What was your first tropical tank experience?

[Blucat]

What was your very very first tropical tank experience as a beginner?

Did you have AA to guide you?

I'd like to see how I rate in the first tank experience sagas.
Did even the best aquarists make as much mistakes as I have?

Here goes: (very long)
Got a 24g acrylic tank at US$245. Had a filter with media, hood and 2x20w lights. Got free submersible heater and substrate.
Washed out the gravel
Mum washed the tamk out, I filled the tank up, added some dechlorinator. Then the gravel was all uneven again so Mum had to stick her arm in and level it (my arm was too short)
Little did I know that her arm had moisturiser on it.
The tank sat for a week and formed an oily film. :x
So I panicked then did a pwc. It cleared up, but not fully. But being new i just left it.
Then the tank was all cloudy cause i didn't wash the gravel out properly. However, the filter took all that muck away.
I didn't know about cycling and the lfs told me I could add fish in seeing as my tank had sat for 1 week.
Got 10 neon tetras (uh oh 8O ) 3 plants and a ph test kit.
My tank cycled with 10 neon tetras, two plants died cept for the sword.
Miraculously the neons survived the ammonia spike and nitrate spike and bloating unbeknown to me. Only afterwards did i know about the cycling.
So i had a cycled tank with 10 neon tetras, one plant and 1 fake rock.
So then there was 3 little snails, owww how cute. Little did i know it would rach an epidemic. Got way too many snails!!!!!!
Then I got 3 brown algae plagues!
Then everytime i did a pwc, i washed the filter media out with tap water. still my neons survived.
Then i noticed my ph was 8 so every week i adjusted the ph with chemical.
One time i did a 50% pwc and all neons died. oops! even after they went through cycling i killed them all just like that. all that work gone!
So tank sat for one week (the tank grew some daphnia) and then I got 2 male dwarf gouramis (big mistake) and another amazon sword.
They chased each other and chased each other. So now one gourami has permanantly paled colour to show submission to the dominating bright gourami.
Then i found a slug which harboured from the plant yuck. Got it out!
Then i got a female betta. Took care of the snails (phew)
Then I got a whie femal molly and a feeder guppy.
The betta killed the guppy.
Now i have only just realised the ph chemicals hardened my water and aren't good for fishy. So now the chemicals have given me waayyy too much phosphates and now I have green water. The green water gets better as the phosphates decrease with every pwc.
because i bought the US$28 fake rock i have no room for driftwood.
So now I use brita filtered w ater in my tank which is a perfect ph7.
and that is the end of that Thankyou if you read through my very long post. Fortunately I never had to face any diseases or Ich just yet.
Now i know i gotta quarantine everything!!!!! even plants.

Ok your turn!

 

[Jchillin]

Brought 30gal tank set up from a major chain. They told me to fill up tank, run the filter for 5-6 days and then come back for fish. On the 5th day, all excited, went to store to get fish. I knew I needed a "community" type variety of fish. They told me I shouldn't add too many at once. I choose 4 black skirt and 4 red tetras. They told me to wait another 10 days for more fish. 10 days later, I'm back. I brought 2 Bala sharks and 3 angels. I asked about catfish, they said "not right now...no significant algae. 5 days later, I'm impatient, so I go back to get some corys. I also had noticed some spots on my balas and two of the angels. I ask about it "Do air bubbles stick to fish" I'm told that it's not air bubbles but ich. I'm given meds and at the same time, I buy the corys and also 3 black mollies and 2 platys.

I put the medication in the tank along with the new fish. I was told that the med would not harm any of the new fish.

Result was disasterous. The corys died almost immediately. Shortly followed by the mollies. I had no idea about cycling, didn't know that my tank was absolultely posionous. Called LFS...they told me to do 40% water change immediately and I should bring them a water sample. Instead I come to AA. I learn about everything I didn't know but it was too late. Both Sharks, all the angels, one black skirt, 1 red and 1 platy die. I buy a test kit, tested the ammonia level...4ppm. The damage was already done.

The good news? AA members stayed with me the entire time. Calmed me down and I was able to save 2 black skirts, 2 red tetras and 1 platy. Those 5 fish survived the worst possible tank conditions that I can imagine.

The good news...

 

[Blucat]

I see you have still got some of those fish with you! I forgot to mention I had AA for the last half of my saga

 

[TankGirl]

My very first tank was 21 years ago when someone had a 35gal rabbit tank they were giving away and I decided to put fish in it. Scrubbing this thing out was a nightmare, but I finally got it clean. Got a UGF (everyone used them then) and a new-fangled Whisper power filter (oooohh, high tech!). I put marbles in the bottom, got plastic toys and set up a sortof circus/carnival/zoo theme in there, with one fancy comet, one oranda and one plain comet.

I had no idea about cycling, I had no idea about testing the water, but it sure did get cloudy and the fish were not happy. I tore the tank down and replaced all the water about once a week, since I did not know what else to do. Later I decided it must be ammonia and put ammonia chips in the filter bag and hoped for the best. Schoolwork and whatnot caused me to ignore the tank a while and then suddenly it was okay and the fish were fine, but it was a complete mystery to me why.

I decided to move to Florida from Richmond with my boyfriend so I put the fish in a Coleman cooler and drove on down the road, not a care in the world. I did not know enough to even worry for one second about these fish - ignorance is bliss!

I did frequent tank teardowns once in Florida to keep the cloudiness at bay, but it was years before I learned about the nitrogen cycle. There was internet then (I had Prodigy in the early 90's) but I did not talk about fish online then. I decided to set up a fishbowl in the living room and put 2 pearl gouramis in there, and was baffled when I found them dead on the floor. I had no clue!!

I kept the goldfish until the fancy was almost a foot long, and finally sold them back to the LFS 9 years later when I moved back to Richmond. I had learned a lot and next moved to oscars by then.

 

[Mazdaman]

not sure if my situation is any different from the others but here goes.
Bought a "starter kit" 20gla from chain pet store. They said go home fill it up, wait one wekk and come back to add some fish. 1 week later i brought home 6 tiger barbs. Didn't know what a cycle was or even how to maintain a tank. water changes, no one told me that. What to you mean test strips aren't accurate. I had been using these and showing no ammonia no nitrite etc. Found AA, they said to get a "real" test kit. I can't remember what the readings were but i remember thinking uh oh those colors are bright and not on the correct side of the chart. Anyways, got away from the site for about 6 months as the tank seemed to be doing alright. I had a couple fish die so I bought some others. 1 day after intro the one fish had white spots. Ich but why didn't the others show signs, it turned out the tank had ich and the fish in the tank had just become used to it. Lost them all and started again with the help of AA and all is going well. almost 4 weeks into my new 75gal and its almost time to add some more fish to it. Don't forget to vote everyday!!!

 

[Frank_the_Tank]

bought a 10 gallon setup over christmas, read on here over the break, got back to school and set it up in january.

 

[1tankneverenuff]

Like any n00b, I had no idea what I was doing .

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Mine is going to be similar to others, but here goes:

After watchign Finding Nemo on opening night I immediately went to Wal-Mart and bought a 10 gal starter tank. I talked to the "Fish Guy" who had been keeping fish for 40 years. He acted like he knew what he was talking about. I walked around with him as he tossed stuff in the cart. He said that it was ok to add fish that night, SO, I bought 8 orange fish, I don't recall what they were but they look like Tetra's. I got home, washed out the tank, filled it up with fresh water, turned on the filter, put in the heater, gravel, and air stones, and plopped in the fish (he never mentioned acclimating OR dechlorinating the water). So to my suprise, 15 minutes later, two are dead. I went to bed and the next morning, they were all dead. James took them back to Wal-Mart and they replaced them, they all also died. They replaced them again, they all also died. We decided to go to a lfs. The guy then told us about acclimating and dechlorinating the tank. So we dechlorinated the tank and acclimated the new fish. They did fine for about two weeks. Then they all died. I went back to the lfs and they told me about cycling. Well, not really. I bought the test strips, to my horror, my Ammonia was at the top of the charts. I did water change after water change after water change, vacing the gravel and cleaning the cartridges each time. I stumbled across AA one day and started reading. I didn't sign up for quite a while longer but I did read alot. After reading this site I began cycling the tank, correctly. I stopped replacing the cartidges every two weeks. The 10 gal was going PERFECT for about 6 months so we ventered into the 29 gal. By then we knew what we needed to know to get it started. I did keep calling the lfs though everytime I bought a fish and asked what the fish ate. I can be so stupid sometimes. We had many stupid fish combinations, many stupid mistakes, and many fish deaths. BUT, that all comes with the territory. Even if you read everything there is to know about fish, you are still going to have problems with fish dieing when you start out. I kept forgetting to add the dechlorinator tablets. Big mistake in using those. My fish would eat the stuff and die. Plus, back then i would mix a bucket of water and make it sit out for a week before doing a water change. Man on man. Now I just pour the water directly into the tanks, then treat. Just if I knew then what I know now. And it all got started with Finding Nemo. I still don't have my clown fish.

 

[RoK]

My 20 gal was my first.
First, I filled the tank up with tap water, adjusted the heater, used stress coat and turned on the filter. A few days later my mom comes home with 2 bags of fish. There were at least 6 on this day. The fish that went through the cycle: 1 chocolate pleco, 1 common pleco, 2 serpaes, 2 female bettas, a dwarf gourami, pictus catfish, 3 or 4 swordtails, 1 dalmation molly, 1 black molly. These are the ones I remember, there could have been even a few more.
The one's that survived the cycle: pictus cat, gourami, 2 bettas, 2 serpaes, 1 pleco, black molly, dalmation molly
Died from cycle or ich: Initially started with 2 swordtails, they died. Got 1 or 2 more and they died (due to ammonia and nitrite levels I'm guessing). Chocolate pleco (too much stress from cycle and ich), pictus cat (when my 75 gal got ich)
Eaten by an african clawed frog I got later on: 1 betta, 1 serpae (were very good buddies with the other original I was very angry and sad from this especially)
I still have 3 of my fish who went through the cycle and ich though: dwarf gourami, common pleco, long-finned serpae tetra
The other female betta was brought to a pet store (was healthy, just unwanted at the time I guess).
The dalmation molly got some disease and died a little while after the ich was gone. The black molly lived awhile but got dropsy a few months ago and died.

We knew some of the basics just nothing about cycling or to only add a few fish at a time.
My mom took care of some goldfish when I was about 7 or 8, so she knew a little. She got some advice from the pet store with the tropicals.
Started only a little over a year ago and have 3 tanks already! Wow, crazy huh?

 

[Blucat]

I guess most people have battled ich!
Well I really hope that i can prevent ich as i still havn't got it yet!!!!!

 

[fearlessfisch]

My first tank was in 1979. It was about 30 gallons, one of the old type with chrome all around the edges and a "window" through which you viewed the fish. I'd never heard of cycling or water changes--I cringe when I think of how many fish we killed through absolute ignorance. The filter was box-type with carbon, cotton, and air driven through it with a pump and airline. It sat right in the tank and took up a lot of space. To make things worse, because the tank never got cleaned until it was really filthy, when we DID clean it, we cleaned it completely--100 percent water change and all new filter media. And we never understood why the fish kept dying. It was through trial and error that we started doing partial water changes after a while, just because they seemed to be more successful. Hobby fishkeeping has come such a long way in the past 25 years.

 

[TankGirl]

Fearlessfisch, your experience sounds so similar to mine - it used to be you either did NO water changes at all, or 100% water changes frequently. What a pain! I used to use those internal box filters, too. I'd love to get a hold of one of those old chrome tanks with a slate bottom now, how retro!

 

[swanandmokashi]

check mine here : http://www.swanandmokashi.com/HomePage/Aquarium/Aquarium.aspx

 

[fearlessfisch]

lol tankgirl, you said it! i would love to have one of those tanks again too--i haven't seen one for years (i wonder if they show up on ebay). they were so heavy! no wonder we cleaned them out so rarely. i still have memories of lugging the thing out to the back where the hose was (this was pre-Python era, too!) with just a half-inch of water in the thing, and almost breaking our backs.

oh the memories. we were so excited when the new, light all-glass tanks came out that i'm sure we threw the thing out with the trash. what a shame.

 

[zao]

Well I have only been in this for almost a year now and I am still learning from my mistakes. But one of my first aquarium experance was when I first got the aquarium all cycled, the lfs told all I need to know to setup up the aquarium with cycling, decolor the water all of that stuff. My dad also helped me with different things too, he use to be into aquariums lot when he was my age and the only thing around for filters was the UG. I remember he told me one day when we where leaving the lfs was "Dang the technology sure has changed!"

But anyway back to my experience. Well after the aquarium as all cycled and I started to be able to add my fish. Well I didn't know about aquarium mantience and no one told me at all I needed to do that. But one day I noticed that the filter output was not flowing as fast as it use too. So I was courious and opened the top of the filter and pulled out the fitler media, and the second I pulled it out of the filter box, a mond of dirt, old food and crap just came flying out of the box. I remember running and getting my net really fast to try to catch some of the stuff flying out of the filter and it was not helping at all. I kid you not, their was so much junk flowing around in my aquarium I could not see on single fish swimming around. I will tell you that month I went though a lot of filters to get back on top of things, and amazing not one fish got sick from it.

So that is my first aquarium experience, and it is like what everyone said it is a learning experience as you go. But I also want to thank AA for helping me with my ups and downs, you guys helped me alot!

 

[megos1]

Wow, tell me about Ich! I bought a fish from the LFS yesterday and he was the most beautiful one in the tank with the best shape, but he had about 5 spots of Ich on him. I took him home anyway (b/c he was going to be the only fish in my tank) And I made my water brackish, his Ich spots are starting to fall off and the touch of mouth fungus that he had beautifully cleared up overnight! I was so pleased. So, I'm back to the LFS tonight for a bit of Ich remedy to fix him up.