Any fish geeks here?

I used to have some South American cichlids, catfish, and a really cool pleco that I doubt you can even find in the USA anymore. Soon after I got the importation rules got really strict. I miss them But maybe I will start a new tank one day.

I don't like the big chains like Petsmart. The fish selection is crap and they treat them poorly. You have to go to the small local shop for people who know what they are doing.

 

I'm not saying they want your fish to die. I'm saying it isn't a big deal to most stores. They are just employees who know how to change the water, bag fish and toss in some food every few days.

Edit...and I'm not saying that the customer necessarily bought the fish at that particular store. Just going there for advice.

 

oh, and I had a Clown Trigger in the big tank as well, forgot about him.

 

Yep it was about 13 inches already when I bought it. I would have loved to have been able to feed pellets or beef heart or anything but goldfish. The risk of infecting my wolf fish always worried me. There is a store here that sells very small wolf fish fry sometimes. Maybe I can have another go at it.

 

Good luck. I've never had a problem with fish getting infections but I've heard that it happens. At least if you start small you can get them on a good diet.

 

I have ten cichlids and a pleco in a 60G tank. Lost one fish yesterday . Water parameters are fine except hardness and ph could both be higher. I think the fish was killed by one of the other fish, not bad water, the ph isn't so low that it should kill fish. I can raise the ph somewhat but it won't stick. I lost another one about a month ago when I added 2 new very small fish, one of them didn't make it long enough to be accepted by the other fish i guess.

The most interesting thing happened in this tank once. I have a yellow cichlid (not electric yellow as it lacks the black strip on the top fin) and one day I noticed a very very tiny yellow fish hiding at the bottom that had probably been there a while till it got big enough and brave enough to start coming out into the open more. It is just like the other yellow one! It must be the yellow ones baby but I only have one of that type of fish so I have no idea how that happened but it is getting pretty big now, about 2.5 inches now

 

Interesting. Cichlids do breed pretty easily though. Is it possible that a bunch were born and eaten while only this one survived?

One thing you can do with aggressive fish (if that's how the fish died....I've had to do it with African cichlids before) is separate them for an hour or two (you can probably even bag them) and rearrange everything in the tank. Then put them back in there. They will think they are somewhere else and reestablish to pecking order and territories. But if you have a super male...it will still be the top dog no matter how the order is reestablished. I had a "yellow lab" super male that was so aggressive that I eventually had to just put him in a larger tank with much bigger fish who would have ate him if they could catch him. He chilled his shit out in that tank.

 

As for rearranging the tank...I make sure to do that if I add a new fish but otherwise they tend to rearrange the tank themselves

They are pretty smart...they can see the bottle of food and go crazy if i hold it up to the tank. On the other hand the bottle that contains the test strips only gets a small response...they can tell the difference it seems

 

I'm sure. Fish are underrated by many people. Many fish are very smart and have their own personalities (which I'm sure you know.) I have a certain fish about 2 feet away from me trying to get my attention. I know what he wants.

My favorite 2 that I've ever had was a large Tire Track Eel and a particular stingray. Both were hand fed and had great personalities. There are a bunch of others that I've loved too though.

 

I have goldfish... not sure how many in a 200ltr tank outside plus 2 others in a 100ltr aquarium inside. And bloody nuisance algal matt forming all over the gravel...grrrrrr!

 

Can you guess how many fish you have in there and what size they are?

Goldfish produce a lot of waste. That waste eventually becomes nitrates and aglae feed on nitrates. If you have a lot of sun light hitting the tank...that probably isn't helping. So that's probably why it's there and the solution is either less fish or more water changes. Maybe both but definitely more water changes.

 

Buy a cat fish species, they clean up like everything. I was having algae troubles so I bought two little bristle nose catfish and now they're growing quite quickly and I've not had an algae problem since. They just roam around and dart to places and cling to the sides and clean everything. One of them knows my red tail sharks feeding times though and it clings on her food but she must have had a word to it because every time she circles down to her food the catfish scurries away. They're fun to watch too, they look like a stealth airplane.

 

problem with that is those type of catfish also find goldfish very tasty.
I think they love the thick slime coating goldfish have, but I have on more than one occasion seen a pleco or related latched onto a living goldfish chowing down.
General rule of thumb, goldfish do best with goldfish.
Also contrary to popular belief, goldfish are actually a real pain in the ass to keep in top health, especially the mega fancy types.

 

The fish outside are fine and healthy - no algae problems and a pond size filter for them with rainwater top up. Inside only 2 fish. I turned the lamp off for all but 6 hours a day to reduce the algal growth. No sunlight to speak of. Algae were introduced when I had live plants in there but I've since removed them.

More water changes are probably a good idea. I might out some phosphate removing granules in to further limit the growth.

 

I had a fish when I was little his name was Oscar, we came home one day and found him in the middle of the kitchen floor dead, because he had jumped out of the tank while we were away. We cried. No fish since then. Just the ones on the end of a fishing line.

 

Yes good idea. I tried a couple of pleco's a while ago but they died. Maybe the water is not getting well enough cleaned for them. They had some wood in there so I don't think it was a diet issue.

 

You need to feed plecos other things besides letting them clean glass, etc. They do that but it isn't really what they eat.

Edit to say...that reminds me...I need to feed my plecos.

 

That's what happened to my tire track eel. I was bummed. I had him forever. They get pretty big. This isn't mine but it's one similar but smaller.

 

Like I said, in my experience they do find goldfish tasty

 

I know overstocking a tank is one of the main contributors to fish problems. Tanks may look big, but even in my 4ft tank one red tail, 5 neons and a few guppies is enough. There looks like there's a ton more room for another 100 fish but then there's too much waste and problems occur.
The problem I have right now in my tank is a pet shop ages ago gave us a trumpet snail and I never thought much of it so I put it in the tank. Now I've got an infestation of them! Every week I clean out 25-50 of them, they're slowly retreating. That's why I got the catfish too so the snails had nothing to eat. I want to try a loach because I hear they eat the snails but being a bottom feeder I don't want to annoy our red tail Storm because she's just so cool and we've grown her for 2 years nearly now.