Impulse Buys: SURPRISES?

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santoury

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 8, 2006
3,624
14
68
Massachusetts
I'm curious what impulse buys you've gotten, and were surprised at how awesome it turned out, or how terrible.

Talk about something you had NO prior knowledge of.


I'll go first. I picked up 3 Gold Tulip Eels - didn't even know the scientific name for about a month AFTER I got them. I've been surprised at how enjoyable they are and also how difficult they are to feed. (So far, ONLY eat live fish, not even fish THEY killed, but dropped.) and earthworms. They did eat blackworms at the store, but I don't use those.

Same with snails - Got 1 one day for the heck of it, and fell in love overnight. Their personality was never expected, but is there in abundance.
 
When I got my first lungfish - knew nothing and was very surprised on how fast it grew, and amazed at the aggression it showed, even towards large turtles.

This is fun, so here goes.... Got 2 rare Leporinus (desmotes and moralesi) and was surprised at how much they enjoy ... feeder fish!
 
got a freshwater morey
then did some research
i set up a brackish tank
it commits suicide two days after being in the new proper tank.
 
yea i had the same thing happen with me. I got a ornate bichir and I did research and it said the were jumpers. So when i got the stuff or seal the openings around the top of the tank it had already jumped out,squiggled under the couch and dried up
 
i dont know whether or not i did reseach before getting upside dow cats or not but theyre awsome, dont come out to much but theyre cute lil' buggers. and i got a senegal bichir for my 12gal., he is now in a 40.
 
One day in August, 2005, I came home from work and heard the sound of water running. In the living room I found a 55 gallon tank chock full of large fish. My yard sale - loving husband had stumbled across the mother of all yard sale finds--a dirty 55 gallon tank with two large pacu (15"), four large oscars and two large plecos in it. What a steal for $85!!! He took our largest pots back to the yard sale scene, and proceeded to put a large fish in each pot. One of the pacu jumped out of his pot which was sitting on the tailgate of hubby's '63 Chevy PU. After groveling for a while in the gravel, he was picked up, dusted off and placed back in his pot. Once home, hubby proceeded to scrub out the tank, scour the dirty gravel, thoroughly scrub out the filters and filter media. The now clean tank was filled with chlorinated water, and the fish were put back into their now clean home. Hubby was told that the fish were oscars and pacu. That night we went online to figure out which were the pacu and which were the oscars. His spur of the moment impulse buy has cost us lots of time and $$$

We didn't need to be told that we had an overcrowded tank. We even went to WalMart and bought another 55 gallon tank, fllled it with dechlorinated water and moved the pacu into their new home! Over the next five days we watched the pacu almost die from ammonia poisoning. I joined five different fish forums to quickly learn about fishkeeping. When we learned about the nitrogen cycle, we were doing 100% water changes everyday on the overcrowded 55 gallon tank just to keep the parameters safe for the fish. We spent hours every day vacuuming up poop from these monster poop makers. One oscar succumbed to HITH. Six fish are doing well in their 300 gallon home. The runt oscar has the old 55 gallon tank to himself. We maintain excellent water parameters on the two tanks. The future has yet to be determined--whether we are going to have to enclose the patio and do a huge build should the fish outgrow their current tank. One lady had a pacu for 28 years. Pacu keeping is a life long commitment.

Our old overcrowded tank:
pacu.jpg


The "new" tank which has been running one year now:
newtank-02.jpg

And I spend way too much time on fish forums!
 
About three years ago I was with my daughter when we stumbled across a full grown Xenopterus naritus (green or bronze puffer). I did'nt know anything about them. What I did know was that my little girl fell in love with that fish immediately. Once she looked at me with those big beautiful brown eyes I caved and got her the fish. I soon learned that puffer would eat anything I put in the tank. And by anything I mean other fish, crawdads, nets, my fingers, and plastic plants. My little girl loved that fish and it developed quite a personality and fondness for her alone. About three weeks ago I noticed that puffer was not eating her pellets. In fact she was not even interested in shrimp or worms (her favorite). Her water params were fine and she was still very active. A few days later I awoke to my daughter's sobs. Puffer had died during the night and Maddie found her first. Needless to say it was a rough couple of days for her. Funny the bond a seven year old can share with a fish. Mean as it was to everybody but my daughter if I ever come across one again I'll buy it right away.
 
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