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a friend of mine came to me and said "you keep fish right? well this guy i know is moving and needs some help moving his tank."
so i get ther to find a 40 gallon with a 12 inch black shark, a 12 inch pleco, 2 6 inch rainbow sharks, 5 cherry barbs,a butterfly fish, and an upside down catfish. this tank had 1 rock as a decoration nothing else. filter? what filter. how about an airstone and a whisper backfilter that looked older than me and could hardly handle a 10 gallon tank much less 40 with that much fish.
when i removed the fish and the rock i started siphoning water, the plecos poop actually clogged up my syphon, it had been so long since that tank had been cleaned.
i did what i could for the guy, i gave him a spare 20 gallon back filter i had and some advice, "get rid of the pleco at the very least."
i asked my friend a few weeks later about the tank and i was told that the fish are all still alive and that he actually added a tiger barb.

like i said i helpped him move, so i know where he lives, and i know what room the tank is in, maybe i should "liberate" a couple of them?

dave

See now when I think about a horrible tank setup, I don't necessarily think on the fish themselves, I think about how it is set up and decorated. So for me, anything neon in the tank that is not a fish! Also, those treaasure chests or divers. I cannot abide those things. No offense to anyone out there with any of those items. They are not to my personal taste!

Rae

roughly 10 years ago, i didn't know anything about keeping goldfish. the person who sold me the fish didn't tell me about any restrictions whatsoever. just to "change the water often."

so...i bought a 2 gallon tank and stuffed 3 fancy goldfish in there. the thing is, they lived for a couple years in there, and i didn't think anything was wrong. I then bought a 10 gallon, and added 4 orandas, for a total of 7 goldfish in a 10 gallon tank!!

needless to say, they all died pretty quickly except for one of them. After they all died, I did some reading and learned what I had done.

the one fish that survived is still living (10 years old) and is doing very well in a 29 gal tank. it's 6" long and healthy. i still can't believe i had 7 in a 10 gal...almost makes me sick to my stomach

the worst tank ive ever seen was at my LfS

10gal
2 clown fish
2 banna wrasses
1 emporer angelfish
2 cleaner wrasses
over 20 corals

---

''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Check out the tanks in Chinatown in NYC with about 20 catfish in each. Oh if u cant find it, its on the shelf next to the "hanging ducks".

The worst that I have seen is my brother-in-laws. He has one of those starter hex tanks ( 1 maybe 2 gallons ) with 1 gold fish in it. This is where it gets bad: He has not fed the fish nor cleaned the tank in about 1 year He may have fed it once or twice when he got real bored, but that would be it, and maybe topped the watter off, but I'm not sure!!

We are guessing that the fish is living off of the algea that has smuthered the tank. Even for being such a small tank, you can barely see the fish, but now and then you'll see a moving silloet of a fish

Tanks with plecos so big they can't turn around easily. I mean, like plecos the size of my forearm, easily! Large fish in small LFS display tanks. Feeder fish tanks... need I say more?

My friend who gave me her unused ten gallon used to keep several goldfish in there... plus leeches and minnows from when they went fishing over the summer. She used to take the fish out of the tank every couple weeks, take out enough water to be able to carry her tank across the hallway to the bathroom, and completely rinse EVERYthing out in the tub, scrubbing everything down. And she ran a UGF with goldfish! (The type you get at carnivals and such.)

Recently, I went over to a friend's new house as she was moving in and saw her mother's boyfriend's tank... Four giant danios, one large tetra of some kind (black tetra, maybe?), one cory trilineatus and three huge plecos (one 12" and two at 8-10", all of them at least six inches around). In a bare 55 gallon tank with a saltwater background. Apparently it's usually decorated pretty nicely, but I found it rather disturbing... I know if I moved, my tanks would be setup properly before putting the fish back in!

Oh, and a 55 gallon aquarium at a chinese restaurant, with at LEAST 100 inches worth of goldfish. And the tank wasn't full of water, either... maybe 3/4 full. There was probably 12-15 goldfish if not more, one was at least 12". And I think there was a decent sized plec in there too... very few decorations, no plants... looked very naked.

Last edited by Kitten at 08-Feb-2005 19:21

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

I have heard of the same idea with bettas as centerpieces rather than goldfish

yup, a friend of mine owns a fish store, and on more than one occasion has leased the fish out for this purpose. Bowls, and fish - they get back 50% of the deposit upon return of all fish. Any they keep, they deduct from the deposit

[font color="#000080"] I'm sorry but the above story is simply repulsive....[/font]

friend of mine had a 10 gal when we were young. we thought it cool to put a small bluegill from the pond in there to eat the goldfish. he did too and i mean quick. we kept feeding the blue gill for several weeks. never changed the water, just added more as it evaporated. then some time after we quit that we just kinda forgot about it until one day we needed a place to keep a garden snake we'd caught. the 10 gal only had about 4 inches of very black water and smelled like death. you couldn't even see any of the old decor that was in there except were it stuck up out of the water. we started to empty the water out and guess what there was a fat little bluegill about 6-8 inches long just as healthy has could be. he scared the heck out of us we weren't sure what was in that water. anyway we changed out his water and decided to feed him the small snake. he was obviously hungry. he sucked that dude down like no tomorrow

I agree with Patty 110%. Quite an offensive tale of torture to MANY animals! I am completely discusted!

Actually, the more I think about it, she probably had more than 10 in it. I remember some tiger barbs too. She brought them from her home tank (egads, I am glad I never saw that). I told her she had way too many fish in that thing. I was also mortified when she told me she tears down her whole tank at home twice a year and washes the decorations in the dishwasher. Her response to me after all of my harassment? "They're just fish." NICE!!!! Some people should be shot.

I have a buddy whom if he doesn't start listening to me about this maybe have his tank stolen...]:|

He has a 5g, desk top tank, in it he has 3 tiger barbs, 2 cories and a rainbow shark.

Ever have those people you try to help out and they ignore you???? i do

I just remembered.........a former coworker had a 55 gallon at home and brought in a 2.5 gallon for her desk. SHe added approximately 10 fish (at least!) including a convict. The convict was the last to bite the dust.

Can you top this? A 10 gallon with a Firemouth Meeki, some neon tetras, a chinese algae eater, a swordtail, some zebra danios, angels perhaps? and get this, a NEWT!!!!! Yup, that was my tank when I was about 10 years old. No heater either. My parents had no idea about aquariums and neither did I. It's people like that who scare the heck out of me these days

A local pizza place has a 40 or so usg with 5 Tiger Barbs, 1 9" Clown Loach, two large fish about 12" long that I couldn't identify that stuck to the glass and never moved, 2 enormous pink Parrotfish, 4 Buenos Aeres Tetras, 2 Albino Red Tail Sharks, 1 Black Skirt Tetra, 1 Common Pleco and 1 little fish that looked like a Glowlite Tetra except for having a green neon stripe instead of an orange one. One of the bio wheels wasn't spinning either. It's been a year - I need to go back there and see if there are any survivors.

A 50g with hundreds of guppies in it, no decor/filter/airpump, water so murky you had to squint through the glass and half the guppies on their sides at the top of the tank rotting..

Worst..LFS..Ever!

I think any fish used as decor is cruel. And I cannot stand those teeny tiny betta bowls. And feeder fish tanks with hundreds and hundreds packed in. ]:|

I have heard of the same idea with bettas as centerpieces rather than goldfish. Someone I know did the arrangements for a wedding and used, I think, 80 blue bettas. These were her own personal fish though, and all came back to their happy, healthy home afterwards. Those poor goldfish. I can not believe someone would just flush live fish. Good thing you were there to save them. Sadly, they probably just ended up as a snack for a bigger fish in the end.

I've seen one of the worst tanks at a lfs
a 10 gallon with
6" black knife
2 4' clown loaches
2 glass cats
& 3 fully grown gold gouramis
It was terrible
Barely swimming and diseased ridden.