Any Fresh Water Fish keepers here? Please Vent!!!

I'm so mad at myself right now. I have a couple of tanks right now. One's a 55 gallon with goldfish and the other is a 30 with tropicals. Well anyway, I'm, doing my bi-weekly water change, I usually do a 50% on the goldies and a 20% on my tropical. While I'm doing my 55, I break my StressCoat (dechlorinator with aloe) bottle top. So I finish up my 55 and put a little sxtra Stresscoat in the tank.

I go over to my 30 that has my tropicals in it. Its a well established tank. It has 2 veyr large angels (I've had 1 for 3 years now and the other for 2) and my favorite fish in the world, Old Red Ass. He's a redtail shark that I have had since I first cycled this tank. I also have an albino clawed frog, 4 serpea tetras, and 3 clown loaches. Its a great tank with lots of live plants like Java fern and moss. So I have all this extra Stress Coat and when I put in my fresh water I over treat it.

The fish seemed fine that night (I had gone out and got a little baby angel to replace another large one I lost a week ago, the one I lost I had for 2 years). This morning before work, Old Red Ass is boobs up floating while my Angels look like stir fried poop. I could have killed myself. I got home after work and did a 50% water change just hoping and praying i don't lose my loaches or my new baby angel.

So has something like this ever happened to you? Have you destroyed a self contained enviroment that you were responsible for? I've lost many fish in my lifetime (I was a pet store manager before I left for the military and I use to work in a fresh and saltwater wholeseller in Atlanta) but this one hurt the most. :wall::wall::wall:

Damn man, sorry about your pets. I've never kept anything more advanced than a few goldfish when I was a kid (fish-wise), but I've heard horror stories from friends about how hard it can be to keep an aquatic environment, esp. for some of the most exotic species.

I don't have anything really exotic, but I do love to care for the little scaley fellas. The coolest fish I ever had was an African lung fish. This guys would eat freezedried cubed tubaflex worms right out of my hands. He didn't die in my care, I gave him to the Atlanta Zoo a long time ago. I always wondered how long he lived after I donated him. The hardest tank I ever kept was a 30 gallon saltwater that I set up for my folks back when I worked at the pet store. It had blue damsels, clown fish, a yellow tang. But to keep the balance was so hard especially in such a small tank. If you go salt, you need to go big. That was my lesson on that. I won't do salt again because most of the fish are caught and the destruction of their habitats makes me sick to my stomach, especially the live rock gathering.

I fogot about the little 2 and a half gallon tank in my Daughters room. It has a betta in it. He's a pretty one. :2thumbsup:

Ow! I can feel it from here, you must have been horribly gutted. Here's hoping the water-change will save the rest.

It's years, no decades, since I had any fish, and not quite on the same scale. I went for fresh-water tropicals, but nothing too exotic. As a teenager I didn't have much of a budget, so it was mostly the standard favourites - mollies, swordtails, guppies and tetras - I really loved the various tetras. And a bunch of coolie loaches and tiny catfish for doing the housework ~D

I never went for a saltwater tank, one of our neighbours had one, and it was a huge amount of work in comparison, not something for the teenage attention span, though I admired his collection greatly (though now I'd rather strap a tank on my back and go see the critters in their own home :2thumbsup:).

Our local "store" was a guy in the next village along who'd managed to expand from a tank or two of his own, filled up his garage, then added a couple of sheds, all hidden away in his back garden. It was a great weekend treat to have (a) space in the tank, (b) a bit of money, to go along into this steaming tropical paradise. Also really handy to have someone experienced who'd seen it all before as well, when things were looking a bit dodgy.

I don't think I ever did anything quite so drastic as over-medicating them, but I do recall one occasion introducing some new species that wasn't quite so community-friendly and lost a few old favourites before I quarantined the carnivore. Then there's all the usual problems - sticking thermostats, sudden leaks.... it takes me back.

In the end I stopped as I went off to Uni, couldn't look after them well enough in the time I had, and was also beginning to recognise the less pleasant aspects of the trade - wild collecting etc. But I still miss the little critters, especially the feeding frenzy when there's some live water fleas for them :beam:

That's a hell of a loss. All that work and investment to be gone so quickly. Luckily my fish decide to die around the time I move anyway so it's not such a loss. Remember all the things you did right and don't let it make you give up.

I've kept tropicals in the past and never had many problems, then when I moved and set up another aquarium I fought a constant battle with algae. No idea why but just could not get rid of it (it was that horrible stuff that coats everything like wax) Eventually I gave up on the aquarium.
I've always had ponds too and this is where my sad tale starts. At the end of the season, around October when the biological part of the filter stops working, I am aware that I must be vigilant with water tests, cleaning the filter and removing decaying plantlife. This is a must when keeping Koi as they react so much quicker to adverse conditions than goldfish, to the point you can lose fish overnight. Some particularly bad weather plus busy with other things caused me to postpone pond upkeep. Only a few days it was and it cost me my Kohaku, a beautiful fish that weighed four and a half pounds

........Orda

Orda, man I love Koi!!! One day I want to do a pond but I just don't have the space in my yard.:furious3:

Yes, they are great fun to keep. My current stock I have had for about 10 years, I am down to 6 in my main pond, they've grown too big to add any more.


My largest is a Tansho Goshiki that was a tiddler of around 2" when I bought it. It out grew and overtook the rest and is now about 2ft long. But my pride and joy is my Chagoi. He has a scar on his side that would indicate an ulcer or similar at some stage, one pelvic fin is smaller but he is the friendliest of the lot. Since day one I've been able to hand feed him and tickle his belly.

https://img366.imageshack.us/img366/1100/koied1.th.jpg
Tansho Goshiki is centre, Chagoi is to the left and above him is the Kohaku I lost. The Showa, bottom right looks larger than it is

.......Orda

They are amazing!!! Is it true that Koi often outlive their caretakers? I love going to the St Louis Botanical Gardens in the Japanese Garden and seeing their Koi. They are huge. Man, I've got to get a pond going.

What is the size ratio (gallons per fish) that you use for your Koi?

That pond is not that big at all, in fact I wish it was twice the size but my garden is on a fair slope. If I extended it further, the retaining wall would be at least five feet tall. It holds about 2000 (imperial) gallons that are pumped through a five bay, home made filter system. I am not a lover of the usual plantless ponds normally associated with Koi and my pond has plants (not really a good idea but, that's me) They offer some shelter for the fish ... and food! My Koi seem to enjoy eating the water lily.
Construction wise, mine is part sunken and part raised. I dug out footings and blocked up with concrete blocks, laid flat, so that house side it is about a foot higher than the yard. As I go down steps at the side of the pond and the garden slopes away, the wall is about three feet tall. Inside, I dug down a further two feet to get a water depth of five feet.
I have six Koi ranging from a foot to two feet in length and there is no room for any more. I do have another, larger pond containing two smaller Koi but as yet I've not gone to the expense of pump, uv clarifier and filters with that one. That is more of a natural pond but my wife has mentioned adding a waterfall and stuff so it may develop a bit soon.
The most important consideration is the filter system, the larger the better. You should be aiming at a third of the pond volume, larger if possible

......Orda

Today I found my Showa (bottom right in the photo) dead....15 inches long, 3lbs in weight. Water is ok, no apparent reason as the other fish don't seem stressed. What a kick in the guts :(

.......Orda

Sorry my friend, I hate to hear you lost such a great fish. I have a sick goldfish right now that I've had for a couple of years. I just know he's on his last gill. :furious3:
My tropicals are doing great though. I put in a coupl of baby angels and added some more clown loaches. I love these guys.

My wife gave me the "Don't even think about it" look when I suggested a pond. :wall:

Sorry to hear of your loss. I keep tropical fresh water fish (just one tank), and love them to bits. A few years back now, I decided to use some special medication for them (can't remember why now...thought there was something going around the tank). That kinda made things a lot worse.

Gotta love Clown Loaches, though. My three (a small one, one slightly larger and a massive one) always let me know when they want feeding. I used to feed my fish every other day, and on the days I did, the Clown Loaches would swim up and down the side of the tank, paying particular attention to my presence in the room, close to when fishy lunch time is. This has saved me a number of times from forgetting. The other day, on one of the non-feeding days, one of them was still doing this very same thing. They've proceeded to do it every day now. They know they'll get food if they do...lol...

I keep Clown Loaches, Neon Tetras, Glowlights, Black Neons, Head-and-Tail Lights and Red Phantom Tetras. The Red Phantoms love 'nibbling' one another's fins - or, in other words, they get into a fair number of scuffles with one another, and their fins look a bit dog-eared. LOL. The Head-and-Tail Lights were like that at one point...and I even lost a couple from battle wounds - now they play a bit friendlier.

Sorry to hear that Dave, especially since one is not really sure of the cause. I used to keep predatory fish, Oscars, a snakehead,a Jack Demsey and piranha. My two baby piranha were about the size of a nickel when I first bought them. They had cute little bulldog faces with rows of tiny shark teeth. When they grew to half-dollar size I came home from work to find the bigger one floating, with a big chunk bitten out of his back. I guess the one that was slightly smaller decided to get his while the getting was good. I kept the 3 Oscars in the same tank as the snakehead. The snakehead was constantly in motion along the top third of the tank (55 gal). Eventually this seemed to irritate the Oscars and they killed him by repeatedly ramming him. I didn't realize that the bumping that I observed would do this or I would have separated them. I also lost one of the Oscars when he managed to jump out of the tank by somehow squeezing between the cover and light.

Predatory fish are such messy eaters and require constant tank cleaning & maintenance. Trying to use algae cleaning fish usually ends up with them being on the menu. The Oscars were like puppy dogs and would swim to you when you entered the room looking for food. As the piranhas got older they became more secretive and skittish. They were easy to startle and would crash bang around trying to hide in the rock cave in the tank if you suddenly entered the room.

I never had problems with algae, fungus, or anything like that. Maybe you'll have to completely empty the tank to get it and the gravel clean.

I quit the ranks of the fresh water keepers some years ago. Had a 160 litres tank with a bala shark, a pterophyllum, green swordtails, some pelvicachromis pulcher and always an Ancistrus and guppies. Of course, the green swordtails and the guppies reproduced like mad; but I never experienced an ecological crash.

I started keeping trops again about 5 months ago now and my tank is coming along nicely and is fully stocked now.

I have a 100l tank with an external filter and it is stocked with:

5 threadfin rainbows
5 male guppies
1 dwarf neon gourami
2 otto's
1 hill stream loach
6 lampeyes
6 pygmy cory's
3 red shrimp
3 Ammano shrimps

Quit heavily stocked I know but the filter is rated for 200l and I do 20% water changes every week. The fish are all active and eat like pigs. the other half likes them so much she has agreed to me having a 500l marine tank which I am planning atm.