One of -those people-

Sigh

I'm pretty sure we all know one of -those people-. You know, the ones who do everything against the book and yet by some miracle their fish survive for years on end, and sometimes even more surprisingly have what seem to be thriving fish!

Having had been a pet store sales assistant for a few years, I saw this a lot. Between people who never used anti-chlorine, those who dumped masses of salt into fresh water tanks, those who keep brackish fish in fresh water, those who keep predators and prey with each other, and heck, even those who kept fish in glass vases without filtration or any form of regular water changes!

How these people get away with these things, essentially "against-the-book", really gets to me.

My dad is one of those people. Between using prestik and vaseline in his tank, and insisting that fish that look the same have the same water requirements, I don't know how he's kept everything running for so long. Quite a while back he grabbed some sea weed out the ocean and threw it into a low-salinity brackish tank. Yup, you guessed it - the sea weed is still alive today.

How do these people do it, while us "by-the-book" aquarists, who try to keep everything perfect, lose fish to some minor imperfections?

Is it just me who sees these guys or do you guys know a few too?

-rant over-

 

Encountered a LOT of those people in especially the koi industry..... Vicariously enjoyed their anguish when they ran into my shop with a sob story after losing all their fish doing what they "have allways done"....

You can only give them the generally acepted advice....their choice if they want to follow it...

 

To be honest before I joined TASA I never did a waterchange or did a water test in my life or tried bio filtration

All my fish died of old tank syndrome I think
But now I am a better fish keeper and water expert with MTS

 

ya, I know one of those guys. No matter what wacky, weird and downright stupid mixes of fish he gets everything lives. And you tell me how one can grab a crab by the sea, toss it into dirty freshwater and the stupid thing lives anyway. Unless he is a total liar, which I somehow doubt, he has flippen good luck. A fool's luck, so to say.

 

Lol. That is crazy.

 

A friend of ours caught some fry in a net a few years ago at Witbank Dam and placed it in his pond ,It looks like Kurpers to me and the weird part is they have spawned an propagated like there is no tomorrow

Flip my show guppies won't even breed ?

 

Un (or) fortunately I was one of those lucky guys that, (1) didn't change water, (2) boiled my stones and substrate to clean them, (3) didn't believe and still don't like a sump, (4) added any fish I liked till my neons became food(bloody Tinfoil Barbs), (5) cleaned my filter once a fortnight, (6)tested the water(water was water, right) etc. etc etc. But that was many moons ago (mid 80's) before Internet and TASA. I know IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE but I realised I was walking a tight rope and is hopefully now doing everything right....?

 

I think the one thing you are missing about "those people" is that they probably mess less with the tank and just allow nature to find a way to get a balance ... many time we fail in trying to control every little thing in our tanks .. the more you leave them the better the balance.

Later Ferdie

 

I used to be one of those people as a child lol the tank got cleaned every weekend cause it was dirty with algae gravel and all,had never heard of water conditioners or water changes never owned a heater(lived in dbn) and the oscars lived for years grew huge along with the(we called them mouthbrooders)egyptian something or other along with the jack dempseys all lived happily and spawned for years.I have learned a bit since those days and no longer practice such things so please forgive me.

 

i remember those days @oscar freak lol ,we did that for a good 9/10 years, right through high school.those were the days athol .we were pioneers or rather broke fish keepers! lol catching busses after school on a friday to do a petshop run!

 

I think it was Otto von Bismarck who said: "Heaven protects fools, drunkards and Americans". Well, I'm not an American, and although I like my Beer, I don't think having one beer a day (not even every day at that!) qualifies me as a drunk, I guess I must be a fool!

When I started out the first time I had a 6ocm, tank with a heater and a UGF, a mixture of Guppies, Neons, Platies, Chuli loaches, Angels, and a plastic diver. No plants.

I'd never even heard of the nitrogen cycle, bio-filters, or even de-chlorinating. Did water changes only when the water got too murky to see through, then I cleaned everything! I dumped the fish into a bucket of tap water, emptied the tank, washed it out with soap and water, rinsed the substrate with clean tap water, refilled the tank straight from the garden hose, netted the fish and dumped them back into the tank!

I don't remember that I lost a lot of fish either, or maybe that's just selective memory.

The second time around, I thought fish keeping was 'easy' and I just waded in like I did the first time, and within 2 weeks all my fish had died! Fortunately, I went crying to the guys at Pet Stop (I never even bought my tank or fishes there) and they gave me a quick crash course in fish keeping and sent me off to do some research before they'd sell me some fish.

A Google search yealded so much info that my mind boggled (or more accurately wobbled) but I did find TASA!

Guys, a million thanks for the warm welcome you gave me when I joined, and for the kind way you helped me, without simply dismissing me as an idiot. Everything I've learned and am still learning about fish-keeping I owe to you guys, and to Pet Stop.

@firemanmuzz and @oscar freak Wow! You guys spent 9/10 years in high school? I salute you! I only managed to stick it out for 2 years, then i gave up :amazed:

 

@Noodle! grats, dude, that earned my first out-loud chuckle for the day! :bigsmile:

 

lol firemanmuzz must speak for himself

 

haha, same here. I remember buckets full of fish the best!

 

@Noodle ha ha ha lol hey we went too goverment schools lol ,also if we left too early our parents were going to make us get jobs!

 

have to absolutely agree with this, ultimately, in a closed sytem like a fish tank, too much fiddling can be bad for the fishies..