FishProfiles.com Message Forums

When asked how long ive been in this hobby, i usually say 2 years. This is because 2 years ago i setup my "first tank" and went through tons of resources to understand the world of aquarium keeping. But this "first tank" was actually my second tank. I am thinking back to many years ago when i had a 10g tank as a kid that was setup by my parents and a pet shop that was 5 minutes away by foot. This tank was a horrible experience, everything would die and my parents and I gave up after about 4 months. I would say that was about 8 years ago. The pet shop that "helped" me stock that tank has since closed down. I was never informed about the cycling proccess, the bio-load or anything. Here is what the stock of my tank was:
1 oscar
1 orange finned loach
1 common pleco
1 cory (cant remember which species)
2 puffers (cant remember which species, but im 80% sure they were a brackish variety)
2 kuhli loaches
and a few top-water fish that i have no memory of (other than their short existance).
For some odd reason, i had the urge to get back into fish-keeping years after this tradgedy that was called a tank. Im very glad i did. But thinking back to my true first tank, i felt the need to vent some emotions. Has anyone seen a worse setup than that atrosity? Oh and BTW, i have no memory of water changes and i am 100% certain that i was never told to gravel vac. It is probably a blessing to the world of fish that this small, 1-person worked pet shop dissapeared.

That sounds familiar. When I was real young, my family set up a 10 gallon. We ended up with about 7 Goldfish and 1 Cory. Of course, all the Goldfish became diseased and died very quickly. Some how that Cory survived. He then found a good home in a science teachers tank. I guess knowing that Cory survived gave me interest in the hobby. So, many years later, when I could set up my own tanks, I researched and now have healthy tanks with healthy fish. The internet actually can be useful. Go figure.

Well, my story is not anywhere near as sad as yours but I can bet it's very familiar to a lot of people on here. My sis and I won a goldfish each at a school carnival when we were little and my parents set them up in a very nice bowl. They lived on the kitchen counter and my dad (mr. neatfreak) washed their bowl and the gravel and decorations every saturday with dish detergent. They eventually moved to a 2 gal hex and we thought they did so well because they lived for almost 3 years before they died. Of course, now that I'm all grown up I would never in a trillion years put a poor goldfish (let alone two) in a bowl or 2 gal. So I don't really count that experience in my fishkeeping either... I've really only had fish since January. And thanks to this site, learning more everyday about proper fish care.

-Beth

I had the prerequisite childhood ten gallon as well. And the prerequisite abused goldfish I had about 6 of them (commons) crammed in there with a common pleco. I had an UGF that I never cleaned once and a HOB filter. For water changes, which i did do regularly, I took a couple of ice cream pails of tank water out, and replaced them with water that had been aged for about a week. I really thought I was taking good care of them! Surprisingly, they lived a good few years, but I guess that's not amazing at all considering a goldfish's lifespan is over 20 years... The only name I remember is that my pleco's name was Ferdinand Magellan, (I think that's the guys name ) because he was always exploring. poor guys!

When I got my 25g tank for christmas, my mom had some interesting suggestions for me, from silver dollars, to black sharks. After some thought I remembered why such ideas, when I was a kid, my parents had a 25g long tank, which was home to 4 bala sharks, 2 irridescent sharks, 6 silver dollars, a common pleco, an oscar, and a black shark. As a child I never thought anything about this, just watched the fish, and wondered why the stock was constantly changing.
MY first tanks was a 1/2g hex home to a purple betta. He lived for about 3 weeks I think, as my parents hadnt even heard of water changes, and even 15 years later when I set up my own "first" tank, my parents still didnt have any idea about "cycling" or water changes or anything. I think most of these things we know about fishkeeping is relatively recent, or just recently widespread.
Thankfully, it came before my community of fish were to suffer the same life of my parents fish.

Come Play Yahtzee With Me!
http://games.atari.com
Http://www.myleague.com/yahtgames

My mom would buy feeder goldfish for us kids to keep in a fish bowl in our rooms. We didn't have heat nor ac in our rooms, so the goldfish suffered along with us...usually not for very long as we knew nothing about water changes, correct stocking, and bought the fish from department stores. The only computers we had access to were at the school...old apples with a black screen and green letters. Playing frogger or hangman on them with a huge floppy disk wouldn't help us with fish questions, even if we had them.