What's The Hardest Lesson You Learned?

[VickiandKev]

I don't even know where to begin, but glad to see I'm not the only one.

Using pH altering chemicals - very bad!

Keeping silver sharks and a rainbow shark together in a 2ft tank.

Keeping clown loaches in a 2ft tank.

Various other incompatible/fish too big for tank scenarios.

Keeping bristlenose plecs without bogwood


Unfortunately, things will always happen I think - like accidentally leaving a heater off for a few hours in winter after a w/c or forgetting that a tank is draining via the hose and noticing there's only 2 inches of water left at the bottom. I'm lucky that nothing ever gets too serious (ie I don't lose fish or cause them to get ill) before I notice these things but they panic me and I don't make the mistake again for a long while.

In fact, I walk around my kitchen touching all of my tanks to check they're not cold lol whenever I go in!

 

[Paradise3]

Adding 1 Jewel Cichlid, 2 Yellow Labs, A Synodontis Euruptus, And A Neon Swordtail In My 20g The Day After I Got My Tank Assuming It Was All Good.
Then Adding A Molly, And Angel In Too 3 Days Later.
ALL without cycling.
Lessons Learned:
Always Fishless Cycle
Never Listen To LPS Employees

Put some small 1inch innocent looking jewel fry in my livebearers tank, thinking they were harmless babies. Within 48hrs they killed and ate my male swordtail. Cichlids are mean killers

exact same thing happened to me
lucky the male lived, but was EXTREMELY torn up.
died of motor uncooridination a month later. due to ich on torn fins

Mine would probably be:
1) Putting a sailfin pleco in a 2ft tank.
2) Putting 1m and 1f guppy together. He later stressed her soo much she died.
3) When i was younger we had a very big tank with goldfish in it. One morning i decided to go fishing in it. Most fish died, bar 1. I had them out of water to long and they practicaly dried out. One decided to go down the back of the tank and i couldn't reach it, we later found it still alive after about 5 hours down there.
4) We also had a 4ft tropical tank when i was about 5 or 6 and one morn i decided the fish would like a drink...... of milk. I poured 2 pints of milk in the tank. All fish survived.
5) Putting an angel fish in a 2ft tank with platies, mollies and guppies. NEVER AGAIN.
6) Putting guppy fry into an uncyled tank. All 23 later died.
7) Putting a male fighter with male guppies. It wasn't that he attacked the male guppies but he killed all his female tank mates 1 day after the guppies were added. He had lived with them for 2 years with no probs.

My list is endless i no no gonna say more.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

the angel and livebearers one interests me because i currently have 1 angel and 3 mollies and 2 guppies in my tank and they are fine together

Maybe my angel didn't like the platies because that's what started it and then the guppies and mollies decided to defend their friends and nipped at the poor 1 inch angel.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[BlueGuppy]

Lol I can't get enough.

1. Overstocking 3 Danios in a 5 gal tank....hey LFS said it was fine (i was only 12)
2. Forgetting to dechlorinate the tank before I refilled it with water. Killed lots of guppies here
3. Putting a Betta in straight tap water. As soon as he was in there, bam he was dead in 10 mins. (Again 12)
4. Forgot I had a betta one time in a vase with a plant for 2 weeks until a friend came by one day to visit and she saw this thing moving in the vase with brownish water and said "is that a fish", I was like HOLY CRAP!!!! . He was treated like a king after that and lived a good year longer.

 

[Balloons&killies]

1.always let your tank cycle for like 2 week before you put fish in.
Killed at least 15 of my guppies.
2. always check water parameters weekly.
3. do water changes and clean your filters in your tank water!

 

[Cocomojo]

Kept tiger barbs? darn nippy things

 

[-Craig-]

Kept tiger barbs? darn nippy things

same thing happend to me...

Bought 5 Tiger barbs, put them in my 260 litre tank, there were 2 angels in there, next day the angels were nipped but survived and the barbs went back to the shop and exchanged them for a angel fish. never ever ever keep barbs in a community tank i hate them, for hurting my favourite fish Lol.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

First ever tropical tank, put in gravel without washing it, stood there for ages wondering why my water was so cloudy lol.

when i first tried my hand at breeding livebearers, had 5 males in one tank and after a while of still no babies, i went in to the local fish store and said they wont breed can i exchange them, they said no wonder they wont they are all male.

I know this is a semi serious thread but LMAO! Sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to figure out hahah.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

4. Forgot I had a betta one time in a vase with a plant for 2 weeks until a friend came by one day to visit and she saw this thing moving in the vase with brownish water and said "is that a fish", I was like HOLY CRAP!!!! . He was treated like a king after that and lived a good year longer.

Haha poor fishy!

 

[tr0p1cal]

borrowing medicine from a friend, i mixed it up and put it into my tank, whith in seconds everything in there was nuked, they were all getting blown around by the filter floating upside down hitting the glass and rocks it was awful, i whacked in the carbon str8 away and luckily after a day they were back to normal and luckily nothing died. Im hoping they enjoyed the experience of being overdosed but i very much doubt it.

i found out it was because the medicine was out of date

 

[steelhealr]

1) Larger tank. Should have gotten a larger tank.

2) Iridescent sharks. Bought two when I was a newb almost 6 years ago. I still have two iridescent sharks and they are huge. Now I am faced with rehoming them. SH

 

[jennybugs]

Interesting thread!
I think my worst error was listening to an LFS (without researching enough myself in the early days) about red tailed red eye puffers and being able to have two males in the same 50L tank. They put them in the same bag for the journey home too and I ended up holding on to the corner of the bag where one bit through it in the car and two very exhausted puffs that didn't live through the night
My other error has been thinking I can have more than 12 tanks running at the same time and managing to do long hours at work and still maintain them all properly! I now know less than 10 tanks is manageable

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

My problem is over stocking; although it's not my 'major complaint' listening to an LFS on chinese algae eaters would be my worst thing.

 

[BlueGuppy]

My problem is over stocking; although it's not my 'major complaint' listening to an LFS on chinese algae eaters would be my worst thing.

OOO yea Algae eaters are awful sometimes.

 

[ellena]

Buying a small, round tank. It was about the only thing I did before I found TFF, so I've had pretty good guidance since then.
I would have got a larger, although not massive, tank and probably had a community already.
Sucking a betta up the siphon does them no good. Levi, my first fish.

 

[ellena]

Oh, and MTS too. I had 4 tanks at home over the xmas hols and it was too much for me. Cured my MTS, I had a clear out and now have 1 'community' and 2 bettas. Ultimately I'd like that to be just 1 betta. I think I'll always want to have one.