reflections

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equidae9854

Candiru
MFK Member
Nov 14, 2006
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Since everyone on here are pretty experienced fish keepers, I figured this would be fun. Share your "I was a stupid newbie" story. It's humbling ;)

I'll start:

I first started out with a 10 gal, one of those kits that you can buy at Wal-Mart for $30. Anyways, I brought it home, filled it with tap water, no heater, in the dead of winter. Next day, I went to Petsmart, told them that I had a brand new 10-gal that had been set up since the night before, and I came home with 6 tiger barbs, a columbian cat, iridescent shark, bala shark, and a paradise gourami. Well, the paradise gourami and bala shark died right away. The rest of them miraculously survived, and the catfish even survived a battle with ich. Well, over time, the bala sharks started disappearing one after another. I kept checking the insides of the filter, around the room near the tank, etc., puzzled as to where they could have gone... Well, the rest is history.
 
I first learned about water changes and water testing about six months after having a tank. my maintenance consisted of feeding way too much and only adding water that would evaporate. My nitrates were so high they were unmeasureable. My ammonia was 8ppm. Somehow miraculously, with a tank full of Africans, I'd only lost one in that time.

I sure am glad I learned how to do it right. That tank is still going strong and I still have most of those Africans.
 
yeah, i didn't know anything about water changes or parameters or anything... i pretty much did a 100% water change whenever my water got cloudy or smelly. lol
 
haha, i thought that tap water and an air stone would do the trick in a 10...
poor innocent fish, caught in my idiotic crossfire lol
 
Oh, and I also never knew how any of the equipment worked. I first thought that an air pump was supposed to be completely submerged in the tank. Good thing I didn't try that. lol.
 
Back when I was a kid and first got into aquariums, I had fairly good luck with things even though I had no knowledge of water changes or testing. Never had bigger than a 14g but everything would pretty much be ok.

Oddly enough now that i've recently gotten back into the hobby and studied up on everything extensively, I tend to have tons more trouble than I used to back in my naive days.

When I was a kid, I never had a diseased fish, but now i've battled everything under the sun, but I suspect it's because of the unfortunate conditions at the 2 LFS in my town.
 
My (well, the family's) first tank was a 10 gallon with goldfish.

My mom would net the fish and put it in a bowl, get a bucket, empty the water out of the tank with a cup, carry the tank over to the sink, and wash everything out really well with soap and hot water. The tank had a hob heater and an air driven corner filter. She would replace the carbon and filter floss. This happened once every two weeks. Then she'd put the tank back on the entertainment center, fill it up, plug the heater and air pump in, throw in some kind of water conditioner tablet, and plop the goldfish back in the water.

I relate this to you because for the longest time I couldn't figure out how people with "big" tanks, like 55 gallons, cleaned them. I thought they must haul them into the bathtub every other week and clean them out there. All I thought was how much it must have sucked to do that, how heavy the tanks must be, and how it couldn't be worth it.

Then, when I was about 12, I was a fish store when the owner was cleaning the tanks. That was the first time I'd ever seen a siphon hose. I thought it was amazing, no buckets (she had the hose drain into the basement of the shop, into a sink), no carrying a tank to the sink (or bathtub!), and the gravel got cleaned at the same time!

Suddenly I finally understood how all those "big" tanks were getting cleaned, and was a lot less work then my Mom's way of cleaning tanks.

The rest is history!
 
i learned that hotwheels and starwars figures are GREAT tank accessories... but that going pee in the tank is not a good idea even if someone is in the bathroom for hours
 
^^^haha that's hilarious
 
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