Who's stressed? The fish or you?

[Junky123]

We have a 10gl fish tank for the last couple of years operating on an unedcuated level. A few weeks ago, I decided to go with a 55gl set-up and wanted to do it right this time. After reading a few books and joining a few aquarium forums, analyzing every posts, I feel much better about myself although I still make a few mistakes here and there.

I relegiously make PWC 20-30% every 2-3 days and check water parameters every day. There were days I had nightmares about my fish dying, waking up in middle of nights running downstair to check on them. I am so stressed out while my fish are swimming around looking at me funny.

Today our family took a 400 miles trip to join our in-laws for Thanksgiving holiday. I had fish on my mind for the whole 6-7 hour drive. The image of coming home after a few days seeing the fish floating on the water suface taunting me.

In any case, we stopped by one of the in-laws today and found that she has two 20gl fish tanks. After a few exhanges, let's say she knew very little about fish. The fist tank has two huge plecos, one gaint goldfish, a dozen full-size platties and a dozen swordtails. She has them all in the same tank for three long years and they seems happy and heathy.

She have the second 20gl tank set-up to raise the platties and swordtails' fries. They are one year old now and more than 50 them in there and they have their own fries too but she had given up rasing them. She change 100% water once a month and swap-out her tiny, silly little filter every three months or so she said.

So the question is why am I so overstressed out about my fish? Are they playing me for being a fool? I'd bet they laugh at me every time they see me coming around the corner all concerns "Here comes the sucker". I guess I have become officially a fish's slave. LOL

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

 

[Ulan]

I think it's the ambition that causes all these problems. It's a bit harder to keep an oto happy than a goldfish. And the hardier fish can get used to quite a lot.

As you were talking about your in-law's tanks, I had to think about my friends, who gave me my first 10 guppies from their ever proliferating gang in their home aquariums. They have just two 10 gallon aquariums themselves. My 10 fishies came from one of those 10 g tanks, which still houses about 50 guppies, a common pleco, 3 or 4 neon tetras and two clown loaches that were introduced to take care of a few hundred ramshorn snails that shared that tank with all the fish.

When my friends started with their first aquarium, they lost a few fish. But after that, I only remember that one of the male fancy guppies found an untimely end shortly after it had been bought, and recently one of the neons was reported dead. This neon had always been the biggest one and probably died of old age. The rest of the fish are fine. They are never ill.

And here am I and fight first a deadly parasite infection and then a severe case of ich. Just the guppies I got from my friends seem indestructible. Which makes somehow sense. I talked to one of my friends who looks after the aquariums a few days ago, and she doesn't know what a water conditioner is. Well, she has her own way to handle the water preparation, obviously successful. And she enjoys her tanks very much.

I suppose I just have to get a bit more relaxed. There will always be things that are not under my control. But I hope that I will end up where my friends are now - with a stable system that I can simply enjoy. And, hopefully, with happy fish .

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[wataugachicken]

i know exactly how you feel. one night (granted, it was after a tripleshot mocha around midnight- and i don't ever drink caffeine) i stayed up all night long. everytime i tried to sleep i started worrying about my fish. is the bichir okay? did i stunt him by keeping him isolated for so long? what if i got another tank? how could i rearrange it so my bristlenoses can breed? if they breed, where can i put the babies? will the bichir eat the babies? can i sell the babies? what about my cories? will the eggs ever hatch? etc etc etc. . . there are a million things you can worry about, and another million scenarios where everything goes wrong. some things just. . . work out, and other things never do. keep your fingers crossed, keep your tanks clean, and try your best. it's all you can do.

 

[tanapseudes]

Now I am really stressed because I bought a silver arowana. I get stressed over my 75 because I have a huge trickle filter with a continuous siphon and a pump moving 600 gph. If the pump fails then the trickle filter will overflow unless my drilled hole in the siphon breaks the siphon going to the filter. Sometimes this hole will get covered with algae and the siphon will not break. There are about 40 expensive fish in the tank. I think about 30 gallons of water would end up on the floor.