Fish tales, episode 1
A couple of years ago, we gave Jon and Gloria each a 10 gallon aquarium for their birthdays. The experience was...traumatic. No matter what we tried, we had fish dying every week. I had a five gallon tank as a kid, I don't remember it being that hard to keep fish going. I know it wasn't, in fact. We finally had only one tank going, with one goldfish, "Dancer," who lived quite a while. My wife and Gloria both liked to talk to Dancer when they fed "her." But then when Dancer died, both my daughter and Leslie were heartbroken. So the tanks set empty for two years. I just wasn't up for "Jim! Another fish died. Again." Sigh.
Then last summer a friend offered up a 75 gallon aquarium and stand, for free. I spent part of the time since painting the stand (it was black). Then the holidays got in the way. But finally we moved it all upstairs to our dining room. This weekend I went and bought a filter and heater and gravel and we filled it. Now it is just going to settle in for at least a week. My plan is next Friday (i.e., pay day - even "just" what I bought yesterday was expensive, and it was all on sale!) I will buy some testing kits to stay on top of the water condition and a bunch of live plants. I will then let those get established for a week or two before we start to slowly introduce fish. Hopefully this time by carefully monitoring water, paying close attention to tank ecology, etc., we can keep the fish alive much longer.
My plan is to have a completely "Buddhist, pacifist, non-violent, non-aggressive, peaceful, laid back" aquarium. So we will be picking types of fish that all want to live together in harmony. One thing I want is a bunch of neon tetras, because they aren't "nippy," they look cool, and I want enough of them so that they actually "school" together. Because I think that will look cool, and the tank is certainly big enough. How big? This big:
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| The tank is four feet wide, for scale. |
4 comments:
We've not had a good run with fish, either. It was usually due to human error though, so actually, we're fish killers. Sigh.
I would recommend researching where fish swim, and get some bottom swimmers, middle swimmers, and top swimmers. Also, NO ghost snails. Those things reproduce asexually and are like a plague.
I'd also recommend getting a couple cory catfish, they make a good cleanup crew, and are pacifists.
Yeah, I knew about the snail thing from when I had an aquarium as a kid. They would get into EVERYTHING, even the filter.
We've had two requests so far for "sharks," and since there are catfish that are "sharks" (in terms of looks) we will probably get at least one of those.
I am also hoping that using nothing but live plants this time makes a difference in helping with the water ecology. We'll see.
We had a 20 gallon aquarium growing up, and generally had pretty good luck with the tropical fish staying alive. From time to time there would be a die-off, but usually only of one particular breed, not all the fish at once.
Generally speaking, you mostly want to avoid mixing goldfish with other tropical fish. I think their preferred temperature, and something about the water chemistry, doesn't mix well between the two.
Gosh, it's been many years, but as I recall, I think we had success mixing neon tetras, zebra danios, gouramis, angel fish, and a couple of different varieties of algae-eaters to help keep the tank clean.
My brother has a couple of tanks that are several hundred gallons each (yes, they are huge, and take up entire walls in large rooms in his house) that he keeps saltwater fish in. I still can't believe he manages to keep these going, since he works long hours, but he's had them for several years. The saltwater tanks and fish require careful and tedious care to keep conditions right. The payoff is that the saltwater fish are much more colorful and interesting, but you really have to be willing to put in serious time to keep them alive.
CH,
Yeah, no marine tanks for me! I don't want the effort.
The book I am reading has a bunch of different suggested mixtures of fish. I will probably go with one of those to start.
And then it also recommends avoiding goldfish as a beginner. Who knew?
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