Worst Way You Have Ever Kept Fish

[snazy]

I was wondering whether anyone still remembers their first days of fish keeping when you didn't know any better and kept fish in conditions that seem beyond cruel these days.

I'll start with my story:


Well, not all of us started when we were grown up or there was any internet to get advice from. When I was a kid, about 25 years ago I kept trying to save the carp my mother bought alive from the food fish store for dinner. These kept dying of course as I was trying them in a bucket of water in the bathroom

One day my family and friends went fishing and they took us, the kids with them. They first caught live bait fish straight from the river. I remember they somehow got it from under the river stones. I never found out what type of fish these were, but it looked like a snake, something between a loach and a catfish. I begged to save one of them even though everyone was telling me it would die, but after a whole day staying in a jar I finally brought my new fish home and put him in a bigger jar . I of course never thought it would survive, same as the carp, but I was really wanting to try. My father made for me a fish tank eventually, no lid, no nothing.
So he got his new home. I put just a cave for him to hide and a few stones without gravel as I figured it would be easier to emtpy it out when doing water changes

This fish lived for over 5 years and my mother killed it one day by overfeeding while I was on summer camp(she told me she gave him some bread crumbs I had never dechlorinated the water, but I knew that much to let it sit in a bucket. I used to feed it every other day with dried water lice(The local LFS my mother brought me to had 3 tanks the most, all guppies(which was my next fish love), and from what I remember they barely sold any other type of food or at least that's what they gave me at the time)

That fish must have gone through a hell lot of ammonia/nitrites but I didn't know any better at that time. I am still wondering how it survived, but I remember that I was too lazy to clean the tank glass and it was always very slimy/slippery so I wonder if that may have been bacteria...

I got to learn bit by bit eventually but this is still my favourite fish I ever kept. It was quite smart. It actually recognized family members and would hide in his cave if there was anyone else besides us in the sitting room, absolutely everytime. It was quite funny to see him running to his hiding hole the moment a neighbour or family friend opened the sitting room door.

I am trying to remember the colouring, but all it comes up now is grey snake looking body similar to the kuhli loaches, black spots and no moustaches.

So if anyone wants a hardy fish, you can figure this one out for me

 

[Cazgar]

My first fish memory is of 3 fancy goldfish, a black moor & 2 orandas.
They were in what was then a trendy tank, blue plastic with a curved front that magnified the fish.
It must've been about 10 gallons.
They were fed when we remembered to feed them, & I can't remember ever dechlorinating or doing water changes until the tank was so dirty we couldn't see them..
They only lived a couple of years

 

[Crossfire]

I had two glofish and one oto in a 2.5 gallon, no heater, uncycled, i overfed, cleaned water every 2 months, cleaned filter with tap water. The survivor, the yellow glofish Mr.Fishy, is currently enjoying retirement in a 20 gallon, heated, filtered, cycled, planted tank

 

[Dieses Madchen]

When I first started a year ago, I thought it was as easy as adding water. No dechlorinator, not cycled, and 10g stocked with 3 bala sharks and 2 powder blue gouramis and a common pleco.

 

[StandbySetting]

On the barbecue.

 

[Fishy friend2]

I added 1 Betta to a 1/2 gallon bowl, years ago, with water changes only like once a month. And at least once a week the cat fished him out of is bowl

 

[FishBlast]

If you think those were worst, my fish probably went through worse while I was a kid.

First ever fish I had were four guppies, 2 males and 2 females if I remember right. I was only 5 years old back then so I had no idea what aquarium fish were like or how to keep them.
The one who gave me the guppies gave them with a tiny tank. Poor guppies were pretty crammed in there, no wonder one of them jumped out. I found her and put her back in anyway and she survived. Then my mom had the stupid idea to wash a crystal rock with soap and put it in the tank... within hours, all 4 fish were upside down. All she could tell me was "Oops, looks like I didn't wash the soap properly off the rock."

Later on, at the age of 7, I received an aquarium full of different kinds of fish, including a HUMONGOUS Betta that would bite the tips of my fingers whenever I put my hand in the water. Well, that huge one was the first to die. I had no idea what an "overcrowded aquarium" meant. And neither did the former owner.
The tank was probably a 40-50L but here's what lived in it besides the giant Betta:
About 6 swordtails (adult) 2 males and 4 females.
Some tiny angelfish.
Some odd golden flat fish with a black spot on their tail that were quite small.
Zebra Danios.
Some small flat silver fish with a large black fin on the back.
4 bettas (adult) 2 males, 2 females.
Countless adult guppies out of which most were females.

Here comes the disaster:
I don't know HOW they survived for many years, but the drama that went down in there was indescribable.
First, the Betta team chose to eat the eyes of all my Zebra Danios and to much on my guppies eyes too, and not sure if they ate a female swordtail's eyes, I don't quite remember.
I put the bettas aside in another aquarium. A pair of them died and the other spawned eggs but they were not viable. They died later on too.

The remaining fish survived till like 1999 when stuff started to go even worse downhill. I had no more Zebra Danios as bettas killed those. The angelfish also died. Summer came, the heat caused all the golden fish (not goldfish) to die one by one and the silver fish too.
Only survivors were 2 Xipho males (one red another black) and 3 females (red one, transparent one and black one) and a few guppy pairs.

Later on, dad bought me a pair of Hoplo catfish (tiny ones) and a Fossilis. They all grew up and the Hoplos proved to be useful not only for cleaning the tank, but as babysitters too. They saved a lot of Xipho and Guppy fry. They are adorable and I still have one left till this day (he's over 8 years old)
The Fossilis... well... she had a sad story and I'm to blame of it. Being a kid, I had no idea what that fish was and it kept stinging me every time I had to change the water. One day I got mad and dropped her in front of the cat... and gone it was. Well, it would have had a worse life once it grew, I found out barely now just how big those fish grow! O.O

After one new generation of Xiphos and 3 generations of Guppies, leaving my dad to take care of fish resulted in me coming home after a few weeks to find out that... they were mostly gone and I was left with only a few guppy females and males, one Xipho male and the 2 Hoplos. Not to mention it took a lot of time to get that huge tank clean...
Somehow I ended up with 2 Endler hybrids in a tank that was guppy only for those 3 generations, with no new females introduced.

Another year passed and my last 2 guppies, two males, died. I was left with one Xipho male and 2 Hoplos but not the same I started with. I've had 5 Hoplos (but somehow 2 at a time across the years): Rex, Moustache, Bitza, Seadra and Tzuppy.
Several times I've gathered tiny fish from the lake (some were awesome, acting like a prism in the sun and shining in all 7 colors of the rainbow) and others were carps. One carp I have acquired by saving him or her from becoming a dinner for me. I saw it moving in the mass of dead fish in a bag of fish that dad caught. Named that one Whale, as it was the largest wild fish I ever had. Dad bought me a bunch of goldfish too (out of which one was a black moor, 2 were silver fantails and one golden fantail).

I thought that the Xipho male would need a female, but after a while of sitting in the aquarium, the female I bought turned into a male and trolled the initial male big time. -.- She (he?) probably killed the male, as I found him dead. The one that looked like a hermaphrodite died last after all my goldfish died.

In 2009 I was left with 2 Hoplos and 1 carp. Carp died, then in 2010 my other Hoplo died. Mom replaced my big tank with a smaller one because I was left with only one fish until now.
I am now left with Tzuppy and a trio of swordtails that I've bought recently (one red-albino female, 1 black female that's currently sick and one black male).

To make it all worse, I found out about the concept of tank cycling and filter proper use barely now, in 2012, after years of washing my tanks and changing water 100% while moving fish around during water changing time. I also found out about needing a larger tank, as I currently have a 23L one, will gather money to buy a 43L or so tank to host my current 4 fish. All this AFTER buying the swordtails. So barely now I'm taking fishkeeping more seriously (though my mom keeps holding me back with restrictions on what tank to get).

To get a general idea of the disaster:

 

[snazy]

When I first started a year ago, I thought it was as easy as adding water. No dechlorinator, not cycled, and 10g stocked with 3 bala sharks and 2 powder blue gouramis and a common pleco.

That is some stocking for a 10G

My parents would not buy fish or any animal for me, so that's what had saved me from adding more trophies to that tank. And when I started with guppies I didn't know why the babies kept disappearing. It never crossed my mind a parent would eat their babies so I had little survivors

I did get hold of a pair of hamsters one day. Hamsters breed like rabbits, or no, my bad... they breed like rats I ended up with 30-ish hamsters at any one time for years along with the fish. At some stage I had a fish tank full of hamsters and several buckets with also 2-3 hamsters in each one of them
I didn't manage to get fish survive in a bucket, but hamsters in a fish tank is no problem

 

[shelaghfishface]

trifle dish full of goldies

.... dont look at me like that! we've all done it

 

[FishBlast]

trifle dish full of goldies

.... dont look at me like that! we've all done it

^ ?

 

[Man of fish]

I put a turtle that my friends and I caught at a lake when we were 8 in a bucket prolly only 1/2 gallon and very tall. Then I moved him to a about 1-1 1/2 gallon treasure chest thing, in tap water and one day I didn't lock the lid tight enough and he ran away. I'll never forget Johnny.
Then we went and caught a new one. we didn't learn did we.

 

[FishBlast]

I put a turtle that my friends and I caught at a lake when we were 8 in a bucket prolly only 1/2 gallon and very tall. Then I moved him to a about 1-1 1/2 gallon treasure chest thing, in tap water and one day I didn't lock the lid tight enough and he ran away. I'll never forget Johnny.
Then we went and caught a new one. we didn't learn did we.

I think I'm in a worse situation than that right now. I have an Emys Orbicularis (turtle that grows here like mushrooms after rain). It's as big as my palm and she has an artificial pond in my room that she enters/gets out of at will but it's kind of small (about six turtles of her size can be fit in it on its length/width), thinking of getting a bigger and deeper one, she grew bigger this year. She roams the house at will and I feed her grilled chicken and baked fish.
*hides*

 

[Man of fish]

Our turtle was about palm sized or about 6" x 4" and the bucket was about 6" x 6" x 12" and the chest was about 10" x 5" x 3-4"

 

[garyspence84]

My 1st tank was a tiny 1ft long shoe box lookin thing. cycle took all of about 2 days and had no idea about what fish to keep in together. I bought about 40 neons, plattys, guppys. very crowded...... then i got a fire mouth that was about 4inch long, that ate EVERY SINGLE LAST FISH in the tank........ then died

Glad they days are over

 

[FishBlast]

Our turtle was about palm sized or about 6" x 4" and the bucket was about 6" x 6" x 12" and the chest was about 10" x 5" x 3-4"

I keep wondering whether my turtle would like more water or just enough water to cover her up while eating, as most of her time is spent walking through the house and exploring, she only goes to the water while hungry. During winter she will never stay in the water even with a heater in it and refuses to eat. But March is coming soon and she'll go Turtlezilla on me when she'll smell grilled chicken.

She usually hides in dark places of the house during winter but she will go to drink water so I make sure she has fresh water to drink whenever she comes out from hiding.


Long ago before actually buying a turtle, I found this giant one in the lake, couldn't even lift it to bring it home so I gave up and let it slide back into the water lol. It was coming at me while I was near the lake, that's why I caught it. It was probably 20 cm long/15 cm wide.
My current pet turtle is 13 cm long and 10 cm wide.

My 1st tank was a tiny 1ft long shoe box lookin thing. cycle took all of about 2 days and had no idea about what fish to keep in together. I bought about 40 neons, plattys, guppys. very crowded...... then i got a fire mouth that was about 4inch long, that ate EVERY SINGLE LAST FISH in the tank........ then died

Glad they days are over

That must have been like the movie Jaws for them...