than 50 (temporary) residents, but the only ones who lived were a Rainbow Shark, a Buenos Aires Tetra, a CAE, a cherry barb, and some cold water fish I caught in a creek. Man, those guys were tough, although they are all dead or rehomed now, each one survived 5+ years in a too-small, almost bare, lightless tank with feedings just under once a week.

 

[dougie]

Me aged 14: "so these will be ok in my community tank, with Two Angels, Harlequin Tetras & a few golden barbs?"

Rubbish LFS: "oh yes, no problems"

In less than a month, no community (all dead), but two happy Convicts & a load of fry....,

Poor fish, poor advice