Fish Murderer

[aquamanis]

OK,OK why did I not join a forum earlier and find out why I was going to kill my fish a merciless death. As newbies do (stupid impatient newbies that is) I went out and bought 30 fish to put in my 1 week old aquarium. Everything looked great for about a week and then things went horribly wrong. The fish I just paid $50 for, a pleco died within 2 days, then a albino catfish did the pycho dance before dropping dead followed by.......... Call me a Murderer, The RSPCA should cart me away! A week later I went out and bought every test known to man and found my Nitrite levels through the roof. Numerous small waterchanges and a bottle of pura water did not have too much effect, fish were still dying. Its week 3 now and my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels are steady and ph is 7. But I have lost 8 fish and the others don,t look too happy. If only I had read the forum before I started and TAKEN NOTICE of what good advice to cycle the tank first, I would have saved myself a couple of hundred dollars and a whole lot of innocent fish. This is my confession to the fish gods and I will now devote every living minute to the knowledge of keeping healthy happy fish, very sorry indeed, Aquamanis. )

 

[AllusiveLife]

LOL! " not laughing at you "... roflmao! You're not stupid at all, you didn't know But how you did your story was " " very good, I enjoyed reading it... Read it over several times and laughed. It's sad that the fish died, but don't worry You learned the hard way. I hope the rest of your fish still live! HOw big was your tank?

 

[Whisper Odinsky]

:sigh: friend.. i sooo understand THAT kind of frustration. thankgoodness for this place.. i just found out my tank is a living warzone. But at least you know from now on, and this forum is great for help!

 

[semper fi]

there is a new song by randy travis called "pray for the fish". about a fisherman and his adventures. cute song.

semper fi

 

[smb]

aquamanis, so what you're telling us is that you started out just like I did and 99% of the rest of aquarists?

I share a similiar, actually almost exact, beginning except ALL my fish died after about a week-week and a half. I fed three quarters of a can of food in a week because it "kept falling to the gravel before the fish could eat it". I didn't know about cycling or cleaning gravel/water changes

There's usually 2 type of aquarists and both make the same mistakes starting out. One type quits out of frustration of not getting the help needed and the other keeps going, asks a lot of questions, reads everything they can and is proficient in no time at all.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Lipreader]

How big is your tank? After you said how many fishes you bought, I just wanted to be sure you follow another rule which is "one inch of fish per gallon". Depending on how big they get, they need enough room to move around and grow.

Don't feel too bad, many have made the same misakes. For some reason I got lucky. None of my fish died and I never cycled the tank. But I didn't go crazy and buy bunch of fish either.

Any questions you may have, ask away.

And welcome to the forum!

 

[canis_lupus]

u're not alone in the world dude! this site has helped me and by now i would have proly lost all my fish 2 if not for the forums......

 

[suemack]

hi aquamanis - only one of mine survived - an albino cory called blossum - nearly 3 yrs later still have her - this forum will help U - have just discovered it myself.

 

[Ob1]

sorry to hear about your fish, however you have come to the right place.

 

[Guest_caz27]

We can't learn if we dont make mistakes.....hope the rest pull through

Caz

 

[Alien Anna]

As I always say, I learn by my mistakes - that's why I'm such an expert (Hah hah!)

The only reason I didn't make that particular mistake when starting out was that I was given a matured set-up by a friend. However, I tried to improve on my friend's fishkeeping and that's when it all went horribly wrong.

Fish keeping is a tricky hobby - don't worry, the important thing is that you're learning.

 

[subopposite]

It seems every other day someone will come on this forum and tell the same story. There is a lot more to fish keeping than I ever realized. I lucked out and did a junk load of research before I even got my tank. I am just that way. If I want a bat, I will research for weeks about bats. If I want a bowling ball, or tennis raquet or anything else, I will look it up for weeks/months, so I am lucky like that. But there is a LOT about fishkeeping and much more than I ever thought was possible.
One thing I would do if I were you is NEVER go back to the place that set you up for failure and gave you no advice. That is just wrong. Those people are just as much to blame. Kind of like a car dealer selling you a brand new car with no tires or gas in the tank and you have to call a tow to get it to the tire shop and then the gas station. They have wasted your money. Yes, you should probably research, but you don't know to research until after the fact really. Any place that sells more than 5 fish should question your intentions and be interested enough in your setup and ask if you are new and such. Well, at least that is what I would do. They probably just laugh after you walk out and say to themselves, "They just spent 50 bucks on fish and will be back in a couple weeks and spend 50 more." Anyhow, that is my rant about losers out there that don't look after their customers best interests.
Good luck with your future fishkeeping and don't give up. It's pretty fun.

 

[Braddah]

sub you made a good point...when i was stocking my tanks i was buying like 6-7 fish and noone said anything to me....and when i bought my first tank the girl at the lfs told me i had to wait a week before adding any fish...but she didnt tell me why...(and it wouldnt have done any good either w/o adding ammonia) so i added 5 fish that night and luckly still have all but one...(but he was beat up by his "brother") anyway welcome Aquamanis.....

 

[Morrgan]

Hi aquamanis! Sorry to hear about your fish, I hope you have better luck in the future.

I did quite a bit of research before I got my first tank, but I never found anything about cycling. This was about 10 years ago, so perhaps the current method didn't even exist back then? All I knew was that I should make the tank completely ready, with plants and the systems running, but wait a week or two before adding any fish. Didn't know I should have tested the water as well. Luckily, all my new "babies" survived, but I hate to think about what could have happened...

 

[aquamanis]

Hi everyone, thanks for all the encouragement. Just as a note about the first LFS where I made my first purchase. He pulled out a book, showed me the nitrogen cycle, told me I had to wait 3-4 weeks etc and would only sell me 2 fish, a pair of platys. Thats why I called myself a murderer because I DID NOT TAKE NOTICE of what he was trying to tell me. He did sell me 4 more fish 2 weeks later but he did not know I had bought around 20 fish from about 4 other LF shops. None of them asked about my setup, they were just happy to sell to me. The first pleco I bought was the first to die, he had large white spots like slime on him. When I went back to the LFS where I bought him, they had the tank that he came out of in quarantine for whitespot. I now have learnt another lesson about quarantining new fish before putting them in your tank. I think I will now stick with the one LFS, the first guy and just ask him to get something for me instead of "shopping around". Now onto my next project: I reckon I can stuff 50 marine fish in a 100lt tank, it should take about a week I reckon....LOL