How to do tank maintenance with killer fish

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luvinbluegills

luvinbluegills

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 26, 2011
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Pgh PA
We've seen some of the awesome fish MFKers keep. It's a rougue's gallery of piscine criminals know to torture, kill, rape (yes, some livebearers) and destroy most anything in their way. Fish like the Electric Eel, Wolf Fish, Fahaka Puffer, Midas/citrinellum, piranhas, and so on, occupy the homes of many fish keepers today.

My question is, how in the Blue Heck do you practice tank maintenance with fish that could literally take a hunk of flesh from your arm in their watery world? The only real problem fish I had in this regard was my near 4 foot long African lungfish (annectens). Thankfully he was normally fine with differentiating my hand from food, but as he got older his aggression increased to the point where he would seemingly go nuts the moment food hit the water. Truly, he would bite everything, including rocks and wood, until he bit the right thing!

I learned that I had to clean the portion of tank behind him until he turned my way, then clean whatever part he wasn't facing. Thankfully he wasn't the fastest fish in the world.

So, when you guys with your big p's, wolves and Electric eels need to go into your fishes home, how do you protect yourself? Hopefully I'll hear a technique I can adopt because I'd like to get a Wold Fish again.
 
With my wolf fish and also my Fahaka puffer and Mbu puffer...they just turn into little puppies when I am cleaning the tank. theylike having their bellies rubbed and play super nice. Mt Giant gourami on the other hand....
 
anything thats aggressive and can do some damage isn't encouraged to associate hands with food. ( ie the fahaka, the aba aba knife, or the gar) they have spots in the tank that food gets dropped in... the only one who doesn't like to be good is the Fahaka...he's made a game out of chaseing my husband with the syphon dureing water changes. apex predetors in general tend to be fairly intelliegent creatures... so we work constantly to encourage them not to go after human hands. actually had one nasty lil' african cichlid who we'de have to catch with the net and trap against the tank while I algae scrapped or get my hand picked to death.

And we have a magnetic algae scrapper for every tank with something with big teeth in it. cut down on alot of hands in the water time. as the aba and fahaka get bigger we plan makeing egg crate "tank dividers" to be used for water changes ect if need be. I used similar in working in the reptile hobby with really aggresive reptiles and it worked great so gonna make a adaptation for the tanks.
 
kevinfleming21 said:
With my wolf fish and also my Fahaka puffer and Mbu puffer...they just turn into little puppies when I am cleaning the tank. theylike having their bellies rubbed and play super nice. Mt Giant gourami on the other hand....
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Cool! That's how my lungfish was...he'd even let me hold him at the surface of the water cradled in my hand. That is, as long as there wasn't food ANYWHERE in the tank! :)
 
MonsterMinis said:
anything thats aggressive and can do some damage isn't encouraged to associate hands with food. ( ie the fahaka, the aba aba knife, or the gar) they have spots in the tank that food gets dropped in... the only one who doesn't like to be good is the Fahaka...he's made a game out of chaseing my husband with the syphon dureing water changes. apex predetors in general tend to be fairly intelliegent creatures... so we work constantly to encourage them not to go after human hands. actually had one nasty lil' african cichlid who we'de have to catch with the net and trap against the tank while I algae scrapped or get my hand picked to death.

And we have a magnetic algae scrapper for every tank with something with big teeth in it. cut down on alot of hands in the water time. as the aba and fahaka get bigger we plan makeing egg crate "tank dividers" to be used for water changes ect if need be. I used similar in working in the reptile hobby with really aggresive reptiles and it worked great so gonna make a adaptation for the tanks.
Click to expand...

That divider is a good idea. I'll have to remember that. Too bad we can't do them like reptiles and take them out of the tank to feed elsewhere, haha!
 
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