Alien Anna
Fish Gatherer
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2002
- Messages
- 2,087
- Reaction score
- 2
Hi Everyone,
just thought I'd put all my thoughts into one post so at least I've got it off my chest. From my own experiences and those of my friends, here's some things you don't want to do when you start out:
1. Don't clean out your filters in tap water (it'll kill the beneficial bacteria).
2. Don't buy a Chinese Algae Eater aka "sucking loach", "golden loach", "Chinese sucking loach", "Golden Algae Eater" etc. as it'll grow big, aggressive and will soon give up algae for a diet of other fish's slime coat and eye-balls.
3. Don't forget to check out your fish's adult size before you buy - you don't want a 20" common pleco in an 18" tank!
4. Don't trust anyone who works in a fish shop until they've proven themselves expert (that should be "Don't" No.1 ). Our experience is that they will lie, blag, exaggerate, mislead and mask complete and total ignorance with unwaranted self-confidence.
5. Don't buy a Common Pleco unless you can accommodate a 20" monster who requires heavy-duty filtration.
6. Don't over-clean your gravel - that's where all your beneficial bacteria hang out.
7. Don't touch your pH. You don't know what you're doing and it's a very hairy process in the hands of an expert, let alone a beginner. The chemistry is extremly complex and pH modifying products usually fill your tank full of algae-enhancing phosphates. Fish rarely die from an inappropriate pH - that's usually an excuse because LFS employees don't understand about cycling (check out my sig if you haven't done so already).
8. Don't mis-spell "Nitrite". It's nitrite - the poisonous stuff in a cycling tank, not "Nitrate", the stuff plants use as fertiliser. One vowel could mean life or death for your fish!
9. Don't put an angelfish in a 10 gallon tank or any tank less than 18" deep unless you want it to impersonate "Jaws" with one fin out of the water! And don't ever keep angelfish with neon tetras - neons are their natural diet in the wild and will get eaten (it's not if, it's when). If you can train angelfish not to eat neons, for your next trick you could train tigers to eat salad.
10. Don't buy a silver shark unless you have an enormous tank and can keep a group of 13" fish that need a lot of swimming room.
11. Don't keep a male betta with guppies, or angelfish, or tiger barbs, or particularly another betta. In fact, be very careful indeed about what you put with a betta.
12. Don't put salt with corys, plecos or loaches as it'll burn their skin.
That's a dozen for now but if you want to argue with me or make further suggestions, please feel free.
just thought I'd put all my thoughts into one post so at least I've got it off my chest. From my own experiences and those of my friends, here's some things you don't want to do when you start out:
1. Don't clean out your filters in tap water (it'll kill the beneficial bacteria).
2. Don't buy a Chinese Algae Eater aka "sucking loach", "golden loach", "Chinese sucking loach", "Golden Algae Eater" etc. as it'll grow big, aggressive and will soon give up algae for a diet of other fish's slime coat and eye-balls.
3. Don't forget to check out your fish's adult size before you buy - you don't want a 20" common pleco in an 18" tank!
4. Don't trust anyone who works in a fish shop until they've proven themselves expert (that should be "Don't" No.1 ). Our experience is that they will lie, blag, exaggerate, mislead and mask complete and total ignorance with unwaranted self-confidence.
5. Don't buy a Common Pleco unless you can accommodate a 20" monster who requires heavy-duty filtration.
6. Don't over-clean your gravel - that's where all your beneficial bacteria hang out.
7. Don't touch your pH. You don't know what you're doing and it's a very hairy process in the hands of an expert, let alone a beginner. The chemistry is extremly complex and pH modifying products usually fill your tank full of algae-enhancing phosphates. Fish rarely die from an inappropriate pH - that's usually an excuse because LFS employees don't understand about cycling (check out my sig if you haven't done so already).
8. Don't mis-spell "Nitrite". It's nitrite - the poisonous stuff in a cycling tank, not "Nitrate", the stuff plants use as fertiliser. One vowel could mean life or death for your fish!
9. Don't put an angelfish in a 10 gallon tank or any tank less than 18" deep unless you want it to impersonate "Jaws" with one fin out of the water! And don't ever keep angelfish with neon tetras - neons are their natural diet in the wild and will get eaten (it's not if, it's when). If you can train angelfish not to eat neons, for your next trick you could train tigers to eat salad.
10. Don't buy a silver shark unless you have an enormous tank and can keep a group of 13" fish that need a lot of swimming room.
11. Don't keep a male betta with guppies, or angelfish, or tiger barbs, or particularly another betta. In fact, be very careful indeed about what you put with a betta.
12. Don't put salt with corys, plecos or loaches as it'll burn their skin.
That's a dozen for now but if you want to argue with me or make further suggestions, please feel free.
But, just like cat and dog owners, you must know your limits. Better to have one Chiwawa (sp) in a small apartment, that a gaggle of dobermins.
