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We have all been there! if not personally, then we have a friend or family member who has

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For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

I thought it could be good for this section if people were to write down the silly things they have done over the years. Might help people not make the same mistakes.

When I first started i had two goldfish in a bowl with no pump. Surprisely they survived for 3 months. When i got them I just threw them in and didn't let them sit and then add a little water, then let then sit, and then more water etc.

After the three months I decided i wanted some more fish and decided to get a bigger tank a 25 litre tank. I got some baby angels and some clown loaches and some tetras and guppies.
The tank was definately overcrowded.
I again threw the fish in the tank.
I got a pump, but it was one for when you have fry with the big sponges.
And I didn't get a heater!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They lasted a week if that, from what I can remember. I went back to the fish store and when I told him what happened and he realised I didn't have a heater he shook his head.
So I got a heater, a bigger tank (3ft) and some new fish, under the supervision of the store owner.

Well, I couldn't resist and I went to another store and got more fish. I didn't really think it was that serious if you overcrowded. And I didn't just add 3 fish at a time i was adding 10 fish or more. I thought i'll just do more water changes, it will be fine. Fish just kept dying. I would wake up find two dead fish and go down the store and buy three more. GROAN.

After six months and no money I stopped buying more fish. And things started to settle. Three months went by and I hadn't lost a fish, six months went by and no dead fish. It all started to click. I went to the original fish store during this time, not to by more fishes, but to ask more questions and he was really helpful.

I learnt to do a 25% water change, at one stage I was doing a 100% water change. I would put the fishes in a bag, empty the tank down the drain, and then fill it up. Oh and with no water treatment.

But I will stop now and let others tell their silly stories.

But if this teaches anything, it is to do research, and a lot of it prior to purchasing any fish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Four goldfish in a three gallon tank tank that I had set up only hours earlier. 'Nuff said.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

mine:
Dumb: Goldfish bowl
&
Dumber: Even bigger goldfish bowl

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

O and also i almost forgot about the scene when i got my megaleschis personata ( big catfish 10cm and 1.5-2cm witdh)
from my goldfish mouth and it survived.

Being a previously uneducated Dimwit of massive proportions I did keep two 2" Koi in my Twenty Gallon, i had no idea what they were - just thought they were pretty silver Goldfish if you get what i mean.

I cannot believe I admited that. They lived for about four years, poor creatures

One died and one ended up in a pond.

sorry fish.

GFG

Last edited by goldfishgeek at 20-Aug-2005 19:05

_______________________________________
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey S. Firestone

Oh, no calla At least mine were redcaps

(& back then I didn't know what testing the water was )

I'd never heard of gravel vacs. Once every couple months, when the water got to looking bad, I would put the fish in a container, empty all of the water, scrub the whole thing, and rinse my gravel until the water ran clear. Fill it back up and put the fish right back in.


Kim

I got a goldfish from a birthday party, so I took it home and put it in a vase (maybe half a gallon?). I'm fairly sure I used dechlorinator. This was a flower-type vase, nice and tall but fairly skinny. The cat ended up knocking it over twice and he smacked the fish around on the floor a bit, so I got a two gallon plastic Kritter Keeper (Lee's makes them). I added a male betta, then got a used twenty-gallon high tank a week later. Stuff just started happening from that point, and I eventually moved and left the tank behind after I'd given the fish away to another store.

---

And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I can top that Dude, i had 3 comets (two comets and a shubunkin) in 6 litres! I couldn't figure out why they were always dying.

DUH!

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Putting about 20 fish in a 10 gal. tank & doing 100% water changes every month.


http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/s8xi5heh/my_photos
http://www.geocities.com/s8xi5heh/classic_blue.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buzaqq/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Well, I had 2 goldfish & 3 guppies in a 21 litre/5g tank.. *sigh*

Welcome to FishProfiles

If you want a silly thing and a stupid one that i have done when i was a child ( well, my parents decided that, plese don't ban me of this website because of this)

So the story is this i was 7 years old and my dad took me to the petshop i bougth 1 moly, 1 angel, and 3 gupies (2.5G tank). The angel died after a few days but that's not the silly thing. :%)
After a few weeks when i came home from a visit i found my sister cleaning the water from my room. She wanted to change the water and she dropped the aquarium. O by the way aquarium water was changed back then like this: You take the aquarium to the bathroom you put the net in front of the aquarium , you get the water out and you catch the fish into the net .

O and the stupid thing:

My parents thought that they could save some money on the heaters and so i used omething i had in the house. What i used to heat the water: the kind of heater that you use when you go to vacantion and you have to make coffee or tea.

Probably or the peple will laugh when they will here this but i can't stop writing

So i was on a vacantion and i let my grandpa to watch over the aquarium.(i was still heting water the ssame way, the aquarium was a 10g i think) And when i came home i found my megalechis personata and i think some cory near my aquarium hey were dried out and of course dead I found out my grampa put them there after they died because he wanted me to see exactely what fish am i missing

O and by the way most of guppies and cories survived with this methd of heating

P.S. i am now 14 years old and i hae a 62gplanted aquarium so i tink i have learnd alot from the net.

pity the poor starfish lol.

My most recent silly thing I've doneis going to try a pica tank. I'm not totally sure if it's silly to try it, but I feel like a teenager again at their first dance, and just not really knowing what to do...all nervous and excited as welland heck my lfs has shrimp *giggles*

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

Another stupid thing 3 wolf fishes with 3 balas about 8 years ago

Dwarf Puffer in a 1g bowl with my common gold fish
about 9 years ago
yes i have been in the hobby for 15 years now since i was little

Last edited by Crazy_Coyote at 08-Oct-2005 16:19

I would buy real costly fish, dump em in a small tank not know what they were or how they ate.

I would do water changes but i did not add chemicals or check the temp.

I would wonder why they would die right after a water change and when they got home from the store =\


Now I am better then that and read into all my fish and take care of them well.

There is more I am sure =\ that was when I was like 6 to 9 lol

Angel Eel

Well, when my mom was keeping fish (about a dozen years ago), we decided to listen to the guy at the LFS... "oh SURE, those common plecos will only get to be four inches long!" Great, we stuck one each in our two tanks... I believe we had a 15 and a 10 gallon. Eek!

We did have the plecos for quite a while... at the end when we finally gave them to friends with bigger tanks, one was 11" and one was 13".

I don't really remember much else going wrong with those tanks... but then, I was young.

As for my own tanks, the one major thing I can remember doing wrong is my first fish. He was a betta who lived out the first few months of his life with me in a 1/2 gallon tank without enough waterchanges. I mean, he wasn't left for months on end without waterchanges, but I should have done better. He did, however, receive upgrades to first a one gallon, and then a two gallon tank. He was with me for 2.5 years and just died recently. Poor Liberty

Thankfully, I fully researched all my other tanks and was lurking around FP for months before setting them up. I think I've done fairly well without TOO much in the way of mistakes.

Advice though... keep track of where the hose is for the gravel vac... they have a pesky tendency to fall out of the bucket when you're not watching! Don't leave fragile items such as thermometers on the ground... you'll inevitably break them. There's dozens more, but those are the most recent.

Last edited by kitten at 22-Sep-2005 12:09

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

I will add a new act of stupidity.

Not leak testing my 40 gal used tank.

The Amazon Nut...