Frustrating advice for newcomers to the fish world

[Guest14017]

Malachite green is great for external protozoan infections but so is salt and heat.

Well I deal a lot in outdoor/pond settings heat isn't usually a viable option for a systemwide outbreak. Also, when you have a systemwide outbreak of something quite severe such as costia... salt and heat will not help. Nearly all Costia strains are extremely salt and heat resistant now. When I had a costia outbreak after adding an infected imported fish, the only thing that saved my fish was potassium permaganate and formalin. Horrible strong chemicals but nothing else helped and I am only lucky I found out about that treatment option before I lost everyone. That was over a year ago and the fish that did not die are still alive and well thankfully. With that said - I NEVER EVER recommend PP or other alternative treatments for indoor systems.

 

[Back in the fold]

@Colin_T My city water supply uses chlorine only. I called them up to be sure about that. From what I understand, water treatment plants use chloramine because it's cheaper so I'm surprised that the burg I live in hasn't hopped on that bus.
I'll tell you one very bad thing about methylene blue. That stuff makes a mess that is impossible to clean if you spill it.

 

[OliveFish05]

my LFS is always talking about cycling and compatibility every time i go in there

Same here, to some extent. I overheard someone asking about an axolotl like “this is my first tank, I wanted to get an axolotl as a class pet. Could you give me a basic run down of their care? I know nothing about them, I thought they looked cool” and the employee was like “we can’t sell you one today, I’m sorry. You need to cycle your tank first” then launched into a long explanation of every aspect of the axolotls care, including tank size, no tank mates, and cycling first.

 

[OliveFish05]

My house is on a well for our water, and we talked to the well maintenance people and they said they stopped putting chlorine in the well because we have so many animals. I still dechlorinate my water, but now I know that I don’t have to worry about chlorine anymore

 

[itiwhetu]

I agree to an extent with what you are saying...however I still believe that the use of medications as the first port of call is not always the correct route to take.

I have zero medications or additives whatsoever. The use of medications should be done under advisement of a qualified vet tech or vet only, not the person working as a salesperson in the pet store who is earning a commision on every bottle they sell.

It makes me cringe when I read how well intentioned owners bombard their fish with the medicine cabinet on the advice of the person they saw at the shop who recommended this or that.

Medications incorrectly chosen will kill a fish far faster than the illness or disease if administered by an owner given poor advice on a fish with guesswork diagnoses or a "maybe" diagnoses.

It is critical that medications and aditives are correctly administered and administered for the right reasons otherwise they do more harm than good.

To me it is simply terrifying how much horrible advice is given in the shops to a worried fishkeeper and what is more frightening is that stores that sell any livestock, not just aquatic, generally do not require their staff to be qualified. A teenager can leave school with basic academic qualifications, get a job in a pet store and start selling animals and medications and additives and advising owners on illnesses and diseases without any training or qualification to do so.

That, to me, is insanity. Is it any wonder sites like this get inundated with distressed owners who follow shop advice and still lose their fish....then get attacked and made to feel like really really bad people by seasoned/experienced fishkeepers?

Every other industry is heavily regulated....why are pet stores...especially aquatics...so slapdash?

Some might say "Well its ONLY a fish"...being a fish still makes it a living creature and we humans are still that fish's voice and guardian.

All we do is pick up the pieces and try to help salvage aquariums for ill informed, disillusioned, angry, distressed owners who followed the advice of that person in the shop who they assumed knew what they were talking about.

These awesome fish deserve better and people wishing to get into fishkeeping deserve better.

I have said it on this forum site before and I will say it again. To those who use medications or fertilizers do you really know how many liters of water are in your tank. Don't say around 30 or around 50, how many exactly. Before putting anything in your tank you should know the exact volume.

 

[Colin_T]

@Colin_T My city water supply uses chlorine only. I called them up to be sure about that. From what I understand, water treatment plants use chloramine because it's cheaper so I'm surprised that the burg I live in hasn't hopped on that bus.
I'll tell you one very bad thing about methylene blue. That stuff makes a mess that is impossible to clean if you spill it.

Chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia, so it actually costs more than just chlorine, because they have to buy and add the ammonia too.

Chlorine is frowned upon by some governments because it leaves carcinogenic byproducts when it interacts with organic matter. However, chloramine, which contains chlorine, does too.

But if I had a choice of drinking water with normal recommended levels of chlorine or chloramine, I would go for chlorine because drinking ammonia isn't good for anything except plants. Just my opinion and choice.

I fully agree with you about Methylene Blue being a pain in the butt with the staining.

 

[Colin_T]

I wanted to get an axolotl as a class pet. Could you give me a basic run down of their care?

Axolotls are amphibians and don't tolerate chemicals or ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. It knocks them about pretty badly, which is why you should try to cycle their tank before getting them.

They eat meat based foods including fish, shrimp, snails, worms and anything else that falls in the water. They have poor eyesight and will engulf anything that touches their mouth. Because of this it is best to have sand on the bottom of their tank or just a bare bottom tank. If you have gravel some of them eat it.

You can have live plants but avoid driftwood and sharp objects and rocks.

They will live in cold or warm water although most keep them in unheated tanks.

They have 2 stages to their lifecycle. The juvenile stage where they live in water and have the feathery gills. The adult stage where the lake becomes too warm and shallow and the iodine levels in the lake build up to a point the axolotls can't tolerate. When this happens, the Axolotls lose the feathery gills and come out of the water and live on land. If they remain in their juvenile stage they can live for 10 years, sometimes longer. When they metamorphose into their adult form, they usually die within a couple of years after the change.

They can breed in either juvenile aquatic stage, or in the adult stage.

They can grow to 18 inches long but most are around 6-12 inches long.

 

[OliveFish05]

Axolotls are amphibians and don't tolerate chemicals or ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. It knocks them about pretty badly, which is why you should try to cycle their tank before getting them.

They eat meat based foods including fish, shrimp, snails, worms and anything else that falls in the water. They have poor eyesight and will engulf anything that touches their mouth. Because of this it is best to have sand on the bottom of their tank or just a bare bottom tank. If you have gravel some of them eat it.

You can have live plants but avoid driftwood and sharp objects and rocks.

They will live in cold or warm water although most keep them in unheated tanks.

They have 2 stages to their lifecycle. The juvenile stage where they live in water and have the feathery gills. The adult stage where the lake becomes too warm and shallow and the iodine levels in the lake build up to a point the axolotls can't tolerate. When this happens, the Axolotls lose the feathery gills and come out of the water and live on land. If they remain in their juvenile stage they can live for 10 years, sometimes longer. When they metamorphose into their adult form, they usually die within a couple of years after the change.

They can breed in either juvenile aquatic stage, or in the adult stage.

They can grow to 18 inches long but most are around 6-12 inches long.

That’s all almost exactly what the pet store employee told the guy asking the question! I was surprised! I cannot imagine going to the store to buy something i knew nothing about!

 

[Ichthys]

Wow I didn’t realize that. Thought there would be more selection now.

There’s a much greater selection now. A few of the old favourites have disappeared, but that’s inevitable as trends change over the years. The amount of new species of all types of fish available now is ridiculously large compared to the 70s when I started, as more waterways are explored and fished. China, for one, is now all over the Amazon, and a lot of new tetras are coming through from China. And with online shopping, the choice is far greater than it ever has been.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

I have said it on this forum site before and I will say it again. To those who use medications or fertilizers do you really know how many liters of water are in your tank. Don't say around 30 or around 50, how many exactly. Before putting anything in your tank you should know the exact volume.

To which many will respond...

"But....but.....its says it on the box how big it is!"

One thing I have noticed in regard to this volume issue....very nearly every website gives you a different volume for your specific measurements....and another thing....you should get the tape measure out and make sure that those measurements on the box do not include to lid, cos some do and others do not and that also adds to the general confuzzlement of volume

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Axolotls are amphibians and don't tolerate chemicals or ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. It knocks them about pretty badly, which is why you should try to cycle their tank before getting them.

They eat meat based foods including fish, shrimp, snails, worms and anything else that falls in the water. They have poor eyesight and will engulf anything that touches their mouth. Because of this it is best to have sand on the bottom of their tank or just a bare bottom tank. If you have gravel some of them eat it.

You can have live plants but avoid driftwood and sharp objects and rocks.

They will live in cold or warm water although most keep them in unheated tanks.

They have 2 stages to their lifecycle. The juvenile stage where they live in water and have the feathery gills. The adult stage where the lake becomes too warm and shallow and the iodine levels in the lake build up to a point the axolotls can't tolerate. When this happens, the Axolotls lose the feathery gills and come out of the water and live on land. If they remain in their juvenile stage they can live for 10 years, sometimes longer. When they metamorphose into their adult form, they usually die within a couple of years after the change.

They can breed in either juvenile aquatic stage, or in the adult stage.

They can grow to 18 inches long but most are around 6-12 inches long.

My Phoenix was in a 20g long, sandy bottom, large drainpipe which he slept in or stood on top.......every morning I was greeted with a smile, the burps, the bubbles and the farts.....I fed him bloodworms when little and had a wormery for his earthworms when adult.

He would have a bad case of the zoomies at least three times a day.....so much for them not swimming so much when adult.....he liked to snuggle in the plants or sun himself.

I never had any lighting except what came through the window, 50% of the aquarium was in permanent shade (no eyelids, so bright lights are a definite no-no), never had aquarium heating and I used an Interpet CF2 filter which he loved cos he could hover in the water under it and enjoy the waterfall. The water came to within an inch of the aquarium rim and he used every single bit of that aquarium for his zoomies.

Sadly he died after a little over two years. He was a dark wild type, he had the fluffiest gills that his breeder had ever seen on an adult, he was almost 16" nose to tail and had the girth of a baby's arm. I miss his antics and company massively. (I posted photo's of him on Olive's Axie thread)

 

[Essjay]

When a manufacturer quotes a tank volume, they mean the volume occupied by the whole tank. It includes the glass and the gap of air you have to leave between the water surface and the rim. That alone reduces the quoted volume.
Then you have to take more off the volume for the heater, substrate, decor, filter for internals.

My main tank is custom built with 10 mm glass. Using the dimensions it is 223 litres. After putting the substrate, some pieces of wood, heater and filter in, I filled it with a bucket so I could measure the amount of water. It was 188 litres. Since then I have added a bit more wood so I call it 180 litres but it probably now contains less than 180 litres water.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

When first filling one of my hexagonal aquariums with water - after placing the substrate etc - it swallowed 120 x 500ml bottles of water exactly (leaving 2cm tween top of water and lower edge of rim).

The box said 60 litres.

For once the box was right

But I have often wondered what it is without substrate etc....

 

[Essjay]

You were lucky

I used to have 54 litre tank which held 45 litres, and a 32 litre tank which held 26 litres - when they had nothing but water in the tank. The 32 litre had a plastic trim on the vertical corners and the quoted the volume was from the outer edge of the plastic trim so it included a few mm air round the outside of the glass as well

 

[Deleted member 149562]

You were lucky

I used to have 54 litre tank which held 45 litres, and a 32 litre tank which held 26 litres - when they had nothing but water in the tank. The 32 litre had a plastic trim on the vertical corners and the quoted the volume was from the outer edge of the plastic trim so it included a few mm air round the outside of the glass as well

I guess that aquarium manufacturers are exempt from trade description legislation then...