Shocked and amazed.

[Que]

I went over to a friends house for the superbowl yesterday and was shocked and amazed to see his fishtank. He has a 45 gallon tank 3ft wide on a 20 gallon tall wrought iron stand 2ft wide. He had it downstairs in the kids playroom. This tank has an undergravel filter with about 1/2 of blue gravel and a whisper 10 HOB on the back. He's got a small piece of driftwood in it and a few rocks. No plants of any kind. The background is a nice picture of a planted tank. For fish he's got about 6 or 7 assorted cichlids ranging in size from 3 to 5 inches or so that have no place to hide. The fish looked stressed too.

He's not a close friend but man alive I want to let him know about all the things that are just wrong with what he's doing. Has anyone ever had to have a sit down with someone in a situation like this?

Q

 

[Sploke]

Yeah, I've been there, both with fish and turtles. It can be tough, because usually if they're keeping fish like that, they probably don't care enough to really treat them as pets rather than a display piece. The first thing I would start off with is the safety issue, especially if he's got kids. A tank on a stand designed to hold half that volume is in no way safe, especially with kids running around. If one of them managed to tip it, or just hit it hard enough to break the tank, serious injury could result. From there you could get into proper care of the fish, but that would be my first point.