How Are They Still Alive?

[Memz]

Evening everyone,

With my job, I get to go into lots of people's houses, on Monday, I happened to be in an elderly couples house and noticed there was a 4 foot tank. In it were about a dozen fish, (still new so couldn't ID them) they seemed healthy enough, swimming normally but the tank looked a bit........ grubby. It had an internal filter and a heater and there were a few real plants. I asked the old fella how often he did a water change and he replied "Ooooh, I change half the water roughly every 18 MONTHS!!!"
The situation was very delicate and there was no way I could start telling him what to do, blimey, I've only just started this fish keeping recently anyway.
So...... As the title asks, how are they still alive? They didn't seem in distress. Do they just get used to it?
I did feel a bit envious as it was a lovely tank that wasn't being looked after properly and I just know I could have made it look and function better.

 

[CezzaXV]

Were there a lot of plants? It's possible that they were eating up the nitrates.

From what I understand though, nitrates aren't like ammonia and nitrite that they'll cause immediate suffering, I think it's more of a slow burn in high numbers.

 

[mattyeatsmatts]

Maybe the tank has got the perfect balance or he had a very bad memory

 

[FishFanatic04]

"Old tank syndrome" perhaps. The fish can adapt to quite a bit of harsh living conditions. Look at Bettas that are kept in vases without frequent water changes. As a kid, before I knew better I had a 3 year old betta and only changed his water once month A full scrub down at that.


I bet if he added new fish, the new ones wouldn't do very well.

 

[Aquamaniac]

I seen it before. Old people keep to old habits. To my dad,who's a fishkeeper since the 70's before i was born the undergravel filter is still the best thing around. Took me ages to convince him otherwise. But trough the years i've seen lots of this forgoten old tanks,most kept working with outdated equipment, and even more outdated techniques. And i've wondered why are they not aquatic cemeterys,the fact is trough time they formed a small ecossistem that defies our knowledge.
I usually don't like to force my knowledge to this old people. Because they were they pioneers of our hobby and shoukd respected as such.
Its thanks to them that the hobby we love evolvef to us.
I remember being a kid and looking wandered at that small little glass box in the living room that showed this diferent,beautiful magical world.

Sorry about any mistakes in the previous post. Writing on the mobile phone just sucks.

 

[KISSfn]

A friend of mine has a tank. He has lost interest in fishkeeping and is hoping his fish will die. Yet, they live on.
I do everything in my power to keep my fish alive and yet, I've lost fish. I too would love to know why some fish live and some don't.

 

[Gem_xxx]

Fish are so surprising- my dad had to go in to an abandoned house last year and found a tank with less than an inch of filthy water in - must have been left months. He saw two dead plecos and was about to throw them on skip when he double checked and they moved..quite violently! Half of their bodies weren't even in water! Must of lived off remains of other fish. Needless to say they were rescued and are now three times the size in a gigantic tank

 

[drobbyb]

As mentioned, Old Tank Syndrome. Over time, fish will adapt to very high nitrates, etc and other species of bacteria will develop to take care of other types of waste that we don't test for. Anerobic bacteria develop in the substrate that doesn't get stirred up, and who knows what else. The downside to these tanks is when people like us come in and tell these old timers what they must do, and they start to do it and their tanks crash. These old tanks have to be converted to new types SLOWLY. You can't just come in and all of a sudden start weekly large water changes, huge power filters and gravel vacs. Their eco system developed slowly and changes must take place slowly. That's why it's so difficult to convert old style fishkeepers to modern fishkeepers. Too many have already been burned by modern fishkeepers advice (although they meant well)

 

[FishBlast]

It seems like nature finds a way to balance things out. A perfect balance would be plants + fish + light + warmth. Pretty much everything that can be found in nature.
If no plants available, maybe algae takes their place and there still is an ecosystem formed.

 

[Memz]

It's interesting isn't it? My Mum's next door neighbour used to have a 5 foot tank and I'm certain he never did regular w/c's either. But to me, the whole husbandry of cleaning and maintaining my tank is what makes keeping fish a hobby and interesting. I don't think this gentleman probably ever looks at his fish, the tank is just there chugging along. Drobbyb, with what you say in mind, will his 18 monthly w/c actually make them feel pretty awful for a while too?

It's almost ironic then that if you can't be bothered anymore and secretly hope they'll just die if you neglect them, that they'll just keep on going!!! KISSfn, why doesn't your mate just give them back to his lfs and give his tank to ME??

 

[FishBlast]

It's interesting isn't it? My Mum's next door neighbour used to have a 5 foot tank and I'm certain he never did regular w/c's either. But to me, the whole husbandry of cleaning and maintaining my tank is what makes keeping fish a hobby and interesting. I don't think this gentleman probably ever looks at his fish, the tank is just there chugging along. Drobbyb, with what you say in mind, will his 18 monthly w/c actually make them feel pretty awful for a while too?

It's almost ironic then that if you can't be bothered anymore and secretly hope they'll just die if you neglect them, that they'll just keep on going!!! KISSfn, why doesn't your mate just give them back to his lfs and give his tank to ME??

That's the funny part of life. When you want something extremely bad, you most likely may either never get that something, or get it for a higher price. And when you don't want or don't need that something, it either just piles up on you or it's so cheap that you start hating yourself for not waiting to buy it later. LOL.

 

[KISSfn]

It's almost ironic then that if you can't be bothered anymore and secretly hope they'll just die if you neglect them, that they'll just keep on going!!! KISSfn, why doesn't your mate just give them back to his lfs and give his tank to ME??

Fly on over to Texas and it's yours!

 

[drobbyb]

It's interesting isn't it? My Mum's next door neighbour used to have a 5 foot tank and I'm certain he never did regular w/c's either. But to me, the whole husbandry of cleaning and maintaining my tank is what makes keeping fish a hobby and interesting. I don't think this gentleman probably ever looks at his fish, the tank is just there chugging along. Drobbyb, with what you say in mind, will his 18 monthly w/c actually make them feel pretty awful for a while too?

It's almost ironic then that if you can't be bothered anymore and secretly hope they'll just die if you neglect them, that they'll just keep on going!!! KISSfn, why doesn't your mate just give them back to his lfs and give his tank to ME??

I'm sure that if he does a 50% water change every 18 months his stock will feel pretty horrible for a while. Depending on if he has an under gravel filter and does a gravel vacuum, this might not have as big of an impact as you might think though. Often people who use an under gravel filter don't gravel vacuum due to the risk of messing with their bacteria colonies. This can allow for the accumulation of lots of stuff in the gravel which can hold lots of waste. Even with a large water change, this only removes a small percentage of the total waste in the tank. Soon after the water is changed, the waste in the gravel spreads to the new water. Don't get me wrong though, the fish still have to put up with the clean water for a little while. At least that is my theory.

 

[tmiller]

My dad has one of these mystery tanks... Two geriatric Oscar and a almost as old unidentifiable to me 7-8 inch cat, He follows the same keeping routine he learned in the70's.
He swears the fish are all over15 now. I don't argue as I remember these fish from way back.
He was over today to have me tune his chainsaw.. While checking out my tanks he commented..nice and clear, you using charcoal?"
I replied,"No", and proceeded to explain my cycle, weekly changes and how to fish less cycle...
He blurted"your gonna kill em all, your water will be all wrong".
Rather than explain that the water itself isn't my main concern but rather a properly cycled filter to facilitate the proper conditions I ran a full test on my most mature tank and replied after.. " Dad, your way works for you, I respect that. But as you can see ......
The conversation lasted more than 2 hours.
He is Not converted, and I respect that
He did agree however to let me come over and test his water, I am so curious as to what the results will be.

 

[Aquamaniac]

This will be interesting. Please update on the outcome of those tests.