Share Losses/ Lessons Learned

[Joshuakahan]

From your monkey jack pacu thread I would put you in the 8-10 year old range. Shut up

No need to insult 8-10 year olds

 

[Kalashnikov1408]

I like these kinds of threads. It gives aquarists a place to commiserate and new people can learn hard knocks without going through the trauma of losing a lot of fish.
I want to contribute these lessons:

1. Spend actual time watching your fish, like 30-60 mins. daily at least. If you really know your pet's normal behavioral patterns, you can easily catch problems like disease or systemic issues long before they become extreme or life-threatening. Learned from treating fish like "decorations" early on in the hobby and many preventable losses as a result.

2. Minimize sticking your hands on your fish tank. I only put my hands in there for feeding and for maintenance, and I'm sure to really wash them beforehand. I killed an entire 36g community tank from cross contaminating the aquarium with bacteria from a clogged sink drain by accident. Had to unlclog when siphoning water, absent mindedly didn't clean my hands before jamming them back jthe tank. Days later I lost 14 fish in a week. Really nasty stuff if not careful.

Thanks so much for sharing. The drain contaminating your water is actually something I've never thought of. That's very valuable information to know.

 

[Jexnell]

Do not use Petcos Imagitarium black sand if you have diggers and or possibly some bottom dwellers. The bags I got were very corse more like crushed rock instead of natural smooth round sand. I had a group of ten Cory cats that literally ground off thier faces trying to do the normal sand sifting.