Okay... Time To Fess Up... :)

[This Old Spouse]

Ah. Just wondering about that common pleco.

 

[thorsw]

Yeah, I gathered. The tank I mentioned in the other post was given to me by a family who had kept the common pleco in that 54 litre tank for about 6 years. As a result, it is extremely stunted at only 6 inches, so it thankfully has enough room in my 200 litre tank. I would otherwise rehome it but it seems to be happy and healthy.

 

[Baccus]

When I first had a tank as a kid/ teenager I used to clean the tank once a month, and I mean clean. The tank got stripped down all the gravel thourghly washed and the algea all scrubbed off the glass. I guess the two saving factors for my fish was that I had some life plants in the tank and an old air driven sponge filter. Since there where no pet shops where I lived (closest was 2 1/2hrs away) I used to just rinse out the filter fibre and reuse it over and over again. I guess being a broke kid and not having equipment readily available made me keep a cycled filter without realising it.
Thankfully even as a kid I was very aware of friendly and nonfriendly fish so the worst mistake I made in stocking was putting some comets in with neon tetras and a pair of dwarf gouramis. Amazingly the comets bred in the tank, even though it was not suited at all to them. I also kept only one albino cory for years she got really large and used to love eating earthworms from my hands.
 
Not really a mistake but an interesting side note in all this learning. I always kept the mucky/ gungy water from my tank (eventually 3 tanks) for my Mum to put on her orchids and gardens. Needless to say her  plants thrived on this instant liquid gold fertilizer.

 

[Joshwainwright]

Not really a mistake but an interesting side note in all this learning. I always kept the mucky/ gungy water from my tank (eventually 3 tanks) for my Mum to put on her orchids and gardens. Needless to say her  plants thrived on this instant liquid gold fertilizer.

Sounds like a good way of talking her in to letting you get more tanks

 

[Baccus]

Not really a mistake but an interesting side note in all this learning. I always kept the mucky/ gungy water from my tank (eventually 3 tanks) for my Mum to put on her orchids and gardens. Needless to say her  plants thrived on this instant liquid gold fertilizer.

Sounds like a good way of talking her in to letting you get more tanks

 
Shame now its not my Mum and Dad who have to give consent but a Husband who only likes his guppies and is threatening reclaiming one of the tanks back for selective breeding projects. But I guess out of 8 tanks I have pretty much comandered all of them for my catfish, loaches, native fish, shrimp and soon to be aquatic native freshwater crabs.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I think you should start a journal about your crabs. 

 

[Baccus]

I think you should start a journal about your crabs. 

 

 

 , sorry reminded me of a thread on an Australian site where the supplier of these purple native crabs got a good natured and funny ribbing from members about "his crabs"

  .
 
But rest assured that if I bring some of these little wonders home with me from my trip up North they will be added to the inverts section.

 

[This Old Spouse]

I worded it that way on purpose! I used to get all sorts of grief when I talked about my crabs! I'm serious about the journal, though. I think they're wonderful little creatures.

Not really a mistake but an interesting side note in all this learning. I always kept the mucky/ gungy water from my tank (eventually 3 tanks) for my Mum to put on her orchids and gardens. Needless to say her  plants thrived on this instant liquid gold fertilizer.

I always fill up jugs with the old tank water, and that's what I use to water my houseplants! They love it and it's F.R.E.E.

 

[Baccus]

The only real worry I have about these crabs is that they are escape artists in the finest order, but they are reportedly fish safe to a degree and they can be bred in home aquariums successfully so that is another bonus to getting them.
 
And yep the plants really do love the fishy water, as do my cats and dogs.

 

[Joshwainwright]

I think a new title will be in order, "I have crabs"

 

[coolie]

I think a new title will be in order, "I have crabs"

 
 
Oh no, don't. Someone's already started one this morning, "I have a fungal infection."

 

[dgwebster]

lets see:
 
fishless cycled my tank properly, the assistant in the (reputable) LFS didn't understand and wouldn't sell me the full stock in one go. I wasn't pushy enough to force it (in part because their tanks were extremely high quality and I wanted future service)
 
added 50% water change cold water WAAAYY too fast on my first hosepipe method, stunning many of the fish (none died though)
 
dropped a full, just opened bottle of dechlorinator into the tank.
 
purchased fish from pets @ home and didn't quarantine them. lost half my tank. B&M 10L quarantine tank with heater & sponge filter now exclusively used for new fish. When empty and not in use, the sponge is binned and new bit propagated in the external filter for next time.
 
bought "glass/ghost shrimp" from a LFS, turned out to be red clawed macros. yummy.

 

[KirkyArcher]

Didn't think I had anything to record on this thread till about 50 mins ago, Was midway in changing my mix in the Co2 reactor when the phone rang, I'm expecting delivery of my new car any day soon, so I dropped everything to answer, wasn't anything to do with the car, so I got on with the job of measuring and mixing and filled the bottle ready to take up stairs and thought I'd have a cuppa before I re-connected it, tea drank I went up stairs and could hear loud water flow from the filter outlet, I'd only managed to leave the Co2 line in the water and 26 litres of water was now on the bedroom floor, fortunately I have a VAX and got about 18 of the lost 26 litres out of the carpet.  Never thought I'd be so careless and as I'm usually quite vigilant which is why I never bothered with a non return valve, which is exactly what I'll be buying on my next LFS visit. 

 

[This Old Spouse]

LOL ... that was the FIRST thing on my list! Mainly because I'm prone to doing something like that  ...

 

[Joshwainwright]

I'd only managed to leave the Co2 line in the water and 26 litres of water was now on the bedroom floor

I did a similar thing earlier too! It was while I was waiting for my new plants to come but it was actually the delivery man at the door.
 
I was siphoning a bit of mess from the bottom of the tank before the new plants would make it difficult and I thought it would be fine to leave it for a few second while I answered the door. Of course though, the pipe came out of the bucket and I return to water all over. Not so much as you did though!