Read This Post Before Getting Fish

[Brandorr]

Although there are rules of thumb. None of them are absolute. Instead of thinking about number of fish, think "bioload", and "bioload" capacity.

Bioload is effected by the type of fish. e.g. - herbivores generally produce waste that contains less ammonia, larger fish produce more waste than smaller fish, how often they are fed.

capacity refers to filtering, size of tank, plant effects, water quality

That said, I have heard a rule of thumb: no more than 1 inch of small fish per gallon. As fish get larger, the ration of inches to gallons must go down. The reason for this is that a 10 inch fish is going to weigh at least 50 times more than a one inch fish of the same species.

 

[Coler]

yup and a 10 inch fish in 10 gallon is not going to be comfortable.

I would advise that anybody looking for stocking advice start a thread including details of tank size and what you are thinking of doing. You will get all the advice you need to avoid problems.

Mind you, questions like "what fish can I keep in a 29 gallon" or "how many fish can I fit in a 55" are not really going to help. Give some indication of the kind of fish you want to keep.

 

[Davefish]

lfs returns

I have been keeping and occasionally returning fish to the LFS for 20 years. We have an understanding when the cichlids get to large and aggressive they go back to the lfs who happily resells them for 4 times what he sold them to me for.
What do you all have 250 gallon tanks??? I do not think so.
You may not like my solution but it is the only real solution ... living in MIAMI I have seen the canals full of released fish the other solution SOme of you do gooders are way overboard My take on this recently my wife wanted a puppy after a few months I was allergic to the little toy Poodle back to the Breeder he went they kept the $$ no big deal I cannot get all upset about it!!
Keep it real If you really don't have the answer for that too large oscar Just filet him and fry him up Yum YUM!!


:welcome: :headbang2: :help:

 

[spirals]

10 gallon 10 tropical fish
20 gallon 20 tropical fish

except theres a huge difference between, say, a 1 1/2" neon tetra and a 10" Red Oscar. Mostly you just have to completely immerse yourself in fishkeeping, ask a lot of questions, and use a little common sense. For example :if the fish I am getting will get up to 10", will he have room to turn around in the tank when its full grown? That simple little statement will actually rule out a lot of fish when you are looking around

 

[spectralcow]

Okay, so I recently made a bad purchase. I'll admit that. In general, I agree with what is being said in this post. I have a 125gal saltwater tank and I ensure that I don't even come close to over-stocking it. Nor would I allow fish into that tank that I didn't know for sure could live comfortably in there.

That being said, we'll go back to my recent bad purchase. I recently bought two freshwater fish from a local fish store, with the idea of starting up a freshwater tank. I didn't know what the fish were and neither did the people in the fish store. In fact, after (my mistake, I know) buying them I came home and spent over a week on the internet researching, posting to forums and emailing people to ask them what these fish were. (I didn't post here, maybe you folks would have known right away.) I even went to every fish store in the area with pictures and no one could tell me what they were. Finally, after about a week, someone figured it out. They are barramundi. I know, I know.

Okay, here is the part I will concede: "I should not have two (or even one) barramundi. I do not have the ability to keep them properly once they mature. It was an irresponsible purchase, and regardless of how long it would have taken or how hard it was, I should have done the research before buying them."

That being said, what is the alternative for these fish? I am not challenging anyone, I am asking. I don't know what happens to fish if they are not purchased. I know that IN the fish store, there were four of them in a 5-gallon tank. At my house they (they are maybe 3 inches long now) currently occupy a 33-gal tank and will move into a 55gal tank when they get bigger (not full grown, of course). I know that _I_ bothered to find out what type of fish they were when the pet store's only answer was "I don't know. The distributor said they are sea bass." We've established that I shouldn't have bought them. But what happens to them if I don't? Was someone with a 2000gal tank going to come along and buy them? Were they going to be taken back to Australia and released back into the rivers and estuaries there? I guess that you could say, "Well, if you don't buy them then they are not your responsibility and you don't have to worry what happens to them." Isn't that the opposite of what we're saying in this thread, though? Look, I made a mistake by buying the fish, I admitted to that, but aren't the chances pretty good now that at least for a little while these fish will be with someone who is interested in doing the best he can for them instead of being in a fish store that couldn't even be bothered to find out what they were?

I know that ideally, I would not have purchased these fish and some person with an absolutely giant aquarium would have come along and purchased them. But realistically, what are the chances that would happen? I don't know that there are a ton of people in this area with fish tanks large enough to properly care for adult barramundi, and even if there were, the fish store was obviously prepared to sell the fish to the first person who walked through the door. The chances of these fish leaving the store with someone who could care properly for them as adults was very, very minute.

Please understand that I am not saying that I either purposely or accidently did the right thing here. I'm just saying that these fish probably weren't facing a much better alternative. I still shouldn't have agreed to take responsibility for fish that I cannot keep once they've grown to full maturity. But for right now, I am honestly trying to do the best I can to make them happy.

So aside from doing my research ahead of time, never purchasing them in the first place and hoping beyond hope that someone with an immense fish tank was going to get to these fish before some other schmuck bought them, what would you all suggest I do now? Get rid of them immediately? Do the best I can until I can no longer buy tanks that are big enough for them? I'm perfectly open to suggestions.

P.S. By the way, if you live anywhere near me (I live in eastern Ohio) and you have the facilities to properly care for adult barramundi, I would be perfectly willing to let you have them.

 

[Brandorr]

I guess the key point is regardless of what the alternatives were for these fish, you are encouraging your dealer into ordering more of these fish.

 

[spectralcow]

I guess the key point is regardless of what the alternatives were for these fish, you are encouraging your dealer into ordering more of these fish.

Well, that may or may not be true. For that to be true, we would have to believe that if I hadn't purchased the fish, no one else would have either, AND the store is actually ordering this particular species of fish based on whether or not they sell. Also, as soon as I found out what they were, I called the store, told them what they had and gave them an ear-full. Now, I understand they may not care. But, then we're back to the first point which is that if they only care about selling them, they would have probably sold these fish to someone else anyway.

I understand your point and actually already conceded a number of times in my post that I made a mistake by buying them.

I think what is getting lost here is exactly what you are saying doesn't matter. Something happens to the fish if I don't buy them. What is that thing? Is it actually even better than me buying them? Now, you're right, if NO ONE had bought them, then maybe the store would never order anymore (doubt they are really specifically ordering them anyway, since they didn't know what they were) and no more barramundi would appear in that store. Realistically though, someone else probably would have bought the fish. Also, the fish store people told me that they never know what they will get from their distributor anyway, so I doubt they are calling them up right now and saying "Send all the barramundi you have, they are selling like hotcakes!"

I understanding your point that I should not have purchased the fish, and I agree with that. But I think you are assuming a little too much to say that MY particular purchase of these fish is going to lead to additional sales of this same species of fish.

 

[plecofreako]

I've been through two pages of this thread and I think one very important part of the learning process has been left out. Read, read, read. and when you start to think that ou might possibly know something, read some more. the very best info I have ever gotten came from my extensive reading of aquaria and fish care/compatability.

I apologize if this was covered in the 5 pages of replies that I didn't read yet.

 

[pjacobs]

can someone please message me or email me and give me the basics on how to cycle a tank. also on what certain terms mean that are on this post. i am new and i bought a new 26gl bow tank off of someone for the very reason you are posting about. i didn't want my fish to be cramped and uncomfortable, yet i transferred them too early. when i originally bought fish the LPS told me to run the filter for 72 hours and the heater for 24 before adding fish. i did this with my 10 gal tank, then bought the 26 and assumed it would be the same process. i just found this board today, and i put my rainbow shark back in the 10gal because he almost died, and i got scared and put him back in the small one as a kind of quarantine. i want to keep my fish healthy but want to understand what the things people are telling me to do mean.. thanks a million

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Read the sticky right below this one.