I Just Don't Think Fish Keeping Is For Me

[barb-e]

It seems like looking at my fish tank and bowls is more stressful than relaxing.

So why is this you say??

1. A couple of days after I got my first fish they got ich.
2. Most of the plants I bought had to be thrown away because they were not true aquatic plants
3. My crazy cherry barb chased my boy fish around until the day he died
4. I tried out the two female betta together thing and was tramatized by seeing two fish I was very attached to fight and rip each other up
5. my boy cherry barb died the same day
6. the crazy female began to chase my other female around
7. I got 4 more cherry barbs so ms. crazy would leave the other fish alone
8. the first day I got those fish I watch my very red males chase and nip the girls all day
9. the new water wisteria I bought is dieing
10. ms. crazy still chases EVERYONE around
11. she ripped half of my other original cherry barbs tail off
12. i've spent sooo much money

What on earth is you peoples secret to the whole tranquility and peace, fish keeping is so fun thing. I really need to know.

Pppleasse share with me!!!

 

[fry_lover]

Well looking at fish in "bowls" would certainly stress most peeps for sure!!!!

fish in tanks can work, and be relaxing though.

forget bowls though LOL

 

[mommyof2bettas]

Fish tanks are relaxing, you just have to work everything out first, which can be VERY frustrating

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

Trust me, the stress your feeling right now makes success feel all the better when you get it perfect.

 

[vancouver]

Just have to research everything before you buy it and you shouldn't have problems..

Seems to me like your problems are from not doing enough research before you bought the things you bought.

 

[barb-e]

Well looking at fish in "bowls" would certainly stress most peeps for sure!!!!

fish in tanks can work, and be relaxing though.

forget bowls though LOL

My two bettas are in bowls. They were meant to be inhabitants of my tank but that didn't work out. I would ideally like to purchase 1-3 gallon tanks for each of them but that must wait until I recover the money invested in my tank and the crazy cherry barbs who are in turn driving me crazy.
But actually my bettas (in their bowls) are the most relaxing to look at. They're responsive and seem pretty happy and can be quite silly to watch.

 

[sarena_rye]

Dealing with any aggresive fish is frustrating. You'd be better of getting rid of the crazy one than buying new tankmates all the time. Ich is something we've all likely dealt with at least once. It's no fun, but is treatable in a reasonable manner and amount of time.

One key thing...the bigger the tank and the more hiding places, the less the likelihood of agressive behavior becoming a problem .

As for the water wisteria, I never had any luck with that either. My guppies actually eat it . Try dwarf sagittaria, java moss, and an amazon sword (if you have at least a twenty gallon tank). Those all do well in basic tanks and the fish tend to leave them alone .

 

[modaz]

we all have those problems at the start mate, take ms crazy out and back to the LFS. i remember you asking advice on her a while ago and it seems that she just a bad one, get rid of her mate thats your only option.

having very red males mean that they are ready for breeding but these are suppose to be non nipping fish from what i know. so god knows what happening.
they do well in 6 or more but very rare to shoal like neon tetras etc....
is your tank less than 20G?

as for your plants its extremely common for them to die back when first put in tank so dont be put of by seeing a messy tank for a while once the roots are established they should start to grow back......saying that cherry barbs do like to nibble plants.

as for the bettas well the females usually do ok together, how old were they? are your sure they wernt young males just a thought mate.

 

[barb-e]

Just have to research everything before you buy it and you shouldn't have problems..

Seems to me like your problems are from not doing enough research before you bought the things you bought.

--I research for six months before even buying the tank. I'm a research-aholic.
--I spent a month on fishless cycling
--2 weeks on plants (though the non aquatic plants were an impolse buy)
--A good three months on choosing fish
--Another 2 week choosing new fishes after being discouraged from buying zebra danios
--A week on ich, which in the end was uneffective
--And two weeks researching betta sororities and hearing both good and bad tales of two females together.

and I obviosly like listing stuff

+ I don't think I can take the nipper back because she came from Petco and i've had her for more than two weeks and she's not dead ( which are the guidelines for their fish return policy). There's a family owned petstore right down the street from there. Do you think they might take her??

 

[fry_lover]

Well looking at fish in "bowls" would certainly stress most peeps for sure!!!!

fish in tanks can work, and be relaxing though.

forget bowls though LOL

My two bettas are in bowls. They were meant to be inhabitants of my tank but that didn't work out. I would ideally like to purchase 1-3 gallon tanks for each of them but that must wait until I recover the money invested in my tank and the crazy cherry barbs who are in turn driving me crazy.
But actually my bettas (in their bowls) are the most relaxing to look at. They're responsive and seem pretty happy and can be quite silly to watch.

fair point, there does seem to be a thing about keeping bettas in these tiny tanks LOL, how comes? i never even new they made 1 gallon tanks, thats like 4.5 litres? the same size as a large bottle of water LOL, i do hope you find success though in fish-keeping, it can be stressful, thats definately true

Just have to research everything before you buy it and you shouldn't have problems..

Seems to me like your problems are from not doing enough research before you bought the things you bought.

--I research for six months before even buying the tank. I'm a research-aholic.
--I spent a month on fishless cycling
--2 weeks on plants (though the non aquatic plants were an impolse buy)
--A good three months on choosing fish
--Another 2 week choosing new fishes after being discouraged from buying zebra danios
--A week on ich, which in the end was uneffective
--And two weeks researching betta sororities and hearing both good and bad tales of two females together.

and I obviosly like listing stuff

fair play to you, and i respect the lists, i am just the same!!!

your avatar makes me laugh, i will call him "catelogue pose man" LOL, he should be in Baywatch LOL, the new David Hasselhoff

 

[modaz]

we all have those problems at the start mate, take ms crazy out and back to the LFS. i remember you asking advice on her a while ago and it seems that she just a bad one, get rid of her mate thats your only option.

having very red males mean that they are ready for breeding but these are suppose to be non nipping fish from what i know. so god knows what happening.
they do well in 6 or more but very rare to shoal like neon tetras etc....
is your tank less than 20G?

as for your plants its extremely common for them to die back when first put in tank so dont be put of by seeing a messy tank for a while once the roots are established they should start to grow back......saying that cherry barbs do like to nibble plants.

as for the bettas well the females usually do ok together, how old were they? are your sure they wernt young males just a thought mate.

ignore the last part of that response dint realize you had seperated them

 

[PlecMama]

Why no danios?

Fish keeping at the beginning can suck, I bet all our lists of what we have bought compared to what survived look pretty much all the same for the first 6 month or so.

We had loads of pretty little fish in the beginning, but then one day you notice they are all gone. Where'd'they go? who knows, probably inside bigger fish, up the filter, died in the night and the snails ate them by morning....it's hard work at first but once you get a tank established you love it.

My 6ft is beautiful, it has loads of happy healthy inhabitants that we have had for ages now. Our secret is big tanks, they develop their own eco-system and are a lot easier to care for then small ones. Go buy a really big one, then you can't be discouraged purely because of the amount of money you've invested

Upstairs I have a sand bottomed tank with 2 x snowball plecs, 2 banjo cats, 5 hatchets and 2 tiger barbs (soon to be 6 but the order didn't come in all at the same time). This isn't a tank to watch for fun, nothing much happens. The snowballs only come out in the late evening, the banjos virtually live under the sand, the hatchets are cool and the barbs only came today. But it's pretty much a quiet place. The joy is in knowing they are all in there Oh and the banjo cats "buzz" when you pick them up. How cool is that? Zzzzzzzzzz

Keep going, it's fun really. In the beginning it's all water changes and medication and disappointment when the one you really liked is floating the next morning. But it gets better.

 

[Tolak]

I think SuzieQ hit it on the head, it's a steep learning curve at first. Planning & research is excellent, but you also need some hands on experience, which only comes with time. I've killed more fish than anyone wants to know about, but each problem encountered adds to the knowledge base, and can be used in the future. Besides the personal knowledge gained, you will also build up a reference source of websites, shops, and individuals to go to for information if & when you have a problem. This will make resolving the problem that much easier.

Just to make you feel better, experienced aquarists have problems too, just on a different scale. I split a shipment of 60 discus with 3 other local aquarists 8 weeks ago. I have 3 left, another person has 1 left, the most experienced out of us has 6 left. The guy with 6 fish left is 28, and has been doing this since birth, seeing as his dad has been breeding fish for 40 years. Acclimation problems, chilled during shipping, weak fish, who knows. 10 fish left out of 60.

I was out with another breeder last night, he has decades of experience, and a huge fishroom that takes up his entire basement. He breeds zebra plecs among plenty of other things, and redid his fishroom to get into guppys. 18 zebra plec fry refused to eat after the move, died in a week. That hurts.

 

[Amunet]

Ah you know, it's actually good to hear that other newbies to fish keeping have problems as well. B/c when the problems are happening to you, you do feel so alone and frustrated and feel like giving up. Also really nice to know that everyone pretty much goes through this. What's that saying... Misery loves company? lol
Don't feel discouraged though barb-e.
I've had some bad problems in the past 2 weeks. All of the barbs we had gotten ended up dieing. Every single one of them.
One of my danio fry died suddenly one day.. and today.. the other 2 died for no apparent reason when they were perfectly fine a few hours before. They were just a week away from being taken out of the breeders net and put into the main tank.
It all really sucks... but ya just gotta keep on b/c you know all of your hardwork & dedication is going to pay off in the end.

 

[Jozlyn]

It seems like looking at my fish tank and bowls is more stressful than relaxing.

So why is this you say??

1. A couple of days after I got my first fish they got ich.
2. Most of the plants I bought had to be thrown away because they were not true aquatic plants
3. My crazy cherry barb chased my boy fish around until the day he died
4. I tried out the two female betta together thing and was tramatized by seeing two fish I was very attached to fight and rip each other up
5. my boy cherry barb died the same day
6. the crazy female began to chase my other female around
7. I got 4 more cherry barbs so ms. crazy would leave the other fish alone
8. the first day I got those fish I watch my very red males chase and nip the girls all day
9. the new water wisteria I bought is dieing
10. ms. crazy still chases EVERYONE around
11. she ripped half of my other original cherry barbs tail off
12. i've spent sooo much money

What on earth is you peoples secret to the whole tranquility and peace, fish keeping is so fun thing. I really need to know.

Pppleasse share with me!!!

Lots and lots of research on fish, plants, everything! and NEVER EVER trust anything the LFS says!