Spishkey
Spishkeys Turtle Rescue
A few of you know my oscars, Waldorf and Statler, and how i came about owning them, but for those of you who dont, heres their story...
Early on in July 2008 i had my eye on a whopping big tank on ebay, i just had to have it and eventually won it for a measely €80. My plan was to upgrade my little Rio 180 stock into this monster 600L tank and have the ultimate community tank. Unfortunatly the ebay tank came complete with fish so my first job would be to rehome these. The tank was in an awful condition when we went to pick it up, it was so dirty, and having been kept in a conservatory, the algae was an inch thick on the glass. I was shocked to see there were fish alive in there! We had to empty the tank ourselves before taking it away, the water ran out thick brown and sludgy, every now and then a flash of yellow or brown swam past. I had no idea what kind of fish to expect in there! After what seemed an eternity we got the water level low enough to try and scoop out the fish, i expected little cichlids of some sort, imagine my surprise when my boyfriend scooped out 2 great big things (which i later learned were oscars!!) and 4 large catfish.
The smell coming from the tank was so over whelming i had to step outside for a bit. There by the mans back door were the 6 fish in buckets. the 2 'large ones' were looking so sad lying on their sides, i really thought they were dying and thought to myself, ah at least i'lll just have to rehome the catfish then............
cruel? no, i didnt think so at the time..but how my mind soon started to change!
We loaded up the trailer with the tank, stand and all the other bits the guy threw at us, then he said the words that set my mind whirring.
"Do you wanna take these fish or should i dump them?"
dump them? DUMP THEM?? my god he really didnt care for these fish at all did he? i know i didnt want them but my god im no fish killer! i nearly took the guys arm off snatching the buckets away from him!
The trip home was long, we lived the other side of the country and the sun was beating down on us. the poor fish must have been boiling! We drove straight to a friends house who had a power washer, and unloaded the tank to clean it in their garden. after three hours we were getting no where so gave up until the next day. But we were stuck with 6 fish and no tank?? what were we to do? there was only one option at the time......so in our bath they went!
We left them to settle down then i went and sat on the edge of the bath to have my first proper look at them. And my little old heart melted, it was like love at first site! There in the bath were these four puppy like eyes gazing up at me, they looked so scared and sick. I jumped straight on the internet to find out what kind of fish these were. That is how i found TFF, it was my first stop and here i soon found out all i needed to know!
It turned out the oscars had torn fins and were suffering from HITH (hole in the head) after researching the disease i found it was caused by bad water quality and insufficient diet. Those poor fish. My mind was already made up, i was keeping these beasts! All i had to do now was convince my boyfriend too......and of course set up their tank as quickly as possible...!
It took another 3 days (and 5 people+ 2 power washers) to get the tank looking cleaner. Turned out to be a great bargin!
Now all that was left to do was get it home and fill it up! Easier said than done, we lived 3 stories up in an appartment block......and the darn thing didnt fit in the lift!!!!!!!!!! €150 later we had managed to hire a lifting machine and very carefully eased the tank up towards the clouds...my god if this fell now there would be murder!!!!
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So after many 'ooohhhhs' and 'arrrrghhhs' and about 50 onlookers later, the tank was up and in...huraah for teamwork and patience! While the guys took the lift machine back to the rental shop i proceeded to start filling the tank, bucketful by bucketful. After 20mins or so my back was killing me, the floor resembled a swimming pool, and you could barely see i'd put anything in the darn thing...this was gonna take longer than i thought!!! i decided to skip the water for now and concentrate on decorations, in went the gravel (over 50kg of the stuff) threw in some rocks then 'borrowed' some plants out of the rio 180. it was looking good. I sat down for a break when the guys came back....armed with a hosepipe! yipee! (why didnt i think of that!) The question now was...would the floor hold? we were about half way through filling when we heard it. An almighty CRACK! "this is it" i thought "its gonna fall through the floor, its gonna flood every appartment below us, why oh why did i want a big tank?"
"Its ok, its just a tile cracking!" someone shouted snapping me out of my nightmarish thoughts! One of the floor tiles was uneven and had snapped right down the middle from the weight...at least now it was in its proper position again(!) We continued filling the tank, but im sure a couple of us were holding our breath, i for one was doubting it would hold!
But...wow..it sure did look fantastic! My main concern now was to get the fish out of the bath and into the tank..but i had to heat it up first and cycle the darn thing. I quickly learned the art of filter cloning, but just didnt have enough spare filter media in my little Rio 180 to help kickstart the big tanks filter..and didnt wish to do a fish in cycle with these fish! the following day was a bank holiday weekend....so all shops were shut until next week, then it took me days to track down a shop willing to give me a bit of filter media. In the end the fish ended up living in my bath tub for over a week...yes i sacrificed having a bath for so long! By now the fish seemed to love it in there...sad they had to be moved again but was sure they would love their 'new look' home as much as i did. We did a good job as far as i was concerned!
Within a few hours of being in the tank, their colours were shining through brilliantly! It was my first proper side-on view and i just couldnt believe how beautiful these fish were! The HITH disease was slowly getting better, and i'd managed to convince the boyfriend that we could keep the fish, at least until they were in good health!
I think it was just three or four days later the fighting began....Statler came off worse with lots of scales missing and a big tear out of the bottom lip. We were in bed at the time, we just heard an almighty racket, splashing and banging around in the tank. Posters on here had warned me 2 oscars shouldnt really be housed together but i'd gone ahead and left them together anyhow...i was beginning to think id made the wrong desicion........
to be continued
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early on in July 2008 i had my eye on a whopping big tank on ebay, i just had to have it and eventually won it for a measely €80. My plan was to upgrade my little Rio 180 stock into this monster 600L tank and have the ultimate community tank. Unfortunatly the ebay tank came complete with fish so my first job would be to rehome these. The tank was in an awful condition when we went to pick it up, it was so dirty, and having been kept in a conservatory, the algae was an inch thick on the glass. I was shocked to see there were fish alive in there! We had to empty the tank ourselves before taking it away, the water ran out thick brown and sludgy, every now and then a flash of yellow or brown swam past. I had no idea what kind of fish to expect in there! After what seemed an eternity we got the water level low enough to try and scoop out the fish, i expected little cichlids of some sort, imagine my surprise when my boyfriend scooped out 2 great big things (which i later learned were oscars!!) and 4 large catfish.
The smell coming from the tank was so over whelming i had to step outside for a bit. There by the mans back door were the 6 fish in buckets. the 2 'large ones' were looking so sad lying on their sides, i really thought they were dying and thought to myself, ah at least i'lll just have to rehome the catfish then............
cruel? no, i didnt think so at the time..but how my mind soon started to change!
We loaded up the trailer with the tank, stand and all the other bits the guy threw at us, then he said the words that set my mind whirring.
"Do you wanna take these fish or should i dump them?"
dump them? DUMP THEM?? my god he really didnt care for these fish at all did he? i know i didnt want them but my god im no fish killer! i nearly took the guys arm off snatching the buckets away from him!
The trip home was long, we lived the other side of the country and the sun was beating down on us. the poor fish must have been boiling! We drove straight to a friends house who had a power washer, and unloaded the tank to clean it in their garden. after three hours we were getting no where so gave up until the next day. But we were stuck with 6 fish and no tank?? what were we to do? there was only one option at the time......so in our bath they went!
We left them to settle down then i went and sat on the edge of the bath to have my first proper look at them. And my little old heart melted, it was like love at first site! There in the bath were these four puppy like eyes gazing up at me, they looked so scared and sick. I jumped straight on the internet to find out what kind of fish these were. That is how i found TFF, it was my first stop and here i soon found out all i needed to know!
It turned out the oscars had torn fins and were suffering from HITH (hole in the head) after researching the disease i found it was caused by bad water quality and insufficient diet. Those poor fish. My mind was already made up, i was keeping these beasts! All i had to do now was convince my boyfriend too......and of course set up their tank as quickly as possible...!
It took another 3 days (and 5 people+ 2 power washers) to get the tank looking cleaner. Turned out to be a great bargin!
Now all that was left to do was get it home and fill it up! Easier said than done, we lived 3 stories up in an appartment block......and the darn thing didnt fit in the lift!!!!!!!!!! €150 later we had managed to hire a lifting machine and very carefully eased the tank up towards the clouds...my god if this fell now there would be murder!!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So after many 'ooohhhhs' and 'arrrrghhhs' and about 50 onlookers later, the tank was up and in...huraah for teamwork and patience! While the guys took the lift machine back to the rental shop i proceeded to start filling the tank, bucketful by bucketful. After 20mins or so my back was killing me, the floor resembled a swimming pool, and you could barely see i'd put anything in the darn thing...this was gonna take longer than i thought!!! i decided to skip the water for now and concentrate on decorations, in went the gravel (over 50kg of the stuff) threw in some rocks then 'borrowed' some plants out of the rio 180. it was looking good. I sat down for a break when the guys came back....armed with a hosepipe! yipee! (why didnt i think of that!) The question now was...would the floor hold? we were about half way through filling when we heard it. An almighty CRACK! "this is it" i thought "its gonna fall through the floor, its gonna flood every appartment below us, why oh why did i want a big tank?"
"Its ok, its just a tile cracking!" someone shouted snapping me out of my nightmarish thoughts! One of the floor tiles was uneven and had snapped right down the middle from the weight...at least now it was in its proper position again(!) We continued filling the tank, but im sure a couple of us were holding our breath, i for one was doubting it would hold!
But...wow..it sure did look fantastic! My main concern now was to get the fish out of the bath and into the tank..but i had to heat it up first and cycle the darn thing. I quickly learned the art of filter cloning, but just didnt have enough spare filter media in my little Rio 180 to help kickstart the big tanks filter..and didnt wish to do a fish in cycle with these fish! the following day was a bank holiday weekend....so all shops were shut until next week, then it took me days to track down a shop willing to give me a bit of filter media. In the end the fish ended up living in my bath tub for over a week...yes i sacrificed having a bath for so long! By now the fish seemed to love it in there...sad they had to be moved again but was sure they would love their 'new look' home as much as i did. We did a good job as far as i was concerned!
Within a few hours of being in the tank, their colours were shining through brilliantly! It was my first proper side-on view and i just couldnt believe how beautiful these fish were! The HITH disease was slowly getting better, and i'd managed to convince the boyfriend that we could keep the fish, at least until they were in good health!
I think it was just three or four days later the fighting began....Statler came off worse with lots of scales missing and a big tear out of the bottom lip. We were in bed at the time, we just heard an almighty racket, splashing and banging around in the tank. Posters on here had warned me 2 oscars shouldnt really be housed together but i'd gone ahead and left them together anyhow...i was beginning to think id made the wrong desicion........
to be continued
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I can't wait to see how it turns out. 
