What did/have/would you do if you where told to "downsize" ?

MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
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Apr 28, 2009
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Curiouse how you all react to this... wether it be need finically, to keep the SO happy, Going off to school or the military, or some other reason?

Hubby broke the news to me a few days ago that we needed to downsize.. ( electric bill is getting to high ) which means I had to go from a 120,75,56,40b, and the pool... down to the pool, 120, and 40. So essentially the 75 and 56 had to be shut down 100% if I wanted to keep the pool. :cry: And our aba aba is in the 120... so not much wiggle room for tank-mates/moving in. So essentially I have a 40 to play with/stock that w/ the current fish wasn't gonna wash.

After growling for awhile I finally caved and started to do the math in my head... not just on what would go into what but also tallying feeding costs ect... I ended up loading up most of my grow outs =( either that or risk predaton in the pool and they where tiny yet compared to the beasts. and all my random odds 'n ends and headed to the LFS to swap them for something that could live in the 40 for life.. or possibly the 75 ( same heater/filter as the 40 so my hubby conceided that point but I can only run one.)

The plan was to get a pleathera of random colorful community fish and call it a day... >.>.... I am so gonna be in trouble. I brought home one fish... a knife fish. But he's cool... So now we have 2 knife fish in their respective tanks.. and the pool of doom.. with a fire eel who I am praying stays off the menu.

So whats your story of that time you had to downsize?
 

Hoplo

Candiru
MFK Member
Feb 26, 2011
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Well I am going to be working out of town for two months after christmass, so I was told to downsize from my 3 tanks to one that my parents agreed to look after. In one month so far I have sold 3 fish out of 10-15 that I need to. But I have worked out I can take one of the tanks with me, and will just be keeping all the excess in my pond for summer. Then I am hoping I can just leave it long enough that they agree to look after the other two…..
 

krichardson

Bronze Tier VIP
MFK Member
Jun 19, 2006
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Datnoid Island
I've actually been thinking about downsizing in order to re do and fix up my basement for some time now.I just want to have my 180 and 265 and get rid of all of the other smaller tanks....My two remaining tanks will house my dats,armatus ,and cichla.
 

joel

Polypterus
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Jul 14, 2005
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THE GARDEN STATE
I had to move into a small second story apt a few years ago. I had to down size to a 75g. The second I moved I bought a bigger tank. Sometimes it's necessary to make sacrifices like down sizing a fish tank for more important things in life.


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doomiedee

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Nov 13, 2011
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I downsized a few times. At first it was just cause I was having financial problems so if I needed to buy things for my son or pay bills I had no problem selling a few of my stuff to be able to. Most recently my property owner tried to scam me and claimed there was a 10 gallon limit where I live. I called a lawyer and prepped myself to take them to court because it's not in the lease handbook and when I moved in we signed an agreement saying I can keep fish and a tank without limit. After she realized that i knew my stuff and she couldn't get over on me like other tenants. So she stopped pressing the issue. The actual property owner was inspecting the new changes in my apartment and was amazed by my tank and told me to keep it up since he is a fellow fish keeper he understood my passion.

Monsterminis if you can just try to limit it down to what you want the most. I know you love all your fish but it will help. If it were me I'd get rid of everything but the pool


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MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
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Apr 28, 2009
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I downsized a few times. At first it was just cause I was having financial problems so if I needed to buy things for my son or pay bills I had no problem selling a few of my stuff to be able to. Most recently my property owner tried to scam me and claimed there was a 10 gallon limit where I live. I called a lawyer and prepped myself to take them to court because it's not in the lease handbook and when I moved in we signed an agreement saying I can keep fish and a tank without limit. After she realized that i knew my stuff and she couldn't get over on me like other tenants. So she stopped pressing the issue. The actual property owner was inspecting the new changes in my apartment and was amazed by my tank and told me to keep it up since he is a fellow fish keeper he understood my passion.

Monsterminis if you can just try to limit it down to what you want the most. I know you love all your fish but it will help. If it were me I'd get rid of everything but the pool


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I hear ya =) the 120 holds my husbands fish lol.. the pool actually houses my fish.. granted we both share In the responsabilities ect but hubby would want to get rid of the pool before his beloved Bruce.. and the 40 is up in our living room and would just be weird not having at least 1 tank where I can sit and relax and watch. Granted if the downsizing hasn't lowered the electric ect enough then we'll be downsizing again... It was just one of those things where its like.. huh... I have all the tanks set-up again.. when did that happen?

I also managed to downsize to the point that the tanks we do have left to maintain are far easier to maintain as they both hold a single knife fish and some form of algae eaters/live plants ect. No more crazy 50% wcs 3x a week or outrageous food bills.. well other then the pool lol.

And yes our 2 kids and mortage come first. Growing up is a buzz kill lol. having young kids sucks all your time/money away... But I'm looking forward to being able to dive back into some of the crazy stuff once the kids are older.

Glad you got that all straightened out I remember reading about it =/ I hated renting.
 

wednesday13

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
Mar 2, 2008
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Its essentially the same price in electric to run a 100gal or a 1000 gal in my experience. I recently downsized from 28 tanks to 18 and my electric bill dropped almost $200 a month so far :) only removing tanks under 100gal. I will say its extremly hard to part with things but in the end its always better. You just have to get smart with what u have running, for example chaining tanks together so they run on one pump instead of multiples and removing anything plugged in u really dont need. I also recently set up a whole house auto drip system because fresh water is cheaper than electricity. In turn i was able to remove atleast 8-12 filters i had running helping solve $$$ issues even further. So i guess my answer is i get creative when i have to downsize and figure out a cheaper way to keep everything lol...another example is 4 small tanks cost more to run than one tank larger than all 4 put together, think of downsizing tanks while upgrading gallons at the same time :) very logical imo....haha im a bad influence.
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BuffaloPolypteridae

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 5, 2013
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Buffalo
^ good idea, I'll be using that in the future lol. Ive only had to downsize once, in order for my girlfriends stuff to fit in my room.. had to get take down the 55 and sell my ctenopomas.. in hindsight, that girl wasn't worth it haha

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