here are some good rules to follow when buying, breeding, selling, or even
owning fish.some of which one dosnt think of to often.
1. ALWAYS answer the questions you get asked by a less experienced fishkeeper or a child with an answer you would be happy with if you asked it from their point of veiw , to the person you got YOUR advice from when YOU started. - i nearly didnt go into SW aquariums because when i asked a friend of my dads how many tanks of his failed he said "my first three trys at SW tank where TOTAL failures none lasted over 6 months , and yours proboly wont either. it takes practice and skill and lot of years of keeping fish to know." well this pessimistic view nearly got me to not start my tank. i garuntee you if he had been told that when he started ,no matter his age, he probly wouldnt have been to confident either. but after a year my tank is thriving and ive gone reef!
2.whenever you want to buy a fish from a tank of many fast fish (i.e. damsels, tetras, cichlids ) at your LFS be sure you point out the individual you want. any less than healthy fish wont be very zippy or agile so they are more likely to get caught. they end up in your tank... then your toilet.
(and they leave a hole in your wallet and heart!)- even at the best stores you still have less than perfect fish from time to time and you may not see the emaciated fish in a school of them or the white spots on a fish under the poor lighting of most fish stores... this has happened to me at three pet stores with a Bangai cardinal fish ,emaiciated, a clownfish ,parasites,a coral beauty,ich
, and an allens damsel,again emaiciated.
3. whenever you buy ANY ANY ANY! pair of unkown or different sexed fish known to be a prolific breeder ,or for that matter able to spawn in a tank, this means YOU ANY OWNERS OF: guppies, gouramis,
cichlids(especially convicts) etc. be sure to get them at different stores
or see if your LFS has two sources for the same fish. this makes sure if you ever get a batch of fry the parents arent closely related and the fry arent in-bred. some species ( especially neon tetras) are becoming harder to keep and more sucseptable to disease because the breeders have no system to thier broodstocks... they just throw a bunch of males and females together and say " GO WILD! HAVE SEX! GET A LOTTA LADIES!" this leads to inferior fry and adults on the market these days. if you do get a spawning from two closely related fish its no big deal the fry are most likey healthy.but if you give two fry away to a friend and they breed them and give the fry to a LFS who sells some and the buyer breeds them with out know ing they are closey related you get a chain reaction that leads to defects in the genes.
i hope these rules help the coninuation of this fine hobby!
owning fish.some of which one dosnt think of to often.
1. ALWAYS answer the questions you get asked by a less experienced fishkeeper or a child with an answer you would be happy with if you asked it from their point of veiw , to the person you got YOUR advice from when YOU started. - i nearly didnt go into SW aquariums because when i asked a friend of my dads how many tanks of his failed he said "my first three trys at SW tank where TOTAL failures none lasted over 6 months , and yours proboly wont either. it takes practice and skill and lot of years of keeping fish to know." well this pessimistic view nearly got me to not start my tank. i garuntee you if he had been told that when he started ,no matter his age, he probly wouldnt have been to confident either. but after a year my tank is thriving and ive gone reef!
2.whenever you want to buy a fish from a tank of many fast fish (i.e. damsels, tetras, cichlids ) at your LFS be sure you point out the individual you want. any less than healthy fish wont be very zippy or agile so they are more likely to get caught. they end up in your tank... then your toilet.
(and they leave a hole in your wallet and heart!)- even at the best stores you still have less than perfect fish from time to time and you may not see the emaciated fish in a school of them or the white spots on a fish under the poor lighting of most fish stores... this has happened to me at three pet stores with a Bangai cardinal fish ,emaiciated, a clownfish ,parasites,a coral beauty,ich
, and an allens damsel,again emaiciated. 3. whenever you buy ANY ANY ANY! pair of unkown or different sexed fish known to be a prolific breeder ,or for that matter able to spawn in a tank, this means YOU ANY OWNERS OF: guppies, gouramis,
cichlids(especially convicts) etc. be sure to get them at different stores
or see if your LFS has two sources for the same fish. this makes sure if you ever get a batch of fry the parents arent closely related and the fry arent in-bred. some species ( especially neon tetras) are becoming harder to keep and more sucseptable to disease because the breeders have no system to thier broodstocks... they just throw a bunch of males and females together and say " GO WILD! HAVE SEX! GET A LOTTA LADIES!" this leads to inferior fry and adults on the market these days. if you do get a spawning from two closely related fish its no big deal the fry are most likey healthy.but if you give two fry away to a friend and they breed them and give the fry to a LFS who sells some and the buyer breeds them with out know ing they are closey related you get a chain reaction that leads to defects in the genes.
i hope these rules help the coninuation of this fine hobby!
