Kirianna
New Member
Hi,
First, a quick intro: I'm a 35 year old work-from-home mom to four kids. The youngest turned 3 at the end of March.
As with most kids in his age range, he fell in love with Finding Nemo. Fish fish fish was all he could talk about. Santa gave him a big stuffed Nemo for Christmas which he adores. He squealed with delight when we bought a fishy shower curtain. This kid adores fish.
So, for his third birthday, we decided instead of getting him toys he'd probably not touch in six months, we'd get him a goldfish he could care for. Well, when we got to the pet store, the big tanks with all the neat fish, coupled with his exitedness and his big wonderous eyes, we decided to get a bit more. We ended up spending a ton more money than we had planned: a 10 gallon tank with a whisper filter and seven new fish, which included 3 mollies, a chinese algae eater, and an angelfish.
Since we had no clue what we were doing, we called some friends who had a few tanks to help us set everything up. They brought us an under-gravel filter and then told us we should've waited to get the fish till we got our tank stabalized. Something the pet store person neglected to share even though I asked tons of questions.
We got our tank set up and the fish in it by that evening but the next day the tank was cloudy as all heck. Thinking we needed to do something we went back to the pet store and was sold a Profile Powerhead 600.
Two months later, all but the angelfish and algea eater had died. So we went to a different pet store and bought more fish this week, including two neons, one which died the next day, a swordtail, a blue gourami.
Now that I've found these forums and have been reading, I realize we've probably made every newbie mistake there could ever be! But, I won't beat myself up over it and will try to learn from it.
Every day my son can't wait to feed his fish. He watches them a lot and has named the angel, "Dory" and the algea eater "Shark". I do not regret making the decision to get this for him but would like to do this right.
What prompted me to go searching for more information today was the fact that when we bought the new fish, the pet store person told me angelfish do better in pairs. So we got another one. It died before we got it home. So we took it back and exchanged it, but the new one was sideways by the time we got it home, then died this morning. I called them quite upset. They of course want samples of my tank.. but the first angelfish never made it to our tank, and the second was looking bad before we got in into the tank.
I bought a test kit and the amonia levels according to the chart were low but detectable, as well as the nitrite levels. But, being a total newbie, I'm not entirely sure what to do. When we bought these new fish, somehow we managed to spend $80 on products to "improve" our tank.
Before I went back to the pet store to exchange this next angel today, I decided to try to figure some stuff out on my own and that's how I found these boards.
Now that I've spent the entire morning reading about everything we've done wrong, I'm not really sure what to do. If I should exchange the angel, or get my money back and work on stabalizing my tank.
If you read all this, wow! Sorry for being so long-winded. I hope to learn much more from these forums and improve the quality of our tank so my son doesn't have to keep being sad when one of his fish dies. (Hard lesson for a 3 year old and while I don't regret getting him these fish, I do wish I had taken the steps to be more informed before diving into this.)
Thanks!
~Kirianna
First, a quick intro: I'm a 35 year old work-from-home mom to four kids. The youngest turned 3 at the end of March.
As with most kids in his age range, he fell in love with Finding Nemo. Fish fish fish was all he could talk about. Santa gave him a big stuffed Nemo for Christmas which he adores. He squealed with delight when we bought a fishy shower curtain. This kid adores fish.
So, for his third birthday, we decided instead of getting him toys he'd probably not touch in six months, we'd get him a goldfish he could care for. Well, when we got to the pet store, the big tanks with all the neat fish, coupled with his exitedness and his big wonderous eyes, we decided to get a bit more. We ended up spending a ton more money than we had planned: a 10 gallon tank with a whisper filter and seven new fish, which included 3 mollies, a chinese algae eater, and an angelfish.
Since we had no clue what we were doing, we called some friends who had a few tanks to help us set everything up. They brought us an under-gravel filter and then told us we should've waited to get the fish till we got our tank stabalized. Something the pet store person neglected to share even though I asked tons of questions.
We got our tank set up and the fish in it by that evening but the next day the tank was cloudy as all heck. Thinking we needed to do something we went back to the pet store and was sold a Profile Powerhead 600.
Two months later, all but the angelfish and algea eater had died. So we went to a different pet store and bought more fish this week, including two neons, one which died the next day, a swordtail, a blue gourami.
Now that I've found these forums and have been reading, I realize we've probably made every newbie mistake there could ever be! But, I won't beat myself up over it and will try to learn from it.
Every day my son can't wait to feed his fish. He watches them a lot and has named the angel, "Dory" and the algea eater "Shark". I do not regret making the decision to get this for him but would like to do this right.
What prompted me to go searching for more information today was the fact that when we bought the new fish, the pet store person told me angelfish do better in pairs. So we got another one. It died before we got it home. So we took it back and exchanged it, but the new one was sideways by the time we got it home, then died this morning. I called them quite upset. They of course want samples of my tank.. but the first angelfish never made it to our tank, and the second was looking bad before we got in into the tank.
I bought a test kit and the amonia levels according to the chart were low but detectable, as well as the nitrite levels. But, being a total newbie, I'm not entirely sure what to do. When we bought these new fish, somehow we managed to spend $80 on products to "improve" our tank.
Before I went back to the pet store to exchange this next angel today, I decided to try to figure some stuff out on my own and that's how I found these boards.
Now that I've spent the entire morning reading about everything we've done wrong, I'm not really sure what to do. If I should exchange the angel, or get my money back and work on stabalizing my tank.
If you read all this, wow! Sorry for being so long-winded. I hope to learn much more from these forums and improve the quality of our tank so my son doesn't have to keep being sad when one of his fish dies. (Hard lesson for a 3 year old and while I don't regret getting him these fish, I do wish I had taken the steps to be more informed before diving into this.)
Thanks!
~Kirianna
Glad to hear you havent given up on fishkeeping. We all learn from our mistakes. Im sure you will learn tons here, and you will find hours of enjoyment from your fish.
To the forum.
Angelfish require a minumin of 18 inches deep in order to grow properly because they grow to be HUGE fish! There are a lot of angelfish experts here, but my main category is livbearers! 
/liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?...d=21&pCatId=879
