If there was one piece of (silly or funny) advice you would give a new fishkeeper....

[WhistlingBadger]

If you're planning to catch some fish from a tank, do it before you tidy up and maintain your planted tank, making it all look pretty. You will uproot and make a mess of the planting while trying to catch the sneaky little devil, and regret wasting all that time you spent tidying and replanting, since you have to start over again!

Some fish are easier to catch than others. Much as I love guppies, they're, um, not the brightest fish in the world. Super easy to catch! Just feed them, then scoop them from the surface with a net while they're distracted - half the time, they barely seem to even notice they've been caught

That boosts your confidence, makes you think you're pretty good at catching fish! Then you try that with platies, or mollies, and find out they're a tad smarter and have evasive maneuvers down pat. So you watch videos and read techniques for catching fish... but there's always that one! I know that one, I have a few of those ones!

Sometimes, you just have to give up and accept you've been outsmarted by a fish. You win this time, blue platy. You win. You've made it clear that you want to stay in that tank, okay!

Don't even bother trying to catch rainbowfish. They win. And giant danios. And hoplo catfish. And red-tailed sharks...

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Sometimes, you just have to give up and accept you've been outsmarted by a fish. You win this time, blue platy. You win. You've made it clear that you want to stay in that tank, okay!

Worst one ever for me was a tiny 1inch long Goby in a 100G tank with over 40KG of liverock and corals in. It took days.....

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Worst one ever for me was a tiny 1inch long Goby in a 100G tank with over 40KG of liverock and corals in. It took days.....

I had a hoplo that was tearing apart my 150g. Could NOT catch the thing. I even put minnow traps in the tank. It became sort of an obsession...the ladies at the office started calling me Captain Ahab.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Don't even bother trying to catch rainbowfish. They win. And giant danios. And hoplo catfish. And red-tailed sharks...

I hear Kuhli loaches are even worse! Remember being at my LFS and one staff guy was at the end of his rope trying to catch some kuhli loaches for someone. He'd been at it for like an hour, said they never should have put them in a tank with a deep sandy substrate, and a bunch of other midwater fish that were practically leaping into the net and making it even harder to get a kuhli

Oh yeah, it's never the fish that you're trying to catch that keeps insisting on getting into the net!

 

[imw]

I had a hoplo that was tearing apart my 150g. Could NOT catch the thing. I even put minnow traps in the tank. It became sort of an obsession...the ladies at the office started calling me Captain Ahab.

There she blows ! - there she blows !

 

[WhistlingBadger]

There she blows ! - there she blows !

 

[FishHobby99]

....what would it be?

There will always be the standard advice given such as researching before buying and so forth. Fishkeeping can be a very serious pastime, especially when everything seems to be going wrong

But what piece of funny/silly advice would you give a new fishkeeper (or the occasional old one) that you have learnt in your (mis)adventures with fishkeeping?

Mine....well...never wear a white top when doing aquarium maintenance. I can wear any colour I want but the moment I have a white top on and start doing my weekly maintenance, Murphy (and his mischievious law) crawls out from under his rock and does something annoying....such as a filter can refusing to open, so I give it an extra shove whilst swearing at it, the can lid pops off suddenly and the contents go everywhere and my nice white top gets splattered with fish poo. Never happens with any other coloured top, only the white ones

So what silly things happen to you that makes you giggle (or swear) on a water change & maintenance day?

Make the husband do it. Seriously.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Sorry, but this is not accurate and saying not to cycle a tank properly is not giving good advice to our members and readers on this forum.

Please cycle your tank properly before adding any livestock, this is important.

You can have a read of this article, it will give you an idea why cycling a tank is important and how to proceed with cycling a tank.

Cycle Your Tank! A Complete Guide For Beginners

Fishless cycling https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/ Silent or plant cycling https://www.fishforums.net/threads/planted-silent-cycling.470400/ Fish-in cycling...

www.fishforums.net

is all the other advice good?

 

[Obsessed with fish]

With apologies to @wasmewasntit , it appears that neither @Ch4rlie or @Obsessed with fish possess a sense of humour.
What a shame.

View attachment 143855

Ye thats true, but i want to give the thread maker what he wants. What if he does not want to have silly rules.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Ye thats true, but i want to give the thread maker what he wants. What if he does not want to have silly rules.

But what piece of funny/silly advice would you give a new fishkeeper (or the occasional old one) that you have learnt in your (mis)adventures with fishkeeping?

...So what silly things happen to you that makes you giggle (or swear) on a water change & maintenance day?

 

[DoubleDutch]

Don't listen to the Aquabrands.
The problem they say to solve, isn't a problem.

For instance : "Renew your filtermedia every month" means : If you clean it in tankwater you can use it for months / years but in that case we will have no profit

 

[Fishfinder1973]

Attach pedals before cycling the tank

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Attach pedals before cycling the tank

...and be careful balancing that thing on your handlebars. And for heaven's sake, wear a helmet when cycling. And maybe a snorkel.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

When i spill water all over my PowerPoints were i plug in my filter.

When i think a fish is dead so i pull it out of the tank but then i starts flapping around like crazy.

When i drop the whole food container in the fish tank.

The 1st time i bought algae wafers i put WAY to many in then it started decomposing because the shrimp could not et 6 of them. For the next 2 weeks the water was super cloudy. So only put 1 or 2 in.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

When i think a fish is dead so i pull it out of the tank but then i starts flapping around like crazy.

Yeah, I've done that one. ha ha