Your Fish Keeping Disasters

[MisssMarie]

My worst mistakes including keeping a betta in less than 2 cups of water and never changing the water, putting a red bellied piranha in a 10 gallon tank, doin complete water changes in a tank less than 1 gallon every other day, adding hot water to the tank, putting a goldfish in less than 2 cups of water. What are the worst mistakes you've made??

 

[smokeyjo]

Mine are putting 5 guppys in with 3 red eye tetras putting an albine red tail shark in with neons and putting a 7 inch pleco in a 5 gallom oops never again lol

 

[soybean]

Probably adding salt daily to my unfiltered 8 litre goldfish 'tank' to 'prevent disease'. They''re still alive though, in a pond with all their babies!

 

[Akasha72]

...not joining this forum before I got a tank at all!!

 

[MisssMarie]

...not joining this forum before I got a tank at all!!

I second that!!

 

[Prime Ordeal]

Never made any because I always research before I do anything. Not a boast, just a statement of fact. I wish more people would do research before they buy into live animals and we'd probably not need forums like this as much. With access to the internet there's no excuse not to.

 

[fluttermoth]

Never made any because I always research before I do anything. Not a boast, just a statement of fact. I wish more people would do research before they buy into live animals and we'd probably not need forums like this as much. With access to the internet there's no excuse not to.

I have to say, i've never done anything really bad either, for the very same reason.

Even when I first started, 20+ years ago, so before the internet came long, I went to the library and all the second hand bookshops in town and read everything on fishkeeping I could lay my hands on. I do the same for all my animlas, whether it's fish, rabbits, chinchillas or whatever; it's so easily done these days; I'm eternally grateful for everyone's wisdom on various subjects.

The information was not nearly so good as it is now on the internet, but about the worst mistake I made, looking back on it now, was keeping a pair of angels in a 36 x 12 x 15"; (everyone wildly underestimated adult fish sizes in those days it seems; they were probably all stunted) and not doing as many water changes as I do now, as it just wasn't often recommended at the time.

But I successfully kept and bred a lot of fish back then as well; even the aforsaid angels, and have very rarely suffered huge losses or outbreaks of disease.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

not doing as many water changes as I do now, as it just wasn't often recommended at the time.

Interesting. I dabbled in tropical fishkeeping as a lad, some 35-40 years ago, occasionally looking after my nan's tanks and the one thing I can distinctly remember is the weekly water change because it was my job! I had a loooong break inbetween so I consider myself a relative newbie to fishkeeping now.

 

[savvy]

Let's see...

-not cycling a tank before putting 3 adult goldfish in. Bad bad idea.

-not testing water parameters

-putting fish within grasp of the kitty

 

[MisssMarie]

Let's see...

-not cycling a tank before putting 3 adult goldfish in. Bad bad idea.

-not testing water parameters

-putting fish within grasp of the kitty

Oh, thankfully my cat never wanted to go near my fish... Heck, he didn't even realize we had it!

 

[Robj]

Letting my mum change the water on the goldfish I won at the fair when I was 7.

She changed the water & replaced it with hot straight out of the tap. Goldfish didn't enjoy that much RIP.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Raising two small groups of Pearl Danio youngsters within a short space of each other to at least 4cm TL, desperately wanting to give them more space than the 60x30x30cm Korall60 that the parents had been put in as quarntine after some developed mystrious pimples on their lower mouth, by which time my Lionhead Cichlid bonded pair were raising their first brood and hell in the Rio240.

I decided they had grown enough to introduce them all to the garage 5x2x2, which was already occupied by everything that had been evacuated from the Rio240. Overnight, at least six Pearls vanished (in hindsight, eaten by either my ~7cm Barilius; ~7cm Humphead Glassfish; my two adult ~11cm Opsarius)... Most of the survivors almost ran into the net, absolutely terrified on the water surface, when I then spotted a youngster hyperventilating under some bogwood who also darted into the net.

So back to the Korall60 they went, a couple recovered from injuries, by which time the Lionhead fry were growing quickly and not being guarded that much by the parents. Given the fry were now too big to be eaten by the Pearls, I decided to add them to the Rio240, thinking they would make good dithers for the Lionhead family. Gave them the standard drip acclimitisation over ~45mins, netted them over and hell broke lose within seconds... The Pearls seemed really unsettled from the first second they went in, as if they were still traumatised by the 5x2x2 experience a month earlier, going randomly around the tank at lightspeed. At least a couple more perished before I got chance to rescue them again, not sure if one was chased up the integrated Juwel chamber and into the pump (more likely) or it was bitten in half by one of the Lionhead parents.

All in all, two horrible lessons learnt: Fish will eat other fish that fir in their surprsingly large mouth, cichlid parents are like the devil incarnate in order to protect their fry at all costs.The few survivors of the two ordeals were rehomed with "mussels" from this forum, living in a luxory peaceful pad 6-footer, absolute bliss for the Pearls I'm sure.

 

[Clarousel]

Happily cleaning my tank with a new kitchen sponge, not rinsing it before use. I ended up with a tank full of dead fish 2 hours later.

 

[eka]

buying a tank and putted on a table, wich wasnt suited for such a massive weight...nearly got disaster in my house and flooding...bought 2 male gouramis without reading properly that they are teritorial...problem solved after research(more hiding places, plants etc)...and the bigest mistake didnt check what shopkeeper put me in a bag(3 was really sick fish, 1 died on the way home, another after 1 day, 3ed one survived for 2 months)... oh yea...had some algae, so bought some snails...it was waste of money...as they disapear in 2 sec coz of the cloun loaches