It's crazy, all these people have years and years of experience over me so I'm honored you would ask me to join in on this.. Thank you for the invite and the series!
Ben thanks so much for being a part of our biggest mistakes video and including 2 mistakes that will hopefully prevent others from doing the same thing in the future.
I watch fish keepers all the time. And all the rest of them. I have no friends . So that's what I do all the time. I love watching my fish. It's very relaxing. Nothing else to do.
I love the variety of Fishtubers in these videos: small and large channels, new and older channels, business and hobbiest channels, guy's and girl's channels. Really, really excellent 💕👍
Idea for a 10 Things video. "What fish go with what aquascape?" i think that would be cool to see all the different setups there could be, since not all fish like the same setups.
Approximately 5 years ago, I failed to put the “new” container of fish food up out of my 4 yr. old grandsons reach. I woke up the next morning to the entire container have being poured into the 20 gallon tank. All of my barbs and tetras (9) were dead! The only survivors were (not surprising) the common pleco and (surprising) my sapphire beta. The Beta lived for another 6 months; he succumbed to old age. The pleco is still alive and thriving. He’s in a 75 gallon tank now due to his size.
I agree and disagree. For the experienced fish keeper yes, definitely nice to see, providing not only good looking, but functional and true to nature environments is definitely encouraging for keeping healthy and happy fish. At the risk of being ripped apart, I’m going to say there’s something to be said about the artificial ships and spongebob decorations’ visual appeal to younger kids to get them interested in the hobby. AS LONG AS... the kids are also being engaged in learning about the intricacies of fish, and for that matter, pet care in general. I’m sure there’s a handful of fish who would be able to live a long and happy life with some cheesy decorations as long as the water quality is well looked after. That could be a jump off point for them to develop interest long term, where they can learn the finer points and one day set up their own natural aquariums. All I’m saying is that you’re not going to interest young kids in the hobby talking about flow rates of specific fish from regions on the other side of the world, you will however be able to encourage the desire to learn and apply that information with responsible teaching of the basics on how to care for pets and fish.
I like natural aquariums also, but at the same time, I'd really love to do planted themed tanks: Gothic (skulls, skeletons, etc., dark colors), a pirate tank, and an Asian tank. I think you can use decorations and still have a cool and happy aquarium, balancing nature (plants, rocks, driftwood) and artificial decor.
I know petsmart sometimes sells these really big golden asian dragons which go great with live plants or fake plants. also from my experience my big fish love the gold dragon more then their natural decor cause they can swim threw certain parts.including my goldfish who loves to hide behind it then when he sees food or me goes right threw the middle of it.
That means alot. Thank you 🙂 being honest about our mistakes isn't always the easiest thing to do but the important thing is to learn from them and hopefully help others not make the same mistake.
Thanks for adding me and keep up the great work! Another mistake of mine is using too much equipment. Less equipment less chance to fail. Since I don’t rely on them now power outages and failures aren’t a issue.
So I used to have a koi pond at my old house. It was a 100 gallon pond and I kept koi fish...like 5 at one time. So when the pond would get "dirty" (dirt, leaves, debris, algae) I would remove the fish and put them in clean garbage can (with treated water of course, I at least knew that much lol) and would completely empty the pond. I would then scrub the entire thing down with a sponge to get ALL of the algae off and actually shop vac the bottom to get every bit of dirt and debris! My husband would then take his power washer and power wash the filters and clean out ALL the hoses that connected to everything. We made sure that pond was as sparkling clean as you could get. And I wondered why sometimes after a pond cleaning, I would lose fish...fish that had been around awhile and had been doing really well..suddenly gasping for air at the surface and dying...I couldnt figure it out. I mean, they should have done well with a clean pond and clean water, right? Obviously, I knew nothing about the nitrogen cycle at that time and now I cringe to realize how many koi died at my ignorance. My last batch actually survived the water changes and grew to be very big and beautiful...what did I do different? I discovered liquid bacteria and always treated my pond with it after the water changes..must be how those 3 managed to survive my abuse. I ended up selling them to a pond enthusiast who had a much larger pond (and probably actually knew what he was doing) when we sold our house. I hope they had a better life with him!
I am ever so grateful to you both! Thank you for including me. Publishing all these mistakes has already helped so many people! Thank you and Happy Mother’s Day Lisa!!
I am soooo proud of Lisa and John for sharing their mistakes! It can be really hard to admit when you have done something wrong and I am glad that you shared your mistakes along with everyone else's!
@@rootsnwhiskers8351 The person selling them to you should have asked what they were for, and steered you in another direction. The help you've given everyone since should have wiped your slate clean loooong ago! Thank you for all that you do for us.❤
Wow, Lisa! I'm really proud of you that you told your story. I think it's really important to share mistakes like that so that, hopefully, it can prevent others from doing the same. And I'm sure you're not the only well-meaning mother to do that. I totally identify with the guilt, and thus starts my story... Back in the day, when I was maybe 10 or 12, I decided I really wanted to have a goldfish... I spent the next 6 months killing and unintentionally torturing a series of goldfish. The first 2 I got, I managed to kill the first night I had them. Oh yeah, I kept them in a bowl. Yep. TWO goldfish in a BOWL. 😔 I'm pretty sure that after that first pair, I just had one at a time, but still... Years later when I decided to make my 2nd attempt at fishkeeping, I was so traumatized by the thought of what I had done, I was completely paranoid the entire first year I had my betta Jax. I'm happy to say he lived a good life in a 10 gallon tank! 😉
Thank you. It's not easy for anyone to own up to their mistakes sometimes. Especially when they happen to be people that others go to for answers. Everyone was a beginner once 😉 thank you for sharing your mistake.
Well my biggest mistake was when I started my fish keeping hobby in 2015..i was Jst a beginner with no knowledge what so ever of the nitrogen cycle and the local aquarium keeper had told me to clean the full tank after 1 month so I used to perform a full aquarium cleaning with scrubing and washing all the aquarium n decor and add fresh water and den the fish... And my God fish kept dying .. The shop keeper never told me the solution since I was constantly buying fish from him.. Then I turned to internet frm cafe coz India dint hav access to much internet back then... Then I learned about the cycle.. And nw my fish are living a good life
I decided about 2-3 months ago that i wanted to try my hand at a simple community tank after years of keeping bettas...and it has been one stupid mistake after another. From buying too small of a tank, not cycling, overstocking, accidentally setting the heater to over 100 degrees overnight, to not paying attention to the gender of my fish and ending up with 3 pregnant mollies and 1 pregnant guppy. One molly i got was missing an eye and ended up being pregnant. She died shortly after giving birth and im still not sure why. The fry i put in a 10gal nursery tank and after two weeks i lost the whole batch to ich (around 50 of the poor little guys). *i have since upgraded my initial 10gal community tank to a 20, and got a second 10gal to seperate some of the fish into to relieve the overcrowding until i can get a 55gal or better. Im...still learning.
No quarantine. Yep, guilty. Yep, lost a whole tank of fish, a 3 year breeding project, poof, gone. I quarantine everything now. Fish, shrimp, mystery snails, plants...everything. Thanks for getting experienced youtube fishkeepeers to share their stories. Happy Mother's Day, Lisa. 👍💕👍
Hi im Marlene from San Diego, Calif. Well my biggest mistake is I used to a full water change. Cleaned everything in the tank. When I filled the tank up. I guess the temperature wasn't the same. I tried. Now I haven't lost any fish. I fill up 4 bottles of water and put the water conditioner in it for when I do a water change. So the water is room temperature. I do a 25% water change once a wk. I have 2 tanks. 10 gallon and a 5 gallon. I am raising guppies. They r all doing great. After watching everyone's videos now I know what to do. Thank you very much for your information. Marlene Bolte
Great videos! I'm super new to the hobby; just started in December and that's when mistake happened. My wife and I moved to Japan and I went to a festival nearby. They had a fish scooping game I had always seen in animes and I wanted to try it out. I played it twice: won the first time and lost the second. The first person asked if I wanted to fish and I said no. The second guy just grabbed two fish and handed them to me!(I didn't know how to say "no thank you" then). So I call up my wife and tell her "we need to get a tank ASAP"! They were two fancies and we got them a small 15 gallon tank not knowing anything about the nitrite cycle or tank requirements. A friend helped me out and I started doing water changes and checking water parameters, but we went on vacation back to the states for two weeks when all hell broke loose. When we got home half of the water was gone due to evaporation (left the heater on), the pump on the filter died out because the water level was too low, a fish was missing, and the other ones fins had turned black (ammonia burns). The missing fish wasn't on the floor or in the filter. It wasn't until I did a water change that I noticed a small piece of fin and realized that our survivor ate the other one. It's been about 4 months since then and I'm happy to say that our survivor has only a speck of black remaining and she went from all white to a white body with bright orange fins. She has been upgraded to a 42 gallon tank (that was properly cycled) and she has two other fancies in there to keep her company. Everyone is happy and healthy!
I got my first aquarium because my friend won that scoop the fish game at a festival. She handed the fish to me because she wasn't able to care of it. That was a swordtail. I didn't have a tank and put it in a large salad bowl. Two days later the fish delivered 20 babies. I moved them to a laundry bowl, added gravels and plants. The fish was scared of me for the first two weeks i think. They are very stressed at this scooping game and afraid of men. When i came to feed her, she hid among the plants. Came out only when i left. My second aquarium was with betta. I came to a store to buy a halfmoon betta, but noticed a suffering fish in a bottle. I bought it, the seller gave it to me for free in addition to plants, because the fish was about to die. But this betta didn't die, he fully recovered in two weeks and started to build bubble nest.
Years ago after upgrading the lighting on my 55g reef I started getting major algae blooms in what was a well established tank- I tried EVERYTHING to bring it back under control; went back to old lights, massive water changes, black outs, coil denitrators, chemicals, algae scrubbers, for MONTHS while my tank slowly crashed. In the end I lost thousands of dollars of LPS and soft corals as they got choked out by hair algae. The reason? The new light caused a small spike in algae growth and when I tried to control it I leaned on my LFS to help produce enough salt water to keep up with the water changes. Lesson learned. They had stopped making their own and started collecting it from the ocean where we were having a large diatom bloom because of the weather. For months I was blinding adding contaminated seawater to my system trying to get it all back in check trusting that the water I was buying was being made in house from R/O but never bothering to test it myself. In the end what should have been a few weeks of extra maintenance turned into a total system crash because I tried to take short cuts on maintaining water quality. I learned that when things are going wrong you should just go back to basics, pull out the test kit and put in the time early to save heartbreak later and that just because you buy your water from the fish store doesnt mean its any better quality than what you make at home or what comes out of your tap. This hobby is about patience and detail and losing either of those is a sure fire way to make your experience miserable. Also if you want to keep anything sensitive, freshwater or salt, spend the $200, buy your own R/O system, and remineralize your water yourself just to be sure.
Oh Boy! My friend, Merle Cohen, of Aquarium Products told the story about buying big fish from the Amazon. They always came in DOA and he was required to contact a local rep to cover his loss. After losing about 20 big fish his brother got angry and threw thedead fish against the wall. Out splashed raw diamonds. He called the FBI who arrested the rep and broke up the smuggling operation. What a terrific idea for a series of vids. I love it. May I copy your idea?
Over medicating 2 quarantined, baby red cap orandas. I was absolutely in love with them and over did it. $30 for 2 fish and I easily spent over $100 in stuff they didn't need. I still feel so bad 😔 I couldn't bring myself to get 2 more yesterday at my LFS. Maybe someday! For now my one lone fancy goldfish is doing well in his 30 gal planted bachelor pad. 🐠❤️
My biggest mistake in fish keeping was NOT doing my homework and like John has said I WAS LAZY & I didn't know anything at the time but I bought a small baby pleco!!! to help me with my tank that was I think 6 years ago (I'm a late bloomer fish wise..lol) well anyway he/she grew and grew and it wasn't until I finally did some research that I found out he/she is a common pleco well I still have him/her and it's in a much larger tank and I'm looking into an even bigger tank or maybe even an indoor pond just for him/her and I also rescued another one from a really bad situation, I love them so much and I'll do what's best for them in the long run but I just wanted to say thank you to both of you so much! I love this channel and I'm staying..lol Oh and Lisa I would like to know what your favorite colour is I've already asked John and now I just need yours! Hope to see you on the next live..and Thanks again!
I've made waaaay too many mistakes. No cycling, regular full tank cleanings (as in, moving the fish out to clean everything), no heaters, no filters, keeping fish in 1 gallons, no filters (although the 1 gallons did have undergravel filters, they just weren't advertised as such and I never knew what they were for!)... I even had a male and female betta share a 1 gallon. They actually got along fine and didn't have problems. The problem came after I saw them breeding, and my maybe 10-year-old self panicked because I'd read in my (second-hand, outdated) betta book that the parents will need to be separated. There's many things wrong with what I did next, but as I said, I was a young panicking kid trying to do the "right" thing. I got my extra 1 gallon, filled it with water, and moved in the male. He very soon died after. The water was too hot. I felt awful. Still do, about all my fish keeping. However, I was a kid, and I had a book! It said bettas can live in small environments since they do in the wild! The misinformation then was strong. And I had no, then eventually little, access to internet (AOL dialup with parental controls and time limit). My mom can tell you not to move your daughter's betta container (basically what it was, less than a gallon) to a window sill while cleaning and leave it there all day in the sun. My 7- or 8-year-old self was not happy at all coming home to a missing (as it'd been moved), then dead, fish in the window.
First ever time I bought plants from eBay. I was cycling my tank and had no fish yet however, I stuck in my new plants which looked all great to me and went away for about 4 days or so. I came home and later that day, my lights came on in the tank and Im sitting watching tv. I look over and see what I thought was about 50 flies on the outside of my tank. Im thinking what the hell? Why would my brand new tank be attracting flies??? I walked over to investigate and noticed that 1) It wasn't flies and that 2) they were on the inside!! Snails!!! Hundreds of them. Baby snails. I took loads and loads out and everytime I thought I'd got them all, hundreds appeared soon after. I completely gave up and completely gutted the tank and started again. Almost put me off the hobby before I had begun. :) Tip: Trusted sources from then on. :)
My worst mistake was with my very first betta, he also happened to be my first fish. I kept him in a one gallon "tank" on my nightstand. Every week I would do a 100% water change (with conditioner) and thoroughly rinse his gravel. This worked pretty well until the weather started getting colder. I live in an old house and my room gets VERY cold in winter. So I bought a heater for him. The heater said it was good for small tanks, but I didn't read all of the information on it. I came home from work the next day and found my betta laying on the bottom of the tank, drained of all life and color. I don't know how hot the tank was, but the glass itself was warm to the touch. I didn't know that the heater didn't have a thermostat and just kept heating all day. After that, I did research for a good few months before buying another betta. Now all of my bettas are in tanks no smaller than five gallons with adjustable heaters and sponge filters.
I shared this on a previous video but I'll share it again: The gravel in my 30 gallon had started growing algae. So one morning before heading in for 2nd shift, I removed about half the gravel into a 5 gallon bucket, added some bleach from the laundry room, rinsed with tap water (which my city treats with chlorine to keep Lake Michigan microbial life out of the pipes) and put the gravel back in the aquarium. Fast forward to my return home about nine hours later. Everything is laying on th bottom floating upside down at the surface.
I put my precious guppies into a new tank, new water, new filters and they died. Not a chemist, didn't understand ammonia levels, killed all my guppies, swordtails, platies. Now because of you guys, I understand, PH, nitrate, nitrites, ammonia levels. Education is power....😀
I kept a betta sorority once, which in itself maybe wasn’t the brightest idea for where I was as a fish keeper at the time, but when I started my sorority, I didn’t quarantine my bettas. I didn’t have 5+ quarantine tanks, so I bought 5 female bettas and I just threw them into a tank together. The tank was cycled and set up well for a sorority, but little did I know I had purchased a sick betta. On top of that, sorority tanks can be stressful on bettas, and living in a high stress environment can weaken a fish’s immune system. Over time the betts would get sick and die off one at a time, and I kept buying new bettas to keep the sorority at a number of 5 or more bettas so they wouldn’t fight, but I still wasn’t quarantining them. I wound up going through probably 15 bettas before finally giving up and separating them into their own tanks. Never again.
Thank you Jeffroz it's been great. I felt your pain in the mistake you shared. Live and learn. Good advice for others so they don't make that same mistake in the future.
I fell for the old “this fish is small and looks like another species that I want but it’s actually a MONSTER” trap when I was a teenager. I went to a fish store that I hadn’t been to before and hadn’t read any reviews for, mostly because it was closer than the one I normally went to. I had wanted to get a flying fox (_Epalzeorhychos kalopterus_)or Siamese algae eater (_Crossochelius oblongus_), because damn it that horizontal black stripe is just so satisfying to look at. I’d researched both these fish beforehand, so when I got my Siamese algae eater, I thought I knew what I was getting into. Turns out there’s more than just two yellow bottom feeders with black horizontal stripes out there, they all look really similar, being mildly territorial 4-6-inch cyprinids (I guess that must be a really successful look for these guys in the wild), but one of these things is not like the other; it’s not a cyprinid, it’s not just “mildly territorial,” and it can grow to be nearly a foot long. The fish I got was _Gyrinocheilus aymonieri,_ a fish which has far too many common names for its own good, one of which happens to be “Siamese algae eater.” It’s a yellow bottom feeder with a black horizontal stripe and it has a pleco-like sucker mouth that it uses to stick to rocks. Unfortunately this fish doesn’t even eat algae, and is actually just a cookie cutter shark in a clown costume. At first it was small and timid, but once it got used to the tank, it quickly set to work chasing all the other fish. I was used to my fish occasionally charging each other, so I didn’t think anything of it, but it kept happening, and it kept happening, and then it started taking bites out of them. Before I knew what had happened, the only fish left in the tank were a rosaline shark, which was too big and fast to be bothered; my big redtail shark, which was quickly outcompeted and resorted to hiding at the surface behind the filter flow; and that goddamned algae eater. I finally caught it and took it to my normal fish store, where they were able to immediately identify it for the criminal it was, and informed me that they didn’t even stock this species anymore specifically because of situations like mine. They were... oddly excited to tell me what they did to the ones that their suppliers sometimes sent them. The moral of the story is that we should really be committing the scientific names of these animals to memory, because there are too many yellow bottom feeders with horizontal black stripes, and I didn’t look closely enough at mine. I had a similar (though less deadly) experience with an angelfish, of all things, because apparently angelfish can also be complete assholes and no one tells you about that.
I think we all have a story about not cycling tanks or using a water conditioner. I did that about 7 years ago. I didn’t know any better and now that I do I'm saddened for the poor betta fish. Recently though... a couple of months ago my brother and I decided Otto’s would be a great addition to the 70 gal tank our mother bought for him off Facebook. In that 70 wasn’t much a few platies, some ghost shrimp. He was building it up to be a tank he wanted for cardinal tetras. But we also had a goldfish that my daughter won at a little local fair during the fishbowl game. We didn’t think any better of it and he went and bought the ottos, didn’t quarantine, and floated them for 15 minutes and dropped them in. The next night I went downstairs to get a midnight snack and noticed the goldfish swimming erratically. So I went to check on the tank. In the goldfish’s mouth was one of the ottos, stuck in his throat. I freaked out and netted the fish out and with a pair of rubber ended tweezers I gently pulled the Otto from the goldfish's mouth. They both survived, but I was in such an anxious state about the other ottos I netted them all (4) and put them in my 10 gal betta tank in my room. I want to say they all live happily there now, but the truth is one died. And I always wonder if it was the one that the goldfish tried to eat. I have 5 ottos now since I read 3 was too little to keep. My brother bought his at an LFS and I had gotten mine at a PetSmart later on. Luckily by then, we had set up a hospital/quarantine for his cardinals tetras we have now. I quarantined my ottos for a little over a month, and then added them to my 10 gallons. You can tell the two I gotten at PetSmart are different since they don’t have the same markings but they all get along and I think my betta doesn’t mind the company! My 10-gallon betta tank has Donut the betta. 5 ottos (Otto, Auto, Oddo, aw-toe, and Oughto.) And my two assassin snails Helena and Pebble. The goldfish was given up after I had to explain to my brother why I suddenly had all his ottos... He now has a male bristlenose albino pleco for his 70.
My first attempt at a nano tank was a mistake! I went waaay too small for my skill level (1.5g) and tried to do some micro rasbora. I quickly felt bad for them in such a small space, and upgraded to a 3g....only to realize that was still too small, and too much maintenance! I went for a 10g next, and that led to my 20g, and then to a 40g....so my mistake was really getting into this fun but expensive hobby!! Lol, much support for you guys, keep up the good work
I once bought 3 baby Oscars to put in a 29g tank, with a bunch of other fish. They moved into a 55g by themselves, then into a 125g that wasn’t really big enough. The oscars gradually died off, but were over 15 inches by then. I decided the 125g tank would be my last...it has a loach and 3 severuim.
@@fishandfloral Not to downplay your story, but you said your Oscars moved into a 55 gallon tank by themselves. All I could see were 3 Oscars walking on a sidewalk, each one carrying a suitcase!! Sorry, my literal brain does that before I can reroute the error!
Lisa: I wouldn’t feel guilty over a mistake made in ignorance, save the guilt for times you knowingly do harm. If never... then awesome and keep being the empathetic amazing person we see.
Thank you Sean! We appreciate you joining us on this mistakes video. Stressing the importance of quarantining is so important and I hope this helps others in the future.
My biggest mistake was believing the whole betta in a bowl thing....I also did 100% water changes while scrubbing all the decorations. Now i'm part of a fish forum (aquiariumadvice.com) and am upgrading from a 20 gallon to a 55 gallon livebearer tank.
My worse mistake was about 22 years ago when I put the wrong cichlid fish together. After acclimating the new fish, i released them. Within seconds the new cichlid fish were completely under attack and devoured by the resident cichlids! Later is when i found out you cannot mix the different regions of cichlids. My LFS very generously gave me store credit since their employee said they'd be safe together when i explained what was in my tank before buying.
Im new to fish keeping had a beautiful 55 gallon tank no fish didnt want any just wanted a water tank with bubblers..A friend was trying to find a home for 1 rustic blue peacock african cichlid and 1 ruby jeweled african cichlid so she talked me into it and my tank was not cycled and I didnt wait the 4 weeks ended up losing the rustic blue peacock to some fungal infection. Still learning ended up buying 5 more african cichlids now im trying to figure out the sex of 3 of them. Lol everyone makes mistakes. As long as we learn from them. Thank you for all of your advice in the videos I have learned alot from them.
I'm new to fish keeping and in the last two weeks I've watched countless hours of UA-cam videos. I have to say these two videos are my favorite. What a great idea this was and I thoroughly enjoyed them and learned from other peoples mistakes. Thank you.....
I made a video, but decided for now not to post it. So, I purchased my first tank Jan of 2018. Never owned a fish tank as a child., I'm turning 50 this year. My first tank was a 29 gallon. I've made all the classic mistakes. I put fish in way too early not understanding the Nitrogen Cycle. Lost all my fish, I overfed and spiked the tank with Ammonia and lost all my fish,. I removed all the tank media and cleaned it in the facet, removing all the beneficial bacteria and lost most of my fish. An so on and and so. But eventually I found Fish Tube and got on the right path. Learning from your mistakes was mission critical, because by all accounts, I should have given up,. But I'm a fighter, and now I have 15 tanks and more on the way. Best Hobby ever. Thanks for listening., Be one with the fish.....love it....
1989jimbob I did the same. I thought it was cycled but definitely wasn’t. I wouldn’t say I had it way over stocked but I had an ammonia spike and thought it was an bacteria bloom. I lost 4 out of 20 fish . Just had to do frequent water changes until it balanced out
Absolutely loved this! All my fav UA-camRS in once video! *_#1 TIP FOR ADDING NEW FISH-_* *_ALWAYS QUARANTINE NEW FISH!_* Quarantine new fish is IMPORTANT!! Been in the hobby for years, I *NEVER* quarantined & *NEVER* had a problem. I picked up a couple new fish, acclimated them and added them, 1 week later.. a disease broke out & I lost ALL but one (14) of my beloved 7 year old fish! LESSON LEARNED THE HARD WAY! I was so devastated after trying to treat it, fix it & save my beloved fish, I almost tore down all my aquariums & quit the hobby completely!! Glad I didn't, but LESSON LEARNED!!! Now I always keep a 20g going so I can quarantine & for a med tank, I recommend anyone in the hobby to have atleast a 10g cycled quarantine/ med aquarium ready to go! 👍Learn & you will tank me later! 🤭🤭🤭 😉
My biggest mistake actually happened the weekend before last. I had been leaning heavily into my tank to gather my new fry up and move them into a different tank so they wouldn’t all be eaten, they were super small and it was a long and hard process. When I went to bed that night everything was fine, no signs of trouble, but when I woke the next morning all of the water in the tank had drained out. It seems that the front of the tank had started leaking in the night and leaked all of the water out while we were asleep. All of my adult fish died, except my clown pleco, and I was devastated. Luckily, I had the other tank set up for the fry so I was able to quickly save my pleco and snails.
I have two. The first one happened when I didn't quarantine some fish from my LFS. I lost half the fish in my 33 long to some type of bacterial infection. The second one happened in a well established tank. I had a HUGE mystery snail die in the tank and I didn't find it until the other fish started dying. I lost half of my 40 breeder to the resulting ammonia spike.Thank you to all the contributors for sharing their stories.
Wow. what a two part series. I really loved how caring and compassionate all these fish keepers are. I just got my first Betta for my desk at work and I'm so excited to spoil her like crazy. Thank you all for your bravery in sharing these mistakes; it was very helpful
I put gravel in an indoor fish pond with fancy goldfish. 2 of them had got a rock stuck in their mouths and I had to get the rocks out with tweezers. It was sheer luck it happend to both of them and I happen to walk by at the time. I did not loose any fish but I switched to pool filter sand the NEXT DAY. I continue to use pool sand in all my fancy tanks. Tough lesson.
I wish UA-cam was a big thing when I was younger. My family had a fish tank when I was very young (under 10 years old).. we had a big community tank with lots of guppies and sward tails and angles, even 2 beautiful goldfish... To me at the time, it didn't seem like anything was wrong with the aquarium... Now I know there was. We cleaned it once a week or 2 weeks and we had a filter and a heater BUT every water change was an 100% water change... Every surface was cleaned under tap water and sometimes soap was used.. the fish had to be picked up with a net and put in a small pot while the cleaning was happening... And we never used water conditioner... 😐😐😐 The truth is we never lost a huge amount of fish.. maybe only a couple but we were very lucky considering that everything we did while cleaning was wrong
Yes, I was the mother of 4 kids and one of those fish tanks in the 60’s. We did the very same thing. We would even put minnows from the pond in there with fish we bought from wal mart (no pet stores in the country). It was amazing they lived. I tell you the 60’s grew some sturdy kids and some sturdy fish!
Thanks for the video! I have only been fishkeeping a little over a month now and have had no problems so far! Now I know what to avoid after watching this 2 part video. Bought my first tank around April 1, a Marineland 60 gallon from Petsmart. Today I went to Petsmart and bought my second tank, Aqueon 125 gallon LED Full Setup! On sale for $499, plus I used a 20% off coupon and dropped price to $399!!!!
Yep been there......this is a true story though.....brought a man o war jellyfish home from the beach in a bucket.....i was only 12 mind you.....introduced him to my freshwater tank tropical tank...and watch him digest all my fish....seeing there insides digest inside the clear jellyfish for about two weeks.......and then the story end
These 2-part videos were hard to watch, but I learned some things, and I know I'm not alone in failing. I haven't talked about my big failure with anyone but my mom before. So here goes: I first tried fish-keeping about 5-6 years ago. I've kept pets my whole life: rats, guinea pigs, cats & dogs, and I wanted to have my first aquarium. I bought a 10 gallon and everything needed for it. My first big newbie mistake was not cycling my aquarium and building up the beneficial bacteria; I really didn't have a good handle on how that worked or how important it was. My next mistakes were 1) buying fish that do not belong together because they have different environmental needs and 2) buying too many too soon. My limited fish-keeping knowledge came from reading articles online, and relying on the less-than-knowledgeable pet store employees, but ultimately it came down to me being too impatient to have everything I wanted all at once, and not giving enough care to what the fish and invertebrates needed and wanted. I remember even reading that goldfish and tropical fish prefer different temperatures, but I disregarded that thinking it would probably be fine because I wanted 1 goldfish and I wanted several tropical fish. It wasn't until later I learned that goldfish output a huge bio-load, and they require a MUCH bigger aquarium than what we see at the pet stores. I lost a lot of fish, animals that I had grown very attached to, I had named them, I expected to have them for years, all because I didn't properly prepare, plan ahead and provide them what they needed. I even "rescued" 2 small Koi fish from someone online who wanted them gone immediately (luckily they came with their own, albeit too small, aquarium). Those Koi had Ich, which I knew nothing about. But when I realized how bad I was failing I was able to re-home those Koi to a nearby Koi rescue (I didn't even know was a thing!). I was also able to re-home a few of the remaining surviving animals I had, and I turned over everything I had to an experienced hobbyist I discovered after the fact who had an entire fish room where they were beautifully thriving. I was so discouraged and felt so bad and guilty for causing animals' unnecessary deaths, and felt like a terrible fish-keeper. On the plus side, I developed a real respect for Shrimp and Snails, and I absolutely fell in love with Apple Snails; they taught me that even snails can have their own unique personalities! I even had the rare pleasure of getting to see a shrimp "jump" out of his molted outer layer, which leaves behind a perfectly detailed copy of himself; So cool! Snails and Shrimp are some of the neatest aquatic animals... And hopefully someday we can have a beautiful Koi pond in our backyard! (I've loved Koi for as long as I can remember!) Now I'm trying my hand at an aquarium again for the first time since I failed, and I plan on doing everything right, including cycling my aquarium before-hand, fishless. It's really hard to wait but I'm going to do things the right way! I've learned SO MUCH from KGTropicals and Aquarium Co-Op UA-cam videos, and there are so many other fish professionals and hobbyists with so much experience and advice to offer. I wish I knew all I know now, back then, but I think the most important thing is I never make the same mistakes again. And videos like this will help me, and others, learn from others' mistakes so I don't do the same. Thanks Lisa and John!
Like Rachel, I didn't quarantine my plants. I recently got into keeping live plants (enjoy it almost more than fish keeping) and I didn't even consider that you would need to quarantine a plant. I say that now as I'm battling bladder snails, detritus worms, hydra, AND limpits all in one tank. I've made peace with the bladder snails and the detritus worms, but the hydra are an absolute pain and the easiest way to get rid of them will kill my beautiful nerites. Makes me nostalgic for my pre-plant days when all I had to worry about was a Malaysian Trumpet snail sneaking in.
Holy fish! That's a lot of problems! That totally sucks. I didn't quarantine my plants and I didn't treat the first batches, but my last order, I did dip each plant in hydrogen peroxide and duckweed and a worm (terrestrial, looked like) came off. I didn't wash or treat the PetSmart anacharis, either, and have a lot of small snails as a result, but I actually don't mind that. Only problem I have with it is potential introduction of diseases and bad bacteria... Well, much too late to worry a out it now.
I'm truly grateful for these video content. We all learn so much from each other and mistakes made. Mine was, I bought a second hand corner type tank, almost diamond shaped. The advert on Gumtree South Africa even showed photos of the tank filled with water. And the price was very cheap which included everything needed such as heater, AquaClear hob, all other essentials and even submersible light. Fetched the tank, started it up, full cycle etc Added two fish to start settling the aquarium. It was truly spectacular. On the 6th day, during the night, the bottom sides of the panels split and the tank ran dry, heater burst, hob rattled very badly and overheated, fish died, water all over tiles, under furniture, water damaged all furniture "legs". That morning I woke up with the disaster.... If buying second hand, first fill up somewhere outside. It's tricky with second hand, you have to trust your gut feeling. I also suggest maybe keep extra aquarium safe cilicone handy. Otherwise the safest is brand new. I buy new and in between second hand, but the latter, I look very closely to cilicone joints for any bubbles or in the case of clear cilicone, check for any algae penetration deeper in etc.
@@rootsnwhiskers8351 LMAO thats my baby- I was telling John today how very lucky we are to have the special women we have in our lives. Again great job on the video!
I’m a newby, I’ve been trying to educate myself and what I’ve realized from all the pros and youtubers is everyone have different opinions and everyone are just trying to keep their fish alive. It’s worth the effort. I’m loving my fish babies.
I'm only a pet-fish keeper, but I did that stupid thing where you don't read up on the fish and (maybe) trust the salesperson in the pet-shop too much. I still lived with my parents at this point, I think I was around 20. Me and my mom were at the pet-store. I had planned to just browse, maybe look at the platys, as I love live bearers. I only had a 63 liter tank at the time, but there was room for more fish as I had been stocking it sparsely. I saw some cool fishes and mom stopped by them too, commenting on how great they looked. I don't think I would have bought any if it wasn't for her, but she taking an interest made me wanna 'please' her, so to speak. I talked to the shop attendant, admitted I knew nothing about this species and asked ALL the right questions: which water conditions do they prefer? Temperature? Do they grow much bigger than this? Do you keep them as single fishes or together? Are they good with other fish? I was told they wouldn't get any bigger (they were maybe the length of my thumb). It would be no problem keeping a few together, so why didn't I get two? They were no problem with other fish. I got two. Two Red-tailed black sharks. As soon as I got home they discovered that they HATED each other. I had to separate my tank with a plastic sheet (so lucky that wasn't toxic!) and they grew. And grew. Soon they were almost the length of my hand! The dominant one had a bright red tail fin, the other one's fin was almost see through. I finally realized this couldn't go on and managed to give one back to the fish-store, and I chose the "pretty" one so they would take it... very quickly the poor "oppressed" fish had colored up and I really loved my "Jerry" (I called them Tom and Jerry... I think you can figure out why). Unfortunately I lost him and many other fish a year or so later when I decided to change the substrate and "redo" my then much bigger tank... I got black sand, thinking it would look cool, but even though I tried to do everything right (not cleaning the filter and such) everything started dying immediately. Not sure if it was my fault or something wrong with the substrate, but I had to change it all back to natural pebbles again. When moving away from home I didn't have room for a tank, but recently I got a small 24 liter desk tank with a few guppies, and I'm thinking I might get a bigger one and put it on my solid TV-bench... and if I do, I might, eventually, get another Red-tailed black shark... but only ONE...
As far as I know, red tail sharks become agressive if you don't keep enough of them. They are supposed to live in groups and require huge tanks. Buying only one may cause the fish to become agressive towards other fish so that would not solve the problem either. These fish just don't belong in pet stores.
My first major mistake was not sticking to a water change schedule. I used the physical appearance to justify when I needed to make changes. I’m still fighting a bad case of fin rot on my very first betta. Thank you to all the youtubers. I’ve learned soo much about the hobby due to the collective of videos you guys share.
My worst mistake was when we had to move, we put all my beautiful Malawi cichlids into 5 gl buckets. Not wanting the water to slosh around, we put the lids on, snapped them down and away we went. Well a couple hours later I took all the lids off only to find most of the fish were dead. Now I don’t put lids on and just keep the water halfway up.
Yep, the last fish I bought had ick. Gave the whole tank ick. I managed to successfully treat the tank, but still lesson learned. I should have learned from all the snails I now have that I never bought. Next lesson - last night I pulled my hose off the canister filter outflow line without pulling it from the tank or disconnecting it from the filter and dumped at least a gallon of water on my hardwood floor.
If you never make mistakes then how would you ever learn right? My biggest mistake was failing to do adequate reasearch into the water chemistry and water changes. I had received a 45gal aquarium from a friend and stocked it with 12 guppies. Eventually they multiplied into a colony of over roughly 70 guppies in less than a year and at the time I o my knew about water conditioning and beneficial bacteria. Did not know about ammonia spikes and came home to all my guppies swimming at the top corner of my tank and dying one by one. I lost my entire colony except for 1 because of it and I just didn't know what to do I even considered just giving it up forever. Because of that mistake I decided to better myself and learn everything I could from that mistake and even learned a few new tricks to better the quality of life for my other fish.
My personal worst was when I was doing maintenance/cleaning and forgot to turn air pump back on, next morning 2 clowns ,yellow tang, blenny, and 5 B/G chromis dead! I killed Them. Long term fish keepers share these stories, take them to heart and Always think of the fish.
Guilty of the qt (ich) and stupidity of rinsing filter in tap water..... never again! Years later I'm still learning:) nice to know I'm not only one:) ton of love and pride in this hobby so I know how it feels making a mistake and losing stock... good luck everyone and hope to see more uploads from you! By far one of fav YT channels! Keep up the good work!
Later years: last year I got back into the hobby and had a 10gal on a particleboard bookshelf. After a trip to the airport about an hour away and back, we returned home to find water just gushing from the bottom of said tank. I can only guess that if it wasn't a faulty silicone job that the fault was mine and the shelf not being able to support the weight of the tank had bowed slightly and weakened the tank enough for a leak to spring. My poor fish lived in a giant soup pot with a HOB for a couple weeks before we could get a new tank for the poor fellas. I now make sure my tanks all sit on sturdy, level surfaces.
I did pretty much the same mistake. I had a 29 gallon on an old particle board TV stand. Came home with water dripping from the ceiling of my dining room. I put them (mbunas) in a large stew pot until I got a new tank and an ACTUAL aquarium stand.
Mine was pretty recent. I thought my tank was cycled so I stocked my tank with 7 African cichlids to start All was good. A week later I added 13 more ( all under 3”) . I thought I had a bacteria bloom when water clouded up but turned out to be an ammonia spike. I saw some fish hanging at the top of the tank so I did a 50% water change for 2 days then about a 25% for next 3 days. I lost 4 fish. The rest seem to have recovered but I lost my favorite of the batch. I added a second filter when I added the second batch of fish and that filter didn’t have a chance for the bio filter to build beneficial bacteria. Poor planning on my part. So that plus the extra fish was just too much . Lesson learned
I've made a few of these mistakes myself. it's not easy to lose fish, especially ones you are really fond of. all we can do is learn from our mistakes and get better! I do have a question tho if that's ok! I've recently begun experimenting with live plants for the first time. they aren't doing well, I've lost most of the plants I've put in. I changed out my old florescent light for an LED but one plant (of the two i have left) is still struggling to live. I heard somewhere that using charcoal in your filter is bad for plants, is this true? should I remove my charcoal, or would that be detrimental to the health of my fish? btw love the channel guys, I learn so much from you, keep it up!
Thanks for sharing all the stories. I watched all 3 parts back to back and wrote some lessons and idea's down on a notepad. This series was a great idea and hopefully it'll save a lot of animals along the way. Maybe you'll feel less quilty. Thanks.
My biggest mistake was cleaning the tanks gravel very well during my water changes (did this thoughtfully for about 3 months with no problems, fish were thriving all my water tests were well within the required range for the species I was keeping at the time), to make sure the gravel would not cloud the water, making an instantly toxic environment. The day came for changing the gravel in my tank while the fish were in still in the tank because my gravel is so clean.... I was betting on a bit of clouding but to my surprise... nothing, my new gravel went in after spending about a month cycling in the same water I pulled from the original tank (at the top (CLEAN PART OF THE TANK!)). This well cycled clean gravel went into the tank (again with no clouding) what I thought was a well thought out and perfectly executed plan, ended up killing all but one of my fish right before my eyes within the space of 1-3 minutes. I still have the one fish, to this day in that same tank, with the same gravel and decor. I still don't know what the exact cause of this genocide was, but I know not to do that again.
My biggest mistake was not using a dechloramine solution in the spring (when our city adds chloramine into the solution) and only using a dechloranator. This resulted in my eldest goldfish dying creating an amonia spike that killed two more! I only have two survivors who were severely burned. My youngest moor almost died two.... She barely swam for days... When I look at her now I remember how close she came to death and how I need to look into my water treatment whenever the season changes.
I haven't been in the hobby long enough to make any huge mistakes....but here's an almost disaster... had 5 male guppies. Brought home two more males and two females. Put the males with the males and the two females into a 2 gallon plastic bin with a heater and filter. This tub was probably not at all cycled. I impulsively decided I wanted babies and added one male to the females. They were fine for about a day before I noticed that one of the females had some sort of infection on her mouth. I separated her from the others and went to the store a day later for medications. By the time I started medicating the two bins, the infected female was really struggling and died within a day. Luckily the other female and male finished their medication and we're fine. I'm also lucky that the big tank with the other new male did fine. So I guess that's three mistakes! Quarantine new fish. Cycle your quarantine tank BEFORE adding new fish. Have medications on hand. It could have been way worse!
My biggest mistake, I saw a school of 8 baby giant Danios, but I only wanted 3, the storeguy encouraged me to take at least 5. When I got them in my tank something was wrong. There was aggression and my other fish didnt like them. I isolated the main aggressor and took him back to the store. When I looked at the baby giant Danios that were there at the store they were in a horrible state. sluggish, dying, miserable. A different shopkeeper explained to me that by splitting up the brood I had broken them. So I got all the Giant baby Danios, reunited them all in my tank and now they are so happy and I havent had any issues ever since with them. That was my mistake and it's something no one taught me. Don't split up a school of giant Danios. They need each other.
Mine is similar to Ben Ochart's second one. In early fall 2018 we were hit by a tornado. 50 hour power outage. Mother nature and a Turkey baster for oxygen exchange saved most of them. A month after the tornado almost everything in my 16 gallon tank but pygmy cories had died. Fast forward several months: I had the 16 gallon tall aquarium in a lower rack that made it difficult to maintain. Decided to get a 10 gallon and move the filter, decorations, substrate (black sand), and the half dozen pygmy cories that were in the tank over. Discovered that with all the other fish dead, the pygmies had bred like crazy. Caught all the adults and fry, set up the new 10 with old filter, substrate, etc. Split the group of cories into two 10 gallon tanks. One established, the other new with old filter and substrate. About a week after I noticed two cories in the new tank didn't look right. One was coated in a film (looked more like a panda), the other had white fuzz behind its dorsal fin. Treated the tank for columnaris but the deaths started at a fast pace. At the end only the pygmy with the fuzz on it's back and a few others were left. Euthanized the one with fuzz. One of the others died then the deaths stopped. The remaining two pygmy cories lived another month in the tank without issue. I caught them and moved them to the other tank. No further issues. So in the end I lost 22 pygmy cory fry. Dirty substrate harboring disease? Stress reaction? If I had euthanized the fuzzy back pygmy sooner, would more have survived?
I love this guy's I've done at least three of them in the last 20 years I've never had any equipment failures thank God it's more like overstock the tank, didn't take the nitrogen cycle in account, clean the tank too much thanks guys it's been nice watching others talking about this.👍
Alright, so I guess I will have to come forward with my confession. It was my first fish tank. My grandmother was with me and we saw a tank we thought would be the best for my room at 3 gallons with an included bubbler, light, and filter. We asked the person who ran the pet department of the Wal Mart how many fish we could get into a tank that size, and they quickly took the time to basically say that it all depends on what you want in it, and to stay with small fish. My grandmother picked out a guppy, I picked a Tetra, and my brother got a crab. Bring them home and the guppy died in a day, and the crab was trying to escape. Pulled out the guppy and I bought 3 of them, and a live plant in hopes that it would help the water. Flash forward to a month later. The crab was actively seeking out and killing every fish I put in the tank, now I was just buy feeder gold fish to keep something in it other than the crab I was growing to really hate. Mostly because they are so cheep, but look rather pretty if you take care of them. Then I look in and see the three feeder fish are gone, as I suspected. But so is the crab. We spent hours tearing up the room, searching under and behind furniture and even in air vents. Never found a trace of the crab again.
My father has a koi pond in his backyard and I take care of his pond when he goes out of town. Every time he went out of town I’d always manage to kill one of those fish. This started to really bother me because I was really trying to care for the fish properly by following his instructions for running the pond. Well one of the times he left I was determined to not kill a fish. I had made it all the way until the day before his return without any deaths, woo hoo! I noticed that the pond’s water level was getting a bit low so I decided to top it off before I left. I turned on the valve to let the water into the pond and was waiting for the water level to get to the proper height when I got a call from work with an emergency that needed my attention ASAP. So I left my Father’s and went to take care of the problem. I was feeling pretty good about not killing a fish this time and couldn’t wait to tell my dad that I was starting to get better at fish sitting. The next morning when my dad returned he called me devastated asking me if I had filled up the pond while he was gone. I told him yes and he then asked if I had remembered to turn off the water. “Dang dad, I forgot to shut the water off. Did I flood the backyard?” He informed me that all his fish where dead because of the chlorine in the water. He had over 100 pounds worth of koi fish that I managed to off in one go. After that he invested in an auto top off system and restocked the pond. It’s been about 2 years now and the koi are just getting big enough to not run and hide when someone is at the edge of the pond. My father has been pretty much looking at an empty pond for 2 years because I got distracted. Auto too offs are worth the investment. Sorry Dad...
My first 55 gallon tank had a bunch of community fish, very peaceful tank, I added a Pair of adult Angle fish that a friend could no longer care for, I went to sleep that night, when I woke up, 90% of my fish were dead, and they were actively attacking the fish they didn’t kill overnight. The lesson I learned was not all fish belong together.
You guys have a great channel. My biggest mistake was buying a betta without knowing about them and putting him in a bowl.. I really did think they were the fish u keep in bowls. Until I found you guys on UA-cam. Bettas might be the most misunderstood fish. Luckily I did have fish tanks and supplies that I wasn't using so I was able to easily upgrade him and give him a heater. Now I have 3 bettas in their own 5 gallon tanks. This video was great.. The best mistakes to learn from are other people's mistakes. ☺
Great videos. My biggest mistake was putting my pump in to do a water change. I unplugged it and walked away. Problem was it was still syphoning. You got it. I walked back in to a fish flop. All the water gone. No casualties though.
Mom used to have a few fish. We got a new aquarium, filter, everything we needed. Set up the tank (old one only got water changes once every 2 weeks at most) and tossed the fish in. Of course, they died immediately. We then proceeded to keep buying new fish to put in the tank and spent about 100 dollars on neon tetras and guppies for our new ONE GALLON aquarium. We eventually gave up and returned everything. Now we have a betta that’s thriving and hope to get more fish soon. Thankfully we learned from our mistakes!
My biggest mistake was just a few months ago when I got into Discus. I did my research but obviously not enough. I mixed uk bred discus with Asian discus not knowing about the possibility of cross contamination. All my Discus went dark and got sick but luckily I managed to cure them and only lost the one fish.
I just set up the first tank in my life, tropical 14 gallon, after watching lots of videos here, reading lots of articles and asking lots of questions at aquarium stores and will be buying some easy fish for beginners (think it would have been pretty daft to choose fish just because I like the way they look) so everything is ahead of me although I don't intend to go bigger tank wise. I've listened to all those mistakes and had to swallow with terror at the thought that I could be next. I'm definitely keeping it small.
I've been a hobbyist for over 30 years and I just recently started quarantining new fish. Had an ich outbreak, luckily only a few died but - lesson learned.
Thank you for sharing.. makes me feel humbled as to how im learning fishkeeping.. and even with all the research.. the "doing it" portion is the best teacher ever..
I was vacuuming/changing water my 150 gallon and had to grab something. So I didn't lose the siphon, I tucked the open end back in the tank. One thing lead to another and I forgot about it. At 2 AM, my husband woke me up yelling about the puddle in our living room. The open end of the siphon had slipped out of the tank, dumping 70 gallons of water in the living room and family room and basement and....
My dad had just passed away and fishtanks had been his hobby for as long as I remembered. I had to take care of his aquarium (over 10yrs established) but I wanted to make changes, like more fish. Well I was told at a aquarium store that the best way to keep African cichlids is to crowd the tank so they can’t single each other out. Being new to the hobby, I believed them. This was just as I changed the substrate from gravel to sand and scrubbed my rocks in tap water. Not long after my filter died and I had to replace it. There goes all of my bacteria. Before I knew it my fish were spiraling in every direction. The water turned bright green and you couldn’t see past an inch. Every time I did a 50% water change it just got worse the next morning. My nitrogen and phosphate was off the charts. There were not even colors to define how high they were on the indicator cards. Everything died within a week. Over 35 cichlids in my 70 gallon aquarium and 15-20 snails. Moral of the story: respect the bacteria, respect the fish load, and don’t expect snails to bail you out of everything.
Shows to go back on videos of yours to enjoy and learn from you and then to go forward how much you’ve expanded your knowledge love your videos so happy for both of you
Great video pair. Really enjoyed both of these. My mistake is pretty much identical to Rachel's, in that i didn't QT plants. Thankfully even with issues I had I didnt have any fish losses. Plants Looked good. But i ended up with vorticella, and i can not get rid of the darn things. Still have them in 4 tanks. Nothing works with out killing everything else . Not even double reef tank dose of salt I believe I was at 6% roughly . I've tried fenben, paragaurd, and other scaleless fish safe things. No luck . Tried in a tank with no fish with clout , and that didn't even work. the bio adhesive on their foot is disruptive to development of mosquito larva and in super high numbers in tank it is also capable of disrupting beneficial bacteria production. I had 2 biofilters go down before i learned how to manage the population. I still can't get rid of them while i have fish. To get rid of them the only 2 things that work are 1:20 bleach solution and hot water , filling tank to the rim and letting sit 20-30 minutes. Then rinsing tank well , and using like 7x prime dose 3x times with 100% changes and 2 days in the sun to dry. To save plants they need tubbed with no current ( vorticella are filter feeders no current no food) , for up to 2 months with excel use and minimal ferts as they don't like aldehydes ( discovered this with paragaurd) . Doesn't kill the vorticella but slows reproduction. Not all plants are happy with this. Most of my stem plants died . Only Anubias and java made it. Beyond that can't rid them in tanks with fish and can't move fish since juvenile vorticella are free swimming and can attach to animals long enough to hitch a ride to a good spot to set down. I tried to move fish to clean tank with a series of baths so as not to transfer any water or vorticella, but with in 2 weeks the new tank was also covered with vorticella. I also run a UV sterilizer in the hope that would help some how , but no. Works great for overall tank health though and I'm a huge fan, but no help with the dreaded vorticella. I have no clue how to get rid of them . I'm still open to catfish safe suggestions. Lol 😁
Ok i have been in the fish keeping hoby for less than a year and i have done a big mistake.That mistake is the fact that i was forgeting to close the lid of my aquarium and 3 or 4 months ago i had a common pleco. One morning i woke up and found my pleco dead on my desk.(one day after i was able to find a name for him/her)😢 Ofcourse ik that i will probably do some kind of biggest mistake in the future. You just have to learn some things the hard way.
I had a betta and decided to get a few cory cats. I was very new and did not quarintine. Well that on top of not checking my water parameter and just trusting that a weekly water change was good enough. Led to the cory's dying and a week or two weeks later, whatever they had finally started showing in my betta. He got dropsy and died shortly after. It was a small tank with few fish but caused a lot of heart ache. Glad to hear all of these people who I look up to in the hobby have also made mistakes. Thank you for sharing and letting us learn with y'all
My biggest mistake was trusting my heater when i set it to 78 degrees. Little did I know I was running my tank at 86 degrees for months and killing fish after fish. So glad I have a heat gun now. Do not just trust your heater without checking your true temperature with a thermometer
I used to live in a house with 'pay as you go' electricity, you had to buy top up cards and feed them into the meter to continue to get power. I was 16-17, living by myself and incredibly poor, living hand to mouth to the point of only ever having put the heating on once in the entire year of living there. The one exception I made to my poverty was my 500L tank that I had been building up on for several years with every penny and present I had. My grandfather was a fish breeder/show competitor so was always happy to help feed the hobby. Pretty sure you can see where this is going... but worse. I failed to top up the power on a particularly cold day, the tank heater sucked up all the juice trying to maintain tropical temps and then everything cut out. By the time I got back every single fish was at the bottom. Most were not responsive at all. I started removing all of the ones I thought were 100% dead before begging my neighbour for some electricity money and to boil some kettles of water to put into bottles and try to heat the water a bit faster. Quite quickly most of the fish recovered and I felt incredibly guilty for the fish I had removed that might have lived. Either way it didn't matter. The entire system was out of balance. The fish had been laying on the gravel (not great for them) in poorly oxygenated water, at cold temperatures, the bacteria had probably taken a hit too from first being too cold and secondly unable to deal with the enormous ammonia spike that followed. There were *some* survivors that came out OK but the tank was never the same. I'd lost most of my favourite and irreplaceable, quirky fish. A harsh lesson learned. Today I would be sad for the loss of fishy lives but back then it was the symbolic loss of something I literally went without food, heating and entertainment to maintain suddenly being taken away.
Back in the day, I put a betta and goldfish together (before the internet and easy research), right before we went away for the weekend. We came back to find the poor goldfish fins half gone and missing an eye. He survived thankfully and lived many years after that, but his missing eye was a reminder to me everyday to do better by my fish.
Yea ive made a big mistake myself. It was when i had my 20 gallon angelfish tank in my bedroom and i had a penguin 150b bio wheel filter on it and over time the bio wheel stopped turning. To help it keep turning i had this tiny fountain pump with suction cups on it in the tank on the back wall and i had a tube from it up over the bio wheel and it worked great the wheel was turning at the perfect speed for the wheel to do its job however, one night i guess the tube curled away from the wheel and spilled down the back of the tank. i woke to the sound of my filter starving for water i stepped out of bed and my carpet was soaked and 35% of the water had drained onto my floor. So if u have a stuck bio wheel JUST LEAVE IT lol that was such a nightmare im just glad i caught it before rotting my wood floor.
It's crazy, all these people have years and years of experience over me so I'm honored you would ask me to join in on this.. Thank you for the invite and the series!
Thank you for being a part of our biggest mistakes Jimmy. Your editing is on point 👍
Love all your channels. They are great. I have learned alot from you guys. 🤗
U just got a new sub
You have one HECK of a personality!
Gem haha thank you gem.
Thank you for including me John and Lisa. I’m included with some of my favorite fish keepers. Thanks 😀👍🏻
Ben thanks so much for being a part of our biggest mistakes video and including 2 mistakes that will hopefully prevent others from doing the same thing in the future.
I watch fish keepers all the time. And all the rest of them. I have no friends . So that's what I do all the time. I love watching my fish. It's very relaxing. Nothing else to do.
@@marlenebolte3071 I'll be your friend :)
@@RamaNasikkar Thank you.
I love the variety of Fishtubers in these videos: small and large channels, new and older channels, business and hobbiest channels, guy's and girl's channels. Really, really excellent 💕👍
Idea for a 10 Things video. "What fish go with what aquascape?" i think that would be cool to see all the different setups there could be, since not all fish like the same setups.
Approximately 5 years ago, I failed to put the “new” container of fish food up out of my 4 yr. old grandsons reach. I woke up the next morning to the entire container have being poured into the 20 gallon tank. All of my barbs and tetras (9) were dead! The only survivors were (not surprising) the common pleco and (surprising) my sapphire beta. The Beta lived for another 6 months; he succumbed to old age. The pleco is still alive and thriving. He’s in a 75 gallon tank now due to his size.
It's great to see all these natural species tanks. No colored gravel, no Spongebob decorations, or pirate ships and treasure chests. Be the fish.
I agree and disagree.
For the experienced fish keeper yes, definitely nice to see, providing not only good looking, but functional and true to nature environments is definitely encouraging for keeping healthy and happy fish.
At the risk of being ripped apart, I’m going to say there’s something to be said about the artificial ships and spongebob decorations’ visual appeal to younger kids to get them interested in the hobby. AS LONG AS... the kids are also being engaged in learning about the intricacies of fish, and for that matter, pet care in general. I’m sure there’s a handful of fish who would be able to live a long and happy life with some cheesy decorations as long as the water quality is well looked after.
That could be a jump off point for them to develop interest long term, where they can learn the finer points and one day set up their own natural aquariums.
All I’m saying is that you’re not going to interest young kids in the hobby talking about flow rates of specific fish from regions on the other side of the world, you will however be able to encourage the desire to learn and apply that information with responsible teaching of the basics on how to care for pets and fish.
@@natejm I say keep them how you enjoy them and tell the Anal clowns who cry to piss off if they dont like it LOL
I like natural aquariums also, but at the same time, I'd really love to do planted themed tanks: Gothic (skulls, skeletons, etc., dark colors), a pirate tank, and an Asian tank. I think you can use decorations and still have a cool and happy aquarium, balancing nature (plants, rocks, driftwood) and artificial decor.
@@MadCheshireHat skulls, skeletons, etc., dark colors OH MY! Gothic.... :)
I know petsmart sometimes sells these really big golden asian dragons which go great with live plants or fake plants.
also from my experience my big fish love the gold dragon more then their natural decor cause they can swim threw certain parts.including my goldfish who loves to hide behind it then when he sees food or me goes right threw the middle of it.
Just so you know, Lisa, my view of you has changed. I respect you even more now. You two are great. Thanks again.
That means alot. Thank you 🙂 being honest about our mistakes isn't always the easiest thing to do but the important thing is to learn from them and hopefully help others not make the same mistake.
Thanks for adding me and keep up the great work! Another mistake of mine is using too much equipment. Less equipment less chance to fail. Since I don’t rely on them now power outages and failures aren’t a issue.
Lucas thank you for being a part of this video. I loved your view on thinking like a fish. Great advice!
Lucas, I loved that message too; "being the fish". Who did you say you got that idea from?
@@jonstfrancis Eric Bodrock also outdoor summer tubbing helped me gain alot of that faith in Mother Nature and how she works with fish.
@@rootsnwhiskers8351 Hope you had a great Mothers Day!
@@LRBaquatics Awesome! Thanks for replying Lucas (I'm a subscriber btw) and keep white clouds and shrimps.
So I used to have a koi pond at my old house. It was a 100 gallon pond and I kept koi fish...like 5 at one time. So when the pond would get "dirty" (dirt, leaves, debris, algae) I would remove the fish and put them in clean garbage can (with treated water of course, I at least knew that much lol) and would completely empty the pond. I would then scrub the entire thing down with a sponge to get ALL of the algae off and actually shop vac the bottom to get every bit of dirt and debris! My husband would then take his power washer and power wash the filters and clean out ALL the hoses that connected to everything. We made sure that pond was as sparkling clean as you could get. And I wondered why sometimes after a pond cleaning, I would lose fish...fish that had been around awhile and had been doing really well..suddenly gasping for air at the surface and dying...I couldnt figure it out. I mean, they should have done well with a clean pond and clean water, right? Obviously, I knew nothing about the nitrogen cycle at that time and now I cringe to realize how many koi died at my ignorance. My last batch actually survived the water changes and grew to be very big and beautiful...what did I do different? I discovered liquid bacteria and always treated my pond with it after the water changes..must be how those 3 managed to survive my abuse. I ended up selling them to a pond enthusiast who had a much larger pond (and probably actually knew what he was doing) when we sold our house. I hope they had a better life with him!
My first reaction:”OMG! I want Lisa’s shirt! it’s adorable!”
Oh right the video...
I am ever so grateful to you both! Thank you for including me. Publishing all these mistakes has already helped so many people! Thank you and Happy Mother’s Day Lisa!!
Happy Mothers Day Suzie. I hope your day has been great 😊
I am soooo proud of Lisa and John for sharing their mistakes! It can be really hard to admit when you have done something wrong and I am glad that you shared your mistakes along with everyone else's!
Thank you! Too be honest I was very leery about sharing my mistake. 24 betta in small bowls 😔 so shameful and wrong.
@@rootsnwhiskers8351 The person selling them to you should have asked what they were for, and steered you in another direction. The help you've given everyone since should have wiped your slate clean loooong ago! Thank you for all that you do for us.❤
Wow, Lisa! I'm really proud of you that you told your story. I think it's really important to share mistakes like that so that, hopefully, it can prevent others from doing the same. And I'm sure you're not the only well-meaning mother to do that. I totally identify with the guilt, and thus starts my story...
Back in the day, when I was maybe 10 or 12, I decided I really wanted to have a goldfish... I spent the next 6 months killing and unintentionally torturing a series of goldfish. The first 2 I got, I managed to kill the first night I had them. Oh yeah, I kept them in a bowl. Yep. TWO goldfish in a BOWL. 😔 I'm pretty sure that after that first pair, I just had one at a time, but still...
Years later when I decided to make my 2nd attempt at fishkeeping, I was so traumatized by the thought of what I had done, I was completely paranoid the entire first year I had my betta Jax. I'm happy to say he lived a good life in a 10 gallon tank! 😉
Thank you. It's not easy for anyone to own up to their mistakes sometimes. Especially when they happen to be people that others go to for answers. Everyone was a beginner once 😉 thank you for sharing your mistake.
Thanks for including me in this great project!!
Thank you so much for being a part this video 😊
I have to say the aquarium community are really supportive and non judgemental with each other. It’s so refreshing! Keep up the good work KGTropicals!
Well my biggest mistake was when I started my fish keeping hobby in 2015..i was Jst a beginner with no knowledge what so ever of the nitrogen cycle and the local aquarium keeper had told me to clean the full tank after 1 month so I used to perform a full aquarium cleaning with scrubing and washing all the aquarium n decor and add fresh water and den the fish... And my God fish kept dying .. The shop keeper never told me the solution since I was constantly buying fish from him..
Then I turned to internet frm cafe coz India dint hav access to much internet back then... Then I learned about the cycle.. And nw my fish are living a good life
What a scumbag at the fish store
I’m From India tooo
I decided about 2-3 months ago that i wanted to try my hand at a simple community tank after years of keeping bettas...and it has been one stupid mistake after another. From buying too small of a tank, not cycling, overstocking, accidentally setting the heater to over 100 degrees overnight, to not paying attention to the gender of my fish and ending up with 3 pregnant mollies and 1 pregnant guppy.
One molly i got was missing an eye and ended up being pregnant. She died shortly after giving birth and im still not sure why. The fry i put in a 10gal nursery tank and after two weeks i lost the whole batch to ich (around 50 of the poor little guys).
*i have since upgraded my initial 10gal community tank to a 20, and got a second 10gal to seperate some of the fish into to relieve the overcrowding until i can get a 55gal or better.
Im...still learning.
No quarantine. Yep, guilty. Yep, lost a whole tank of fish, a 3 year breeding project, poof, gone. I quarantine everything now. Fish, shrimp, mystery snails, plants...everything.
Thanks for getting experienced youtube fishkeepeers to share their stories. Happy Mother's Day, Lisa.
👍💕👍
Thank you ShelbyRae 😊
Yea lost all my angels to this.
Wait you QT plants?
I've never heard of that!
Hi im Marlene from San Diego, Calif. Well my biggest mistake is I used to a full water change. Cleaned everything in the tank. When I filled the tank up. I guess the temperature wasn't the same. I tried. Now I haven't lost any fish. I fill up 4 bottles of water and put the water conditioner in it for when I do a water change. So the water is room temperature. I do a 25% water change once a wk. I have 2 tanks. 10 gallon and a 5 gallon. I am raising guppies. They r all doing great. After watching everyone's videos now I know what to do. Thank you very much for your information. Marlene Bolte
Thank you Rachel O'Leary ... never thought plants needed to be quarantined!
Great videos! I'm super new to the hobby; just started in December and that's when mistake happened. My wife and I moved to Japan and I went to a festival nearby. They had a fish scooping game I had always seen in animes and I wanted to try it out. I played it twice: won the first time and lost the second. The first person asked if I wanted to fish and I said no. The second guy just grabbed two fish and handed them to me!(I didn't know how to say "no thank you" then). So I call up my wife and tell her "we need to get a tank ASAP"! They were two fancies and we got them a small 15 gallon tank not knowing anything about the nitrite cycle or tank requirements. A friend helped me out and I started doing water changes and checking water parameters, but we went on vacation back to the states for two weeks when all hell broke loose. When we got home half of the water was gone due to evaporation (left the heater on), the pump on the filter died out because the water level was too low, a fish was missing, and the other ones fins had turned black (ammonia burns). The missing fish wasn't on the floor or in the filter. It wasn't until I did a water change that I noticed a small piece of fin and realized that our survivor ate the other one. It's been about 4 months since then and I'm happy to say that our survivor has only a speck of black remaining and she went from all white to a white body with bright orange fins. She has been upgraded to a 42 gallon tank (that was properly cycled) and she has two other fancies in there to keep her company. Everyone is happy and healthy!
I got my first aquarium because my friend won that scoop the fish game at a festival. She handed the fish to me because she wasn't able to care of it. That was a swordtail. I didn't have a tank and put it in a large salad bowl. Two days later the fish delivered 20 babies. I moved them to a laundry bowl, added gravels and plants. The fish was scared of me for the first two weeks i think. They are very stressed at this scooping game and afraid of men. When i came to feed her, she hid among the plants. Came out only when i left.
My second aquarium was with betta. I came to a store to buy a halfmoon betta, but noticed a suffering fish in a bottle. I bought it, the seller gave it to me for free in addition to plants, because the fish was about to die. But this betta didn't die, he fully recovered in two weeks and started to build bubble nest.
Years ago after upgrading the lighting on my 55g reef I started getting major algae blooms in what was a well established tank- I tried EVERYTHING to bring it back under control; went back to old lights, massive water changes, black outs, coil denitrators, chemicals, algae scrubbers, for MONTHS while my tank slowly crashed. In the end I lost thousands of dollars of LPS and soft corals as they got choked out by hair algae. The reason? The new light caused a small spike in algae growth and when I tried to control it I leaned on my LFS to help produce enough salt water to keep up with the water changes.
Lesson learned. They had stopped making their own and started collecting it from the ocean where we were having a large diatom bloom because of the weather. For months I was blinding adding contaminated seawater to my system trying to get it all back in check trusting that the water I was buying was being made in house from R/O but never bothering to test it myself.
In the end what should have been a few weeks of extra maintenance turned into a total system crash because I tried to take short cuts on maintaining water quality. I learned that when things are going wrong you should just go back to basics, pull out the test kit and put in the time early to save heartbreak later and that just because you buy your water from the fish store doesnt mean its any better quality than what you make at home or what comes out of your tap.
This hobby is about patience and detail and losing either of those is a sure fire way to make your experience miserable.
Also if you want to keep anything sensitive, freshwater or salt, spend the $200, buy your own R/O system, and remineralize your water yourself just to be sure.
Oh Boy!
My friend, Merle Cohen, of Aquarium Products told the story about buying big fish from the Amazon. They always came in DOA and he was required to contact a local rep to cover his loss. After losing about 20 big fish his brother got angry and threw thedead fish against the wall. Out splashed raw diamonds. He called the FBI who arrested the rep and broke up the smuggling operation.
What a terrific idea for a series of vids. I love it. May I copy your idea?
Over medicating 2 quarantined, baby red cap orandas. I was absolutely in love with them and over did it. $30 for 2 fish and I easily spent over $100 in stuff they didn't need. I still feel so bad 😔 I couldn't bring myself to get 2 more yesterday at my LFS. Maybe someday! For now my one lone fancy goldfish is doing well in his 30 gal planted bachelor pad. 🐠❤️
My biggest mistake in fish keeping was NOT doing my homework and like John has said I WAS LAZY & I didn't know anything at the time but I bought a small baby pleco!!! to help me with my tank that was I think 6 years ago (I'm a late bloomer fish wise..lol) well anyway he/she grew and grew and it wasn't until I finally did some research that I found out he/she is a common pleco well I still have him/her and it's in a much larger tank and I'm looking into an even bigger tank or maybe even an indoor pond just for him/her and I also rescued another one from a really bad situation, I love them so much and I'll do what's best for them in the long run but I just wanted to say thank you to both of you so much! I love this channel and I'm staying..lol Oh and Lisa I would like to know what your favorite colour is I've already asked John and now I just need yours! Hope to see you on the next live..and Thanks again!
The important thing is you learned from your mistake and you're doing the right thing now 🙂 purple 💜
I've made waaaay too many mistakes. No cycling, regular full tank cleanings (as in, moving the fish out to clean everything), no heaters, no filters, keeping fish in 1 gallons, no filters (although the 1 gallons did have undergravel filters, they just weren't advertised as such and I never knew what they were for!)... I even had a male and female betta share a 1 gallon. They actually got along fine and didn't have problems. The problem came after I saw them breeding, and my maybe 10-year-old self panicked because I'd read in my (second-hand, outdated) betta book that the parents will need to be separated. There's many things wrong with what I did next, but as I said, I was a young panicking kid trying to do the "right" thing. I got my extra 1 gallon, filled it with water, and moved in the male. He very soon died after. The water was too hot. I felt awful. Still do, about all my fish keeping. However, I was a kid, and I had a book! It said bettas can live in small environments since they do in the wild! The misinformation then was strong. And I had no, then eventually little, access to internet (AOL dialup with parental controls and time limit).
My mom can tell you not to move your daughter's betta container (basically what it was, less than a gallon) to a window sill while cleaning and leave it there all day in the sun. My 7- or 8-year-old self was not happy at all coming home to a missing (as it'd been moved), then dead, fish in the window.
Lots and LOTS of experience shared in these videos -Thanks for the effort KGTropicals!
Rack I loved your mistake from last weeks video. Great advice and I'll say it again, you have the voice of a radio commentator 😉
First ever time I bought plants from eBay. I was cycling my tank and had no fish yet however, I stuck in my new plants which looked all great to me and went away for about 4 days or so. I came home and later that day, my lights came on in the tank and Im sitting watching tv. I look over and see what I thought was about 50 flies on the outside of my tank. Im thinking what the hell? Why would my brand new tank be attracting flies??? I walked over to investigate and noticed that 1) It wasn't flies and that 2) they were on the inside!! Snails!!! Hundreds of them. Baby snails. I took loads and loads out and everytime I thought I'd got them all, hundreds appeared soon after. I completely gave up and completely gutted the tank and started again. Almost put me off the hobby before I had begun. :) Tip: Trusted sources from then on. :)
My worst mistake was with my very first betta, he also happened to be my first fish. I kept him in a one gallon "tank" on my nightstand. Every week I would do a 100% water change (with conditioner) and thoroughly rinse his gravel. This worked pretty well until the weather started getting colder. I live in an old house and my room gets VERY cold in winter. So I bought a heater for him. The heater said it was good for small tanks, but I didn't read all of the information on it. I came home from work the next day and found my betta laying on the bottom of the tank, drained of all life and color. I don't know how hot the tank was, but the glass itself was warm to the touch. I didn't know that the heater didn't have a thermostat and just kept heating all day.
After that, I did research for a good few months before buying another betta. Now all of my bettas are in tanks no smaller than five gallons with adjustable heaters and sponge filters.
I shared this on a previous video but I'll share it again:
The gravel in my 30 gallon had started growing algae. So one morning before heading in for 2nd shift, I removed about half the gravel into a 5 gallon bucket, added some bleach from the laundry room, rinsed with tap water (which my city treats with chlorine to keep Lake Michigan microbial life out of the pipes) and put the gravel back in the aquarium.
Fast forward to my return home about nine hours later. Everything is laying on th bottom floating upside down at the surface.
I put my precious guppies into a new tank, new water, new filters and they died. Not a chemist, didn't understand ammonia levels, killed all my guppies, swordtails, platies. Now because of you guys, I understand, PH, nitrate, nitrites, ammonia levels. Education is power....😀
I kept a betta sorority once, which in itself maybe wasn’t the brightest idea for where I was as a fish keeper at the time, but when I started my sorority, I didn’t quarantine my bettas. I didn’t have 5+ quarantine tanks, so I bought 5 female bettas and I just threw them into a tank together. The tank was cycled and set up well for a sorority, but little did I know I had purchased a sick betta. On top of that, sorority tanks can be stressful on bettas, and living in a high stress environment can weaken a fish’s immune system. Over time the betts would get sick and die off one at a time, and I kept buying new bettas to keep the sorority at a number of 5 or more bettas so they wouldn’t fight, but I still wasn’t quarantining them. I wound up going through probably 15 bettas before finally giving up and separating them into their own tanks. Never again.
Thanks for having me on the video today John and Lisa. And also happy Mother’s Day Lisa!!!!!!
Thank you Jeffroz it's been great. I felt your pain in the mistake you shared. Live and learn. Good advice for others so they don't make that same mistake in the future.
I fell for the old “this fish is small and looks like another species that I want but it’s actually a MONSTER” trap when I was a teenager. I went to a fish store that I hadn’t been to before and hadn’t read any reviews for, mostly because it was closer than the one I normally went to. I had wanted to get a flying fox (_Epalzeorhychos kalopterus_)or Siamese algae eater (_Crossochelius oblongus_), because damn it that horizontal black stripe is just so satisfying to look at. I’d researched both these fish beforehand, so when I got my Siamese algae eater, I thought I knew what I was getting into.
Turns out there’s more than just two yellow bottom feeders with black horizontal stripes out there, they all look really similar, being mildly territorial 4-6-inch cyprinids (I guess that must be a really successful look for these guys in the wild), but one of these things is not like the other; it’s not a cyprinid, it’s not just “mildly territorial,” and it can grow to be nearly a foot long.
The fish I got was _Gyrinocheilus aymonieri,_ a fish which has far too many common names for its own good, one of which happens to be “Siamese algae eater.” It’s a yellow bottom feeder with a black horizontal stripe and it has a pleco-like sucker mouth that it uses to stick to rocks. Unfortunately this fish doesn’t even eat algae, and is actually just a cookie cutter shark in a clown costume. At first it was small and timid, but once it got used to the tank, it quickly set to work chasing all the other fish. I was used to my fish occasionally charging each other, so I didn’t think anything of it, but it kept happening, and it kept happening, and then it started taking bites out of them. Before I knew what had happened, the only fish left in the tank were a rosaline shark, which was too big and fast to be bothered; my big redtail shark, which was quickly outcompeted and resorted to hiding at the surface behind the filter flow; and that goddamned algae eater. I finally caught it and took it to my normal fish store, where they were able to immediately identify it for the criminal it was, and informed me that they didn’t even stock this species anymore specifically because of situations like mine. They were... oddly excited to tell me what they did to the ones that their suppliers sometimes sent them.
The moral of the story is that we should really be committing the scientific names of these animals to memory, because there are too many yellow bottom feeders with horizontal black stripes, and I didn’t look closely enough at mine.
I had a similar (though less deadly) experience with an angelfish, of all things, because apparently angelfish can also be complete assholes and no one tells you about that.
I think we all have a story about not cycling tanks or using a water conditioner. I did that about 7 years ago. I didn’t know any better and now that I do I'm saddened for the poor betta fish.
Recently though... a couple of months ago my brother and I decided Otto’s would be a great addition to the 70 gal tank our mother bought for him off Facebook. In that 70 wasn’t much a few platies, some ghost shrimp. He was building it up to be a tank he wanted for cardinal tetras. But we also had a goldfish that my daughter won at a little local fair during the fishbowl game. We didn’t think any better of it and he went and bought the ottos, didn’t quarantine, and floated them for 15 minutes and dropped them in. The next night I went downstairs to get a midnight snack and noticed the goldfish swimming erratically. So I went to check on the tank. In the goldfish’s mouth was one of the ottos, stuck in his throat. I freaked out and netted the fish out and with a pair of rubber ended tweezers I gently pulled the Otto from the goldfish's mouth. They both survived, but I was in such an anxious state about the other ottos I netted them all (4) and put them in my 10 gal betta tank in my room. I want to say they all live happily there now, but the truth is one died. And I always wonder if it was the one that the goldfish tried to eat.
I have 5 ottos now since I read 3 was too little to keep. My brother bought his at an LFS and I had gotten mine at a PetSmart later on. Luckily by then, we had set up a hospital/quarantine for his cardinals tetras we have now. I quarantined my ottos for a little over a month, and then added them to my 10 gallons. You can tell the two I gotten at PetSmart are different since they don’t have the same markings but they all get along and I think my betta doesn’t mind the company! My 10-gallon betta tank has Donut the betta. 5 ottos (Otto, Auto, Oddo, aw-toe, and Oughto.) And my two assassin snails Helena and Pebble.
The goldfish was given up after I had to explain to my brother why I suddenly had all his ottos...
He now has a male bristlenose albino pleco for his 70.
My first attempt at a nano tank was a mistake! I went waaay too small for my skill level (1.5g) and tried to do some micro rasbora. I quickly felt bad for them in such a small space, and upgraded to a 3g....only to realize that was still too small, and too much maintenance! I went for a 10g next, and that led to my 20g, and then to a 40g....so my mistake was really getting into this fun but expensive hobby!! Lol, much support for you guys, keep up the good work
That sounds very expensive!
haha I made the same mistake..., my line was 30l, 54l, 125l and now 200l.... Now I want a more biger one, like a 240, or fore me a good size 300l :)
I once bought 3 baby Oscars to put in a 29g tank, with a bunch of other fish. They moved into a 55g by themselves, then into a 125g that wasn’t really big enough. The oscars gradually died off, but were over 15 inches by then. I decided the 125g tank would be my last...it has a loach and 3 severuim.
@@fishandfloral Not to downplay your story, but you said your Oscars moved into a 55 gallon tank by themselves. All I could see were 3 Oscars walking on a sidewalk, each one carrying a suitcase!! Sorry, my literal brain does that before I can reroute the error!
B.J. & David Palmer Family 🤣😂 I re-read what I wrote and yes, it’s pretty funny when you take it literally.
Lisa: I wouldn’t feel guilty over a mistake made in ignorance, save the guilt for times you knowingly do harm. If never... then awesome and keep being the empathetic amazing person we see.
Thanks for having me on the channel John and Lisa. Happy Mother’s Day to you Lisa.
Thank you Sean! We appreciate you joining us on this mistakes video. Stressing the importance of quarantining is so important and I hope this helps others in the future.
My biggest mistake was believing the whole betta in a bowl thing....I also did 100% water changes while scrubbing all the decorations.
Now i'm part of a fish forum (aquiariumadvice.com) and am upgrading from a 20 gallon to a 55 gallon livebearer tank.
My worse mistake was about 22 years ago when I put the wrong cichlid fish together. After acclimating the new fish, i released them. Within seconds the new cichlid fish were completely under attack and devoured by the resident cichlids! Later is when i found out you cannot mix the different regions of cichlids. My LFS very generously gave me store credit since their employee said they'd be safe together when i explained what was in my tank before buying.
Im new to fish keeping had a beautiful 55 gallon tank no fish didnt want any just wanted a water tank with bubblers..A friend was trying to find a home for 1 rustic blue peacock african cichlid and 1 ruby jeweled african cichlid so she talked me into it and my tank was not cycled and I didnt wait the 4 weeks ended up losing the rustic blue peacock to some fungal infection. Still learning ended up buying 5 more african cichlids now im trying to figure out the sex of 3 of them. Lol everyone makes mistakes. As long as we learn from them. Thank you for all of your advice in the videos I have learned alot from them.
I'm new to fish keeping and in the last two weeks I've watched countless hours of UA-cam videos. I have to say these two videos are my favorite. What a great idea this was and I thoroughly enjoyed them and learned from other peoples mistakes. Thank you.....
I made a video, but decided for now not to post it. So, I purchased my first tank Jan of 2018. Never owned a fish tank as a child., I'm turning 50 this year. My first tank was a 29 gallon. I've made all the classic mistakes. I put fish in way too early not understanding the Nitrogen Cycle. Lost all my fish, I overfed and spiked the tank with Ammonia and lost all my fish,. I removed all the tank media and cleaned it in the facet, removing all the beneficial bacteria and lost most of my fish. An so on and and so. But eventually I found Fish Tube and got on the right path. Learning from your mistakes was mission critical, because by all accounts, I should have given up,. But I'm a fighter, and now I have 15 tanks and more on the way. Best Hobby ever. Thanks for listening., Be one with the fish.....love it....
I way overstocked my first tank, i don't think it was cycled either, it was a massacre
1989jimbob I did the same. I thought it was cycled but definitely wasn’t. I wouldn’t say I had it way over stocked but I had an ammonia spike and thought it was an bacteria bloom. I lost 4 out of 20 fish . Just had to do frequent water changes until it balanced out
Absolutely loved this! All my fav UA-camRS in once video!
*_#1 TIP FOR ADDING NEW FISH-_*
*_ALWAYS QUARANTINE NEW FISH!_*
Quarantine new fish is IMPORTANT!! Been in the hobby for years, I *NEVER* quarantined & *NEVER* had a problem. I picked up a couple new fish, acclimated them and added them, 1 week later.. a disease broke out & I lost ALL but one (14) of my beloved 7 year old fish! LESSON LEARNED THE HARD WAY! I was so devastated after trying to treat it, fix it & save my beloved fish, I almost tore down all my aquariums & quit the hobby completely!! Glad I didn't, but LESSON LEARNED!!! Now I always keep a 20g going so I can quarantine & for a med tank, I recommend anyone in the hobby to have atleast a 10g cycled quarantine/ med aquarium ready to go! 👍Learn & you will tank me later! 🤭🤭🤭
😉
My biggest mistake actually happened the weekend before last. I had been leaning heavily into my tank to gather my new fry up and move them into a different tank so they wouldn’t all be eaten, they were super small and it was a long and hard process. When I went to bed that night everything was fine, no signs of trouble, but when I woke the next morning all of the water in the tank had drained out. It seems that the front of the tank had started leaking in the night and leaked all of the water out while we were asleep. All of my adult fish died, except my clown pleco, and I was devastated. Luckily, I had the other tank set up for the fry so I was able to quickly save my pleco and snails.
I have two. The first one happened when I didn't quarantine some fish from my LFS. I lost half the fish in my 33 long to some type of bacterial infection. The second one happened in a well established tank. I had a HUGE mystery snail die in the tank and I didn't find it until the other fish started dying. I lost half of my 40 breeder to the resulting ammonia spike.Thank you to all the contributors for sharing their stories.
Wow. what a two part series. I really loved how caring and compassionate all these fish keepers are. I just got my first Betta for my desk at work and I'm so excited to spoil her like crazy. Thank you all for your bravery in sharing these mistakes; it was very helpful
I put gravel in an indoor fish pond with fancy goldfish. 2 of them had got a rock stuck in their mouths and I had to get the rocks out with tweezers. It was sheer luck it happend to both of them and I happen to walk by at the time. I did not loose any fish but I switched to pool filter sand the NEXT DAY. I continue to use pool sand in all my fancy tanks. Tough lesson.
I wish UA-cam was a big thing when I was younger. My family had a fish tank when I was very young (under 10 years old).. we had a big community tank with lots of guppies and sward tails and angles, even 2 beautiful goldfish... To me at the time, it didn't seem like anything was wrong with the aquarium... Now I know there was. We cleaned it once a week or 2 weeks and we had a filter and a heater BUT every water change was an 100% water change... Every surface was cleaned under tap water and sometimes soap was used.. the fish had to be picked up with a net and put in a small pot while the cleaning was happening... And we never used water conditioner... 😐😐😐 The truth is we never lost a huge amount of fish.. maybe only a couple but we were very lucky considering that everything we did while cleaning was wrong
lol you made my day :p
Yes, I was the mother of 4 kids and one of those fish tanks in the 60’s. We did the very same thing. We would even put minnows from the pond in there with fish we bought from wal mart (no pet stores in the country). It was amazing they lived. I tell you the 60’s grew some sturdy kids and some sturdy fish!
Thanks for the video! I have only been fishkeeping a little over a month now and have had no problems so far! Now I know what to avoid after watching this 2 part video. Bought my first tank around April 1, a Marineland 60 gallon from Petsmart. Today I went to Petsmart and bought my second tank, Aqueon 125 gallon LED Full Setup! On sale for $499, plus I used a 20% off coupon and dropped price to $399!!!!
my biggest mistake is
i kept 2 plecos ,2 goldfish , 2 angels and a betta in a 2.5 gallon tank. all of them died within a week. i was 10 at the time
uffhh lol. Kids do the darnest things sometimes
😂😭
I made a similar mistake
Yep been there......this is a true story though.....brought a man o war jellyfish home from the beach in a bucket.....i was only 12 mind you.....introduced him to my freshwater tank tropical tank...and watch him digest all my fish....seeing there insides digest inside the clear jellyfish for about two weeks.......and then the story end
@@t-bonet-bone74 😥 wow lol
These 2-part videos were hard to watch, but I learned some things, and I know I'm not alone in failing. I haven't talked about my big failure with anyone but my mom before. So here goes: I first tried fish-keeping about 5-6 years ago. I've kept pets my whole life: rats, guinea pigs, cats & dogs, and I wanted to have my first aquarium. I bought a 10 gallon and everything needed for it. My first big newbie mistake was not cycling my aquarium and building up the beneficial bacteria; I really didn't have a good handle on how that worked or how important it was. My next mistakes were 1) buying fish that do not belong together because they have different environmental needs and 2) buying too many too soon. My limited fish-keeping knowledge came from reading articles online, and relying on the less-than-knowledgeable pet store employees, but ultimately it came down to me being too impatient to have everything I wanted all at once, and not giving enough care to what the fish and invertebrates needed and wanted. I remember even reading that goldfish and tropical fish prefer different temperatures, but I disregarded that thinking it would probably be fine because I wanted 1 goldfish and I wanted several tropical fish. It wasn't until later I learned that goldfish output a huge bio-load, and they require a MUCH bigger aquarium than what we see at the pet stores.
I lost a lot of fish, animals that I had grown very attached to, I had named them, I expected to have them for years, all because I didn't properly prepare, plan ahead and provide them what they needed. I even "rescued" 2 small Koi fish from someone online who wanted them gone immediately (luckily they came with their own, albeit too small, aquarium). Those Koi had Ich, which I knew nothing about. But when I realized how bad I was failing I was able to re-home those Koi to a nearby Koi rescue (I didn't even know was a thing!). I was also able to re-home a few of the remaining surviving animals I had, and I turned over everything I had to an experienced hobbyist I discovered after the fact who had an entire fish room where they were beautifully thriving. I was so discouraged and felt so bad and guilty for causing animals' unnecessary deaths, and felt like a terrible fish-keeper.
On the plus side, I developed a real respect for Shrimp and Snails, and I absolutely fell in love with Apple Snails; they taught me that even snails can have their own unique personalities! I even had the rare pleasure of getting to see a shrimp "jump" out of his molted outer layer, which leaves behind a perfectly detailed copy of himself; So cool! Snails and Shrimp are some of the neatest aquatic animals... And hopefully someday we can have a beautiful Koi pond in our backyard! (I've loved Koi for as long as I can remember!)
Now I'm trying my hand at an aquarium again for the first time since I failed, and I plan on doing everything right, including cycling my aquarium before-hand, fishless. It's really hard to wait but I'm going to do things the right way! I've learned SO MUCH from KGTropicals and Aquarium Co-Op UA-cam videos, and there are so many other fish professionals and hobbyists with so much experience and advice to offer. I wish I knew all I know now, back then, but I think the most important thing is I never make the same mistakes again. And videos like this will help me, and others, learn from others' mistakes so I don't do the same. Thanks Lisa and John!
Like Rachel, I didn't quarantine my plants. I recently got into keeping live plants (enjoy it almost more than fish keeping) and I didn't even consider that you would need to quarantine a plant. I say that now as I'm battling bladder snails, detritus worms, hydra, AND limpits all in one tank. I've made peace with the bladder snails and the detritus worms, but the hydra are an absolute pain and the easiest way to get rid of them will kill my beautiful nerites. Makes me nostalgic for my pre-plant days when all I had to worry about was a Malaysian Trumpet snail sneaking in.
Holy fish! That's a lot of problems! That totally sucks. I didn't quarantine my plants and I didn't treat the first batches, but my last order, I did dip each plant in hydrogen peroxide and duckweed and a worm (terrestrial, looked like) came off.
I didn't wash or treat the PetSmart anacharis, either, and have a lot of small snails as a result, but I actually don't mind that. Only problem I have with it is potential introduction of diseases and bad bacteria... Well, much too late to worry a out it now.
I'm truly grateful for these video content. We all learn so much from each other and mistakes made. Mine was, I bought a second hand corner type tank, almost diamond shaped. The advert on Gumtree South Africa even showed photos of the tank filled with water. And the price was very cheap which included everything needed such as heater, AquaClear hob, all other essentials and even submersible light. Fetched the tank, started it up, full cycle etc Added two fish to start settling the aquarium. It was truly spectacular. On the 6th day, during the night, the bottom sides of the panels split and the tank ran dry, heater burst, hob rattled very badly and overheated, fish died, water all over tiles, under furniture, water damaged all furniture "legs". That morning I woke up with the disaster.... If buying second hand, first fill up somewhere outside. It's tricky with second hand, you have to trust your gut feeling. I also suggest maybe keep extra aquarium safe cilicone handy. Otherwise the safest is brand new. I buy new and in between second hand, but the latter, I look very closely to cilicone joints for any bubbles or in the case of clear cilicone, check for any algae penetration deeper in etc.
Great series! I love this! TY KG Tropicals for the help you have given my channel
Thank you Scott and Liz for being a part of our mistakes video. Liz "Nope" 😂 loved it lol
@@rootsnwhiskers8351 LMAO thats my baby- I was telling John today how very lucky we are to have the special women we have in our lives. Again great job on the video!
I’m a newby, I’ve been trying to educate myself and what I’ve realized from all the pros and youtubers is everyone have different opinions and everyone are just trying to keep their fish alive. It’s worth the effort. I’m loving my fish babies.
I'm only a pet-fish keeper, but I did that stupid thing where you don't read up on the fish and (maybe) trust the salesperson in the pet-shop too much.
I still lived with my parents at this point, I think I was around 20. Me and my mom were at the pet-store. I had planned to just browse, maybe look at the platys, as I love live bearers. I only had a 63 liter tank at the time, but there was room for more fish as I had been stocking it sparsely. I saw some cool fishes and mom stopped by them too, commenting on how great they looked. I don't think I would have bought any if it wasn't for her, but she taking an interest made me wanna 'please' her, so to speak. I talked to the shop attendant, admitted I knew nothing about this species and asked ALL the right questions: which water conditions do they prefer? Temperature? Do they grow much bigger than this? Do you keep them as single fishes or together? Are they good with other fish?
I was told they wouldn't get any bigger (they were maybe the length of my thumb). It would be no problem keeping a few together, so why didn't I get two? They were no problem with other fish.
I got two. Two Red-tailed black sharks.
As soon as I got home they discovered that they HATED each other. I had to separate my tank with a plastic sheet (so lucky that wasn't toxic!) and they grew. And grew. Soon they were almost the length of my hand! The dominant one had a bright red tail fin, the other one's fin was almost see through. I finally realized this couldn't go on and managed to give one back to the fish-store, and I chose the "pretty" one so they would take it... very quickly the poor "oppressed" fish had colored up and I really loved my "Jerry" (I called them Tom and Jerry... I think you can figure out why). Unfortunately I lost him and many other fish a year or so later when I decided to change the substrate and "redo" my then much bigger tank... I got black sand, thinking it would look cool, but even though I tried to do everything right (not cleaning the filter and such) everything started dying immediately. Not sure if it was my fault or something wrong with the substrate, but I had to change it all back to natural pebbles again. When moving away from home I didn't have room for a tank, but recently I got a small 24 liter desk tank with a few guppies, and I'm thinking I might get a bigger one and put it on my solid TV-bench... and if I do, I might, eventually, get another Red-tailed black shark... but only ONE...
As far as I know, red tail sharks become agressive if you don't keep enough of them. They are supposed to live in groups and require huge tanks. Buying only one may cause the fish to become agressive towards other fish so that would not solve the problem either. These fish just don't belong in pet stores.
My first major mistake was not sticking to a water change schedule. I used the physical appearance to justify when I needed to make changes. I’m still fighting a bad case of fin rot on my very first betta. Thank you to all the youtubers. I’ve learned soo much about the hobby due to the collective of videos you guys share.
My worst mistake was when we had to move, we put all my beautiful Malawi cichlids into 5 gl buckets. Not wanting the water to slosh around, we put the lids on, snapped them down and away we went. Well a couple hours later I took all the lids off only to find most of the fish were dead. Now I don’t put lids on and just keep the water halfway up.
Yep, the last fish I bought had ick. Gave the whole tank ick. I managed to successfully treat the tank, but still lesson learned. I should have learned from all the snails I now have that I never bought.
Next lesson - last night I pulled my hose off the canister filter outflow line without pulling it from the tank or disconnecting it from the filter and dumped at least a gallon of water on my hardwood floor.
If you never make mistakes then how would you ever learn right?
My biggest mistake was failing to do adequate reasearch into the water chemistry and water changes. I had received a 45gal aquarium from a friend and stocked it with 12 guppies. Eventually they multiplied into a colony of over roughly 70 guppies in less than a year and at the time I o my knew about water conditioning and beneficial bacteria. Did not know about ammonia spikes and came home to all my guppies swimming at the top corner of my tank and dying one by one. I lost my entire colony except for 1 because of it and I just didn't know what to do I even considered just giving it up forever. Because of that mistake I decided to better myself and learn everything I could from that mistake and even learned a few new tricks to better the quality of life for my other fish.
I these series. It reminds us... not everyone is perfect and we are allowed to make mistakes
the case her is lern from ther misteks
My personal worst was when I was doing maintenance/cleaning and forgot to turn air pump back on, next morning 2 clowns ,yellow tang, blenny, and 5 B/G chromis dead! I killed Them. Long term fish keepers share these stories, take them to heart and Always think of the fish.
Guilty of the qt (ich) and stupidity of rinsing filter in tap water..... never again! Years later I'm still learning:) nice to know I'm not only one:) ton of love and pride in this hobby so I know how it feels making a mistake and losing stock... good luck everyone and hope to see more uploads from you! By far one of fav YT channels! Keep up the good work!
The biggest mistake I've made in the hobby was due to not understanding the nitrogen cycle and cost me a lot of fish :/
Duke City Aquariums that was the same mistake that I made. Sorry abt the lost fish
Me too!
Later years: last year I got back into the hobby and had a 10gal on a particleboard bookshelf. After a trip to the airport about an hour away and back, we returned home to find water just gushing from the bottom of said tank. I can only guess that if it wasn't a faulty silicone job that the fault was mine and the shelf not being able to support the weight of the tank had bowed slightly and weakened the tank enough for a leak to spring. My poor fish lived in a giant soup pot with a HOB for a couple weeks before we could get a new tank for the poor fellas.
I now make sure my tanks all sit on sturdy, level surfaces.
I did pretty much the same mistake. I had a 29 gallon on an old particle board TV stand. Came home with water dripping from the ceiling of my dining room. I put them (mbunas) in a large stew pot until I got a new tank and an ACTUAL aquarium stand.
Mine was pretty recent. I thought my tank was cycled so I stocked my tank with 7 African cichlids to start All was good. A week later I added 13 more ( all under 3”) . I thought I had a bacteria bloom when water clouded up but turned out to be an ammonia spike. I saw some fish hanging at the top of the tank so I did a 50% water change for 2 days then about a 25% for next 3 days. I lost 4 fish. The rest seem to have recovered but I lost my favorite of the batch. I added a second filter when I added the second batch of fish and that filter didn’t have a chance for the bio filter to build beneficial bacteria. Poor planning on my part. So that plus the extra fish was just too much . Lesson learned
I've made a few of these mistakes myself. it's not easy to lose fish, especially ones you are really fond of. all we can do is learn from our mistakes and get better! I do have a question tho if that's ok! I've recently begun experimenting with live plants for the first time. they aren't doing well, I've lost most of the plants I've put in. I changed out my old florescent light for an LED but one plant (of the two i have left) is still struggling to live. I heard somewhere that using charcoal in your filter is bad for plants, is this true? should I remove my charcoal, or would that be detrimental to the health of my fish? btw love the channel guys, I learn so much from you, keep it up!
Thanks for sharing all the stories. I watched all 3 parts back to back and wrote some lessons and idea's down on a notepad. This series was a great idea and hopefully it'll save a lot of animals along the way. Maybe you'll feel less quilty. Thanks.
Who would have thought to quarantine plants. That must have been heartbreaking Rachael!! Great lesson for sure.
My biggest mistake was cleaning the tanks gravel very well during my water changes (did this thoughtfully for about 3 months with no problems, fish were thriving all my water tests were well within the required range for the species I was keeping at the time), to make sure the gravel would not cloud the water, making an instantly toxic environment. The day came for changing the gravel in my tank while the fish were in still in the tank because my gravel is so clean.... I was betting on a bit of clouding but to my surprise... nothing, my new gravel went in after spending about a month cycling in the same water I pulled from the original tank (at the top (CLEAN PART OF THE TANK!)). This well cycled clean gravel went into the tank (again with no clouding) what I thought was a well thought out and perfectly executed plan, ended up killing all but one of my fish right before my eyes within the space of 1-3 minutes. I still have the one fish, to this day in that same tank, with the same gravel and decor. I still don't know what the exact cause of this genocide was, but I know not to do that again.
My biggest mistake was not using a dechloramine solution in the spring (when our city adds chloramine into the solution) and only using a dechloranator. This resulted in my eldest goldfish dying creating an amonia spike that killed two more! I only have two survivors who were severely burned. My youngest moor almost died two.... She barely swam for days... When I look at her now I remember how close she came to death and how I need to look into my water treatment whenever the season changes.
I haven't been in the hobby long enough to make any huge mistakes....but here's an almost disaster... had 5 male guppies. Brought home two more males and two females. Put the males with the males and the two females into a 2 gallon plastic bin with a heater and filter. This tub was probably not at all cycled. I impulsively decided I wanted babies and added one male to the females. They were fine for about a day before I noticed that one of the females had some sort of infection on her mouth. I separated her from the others and went to the store a day later for medications. By the time I started medicating the two bins, the infected female was really struggling and died within a day. Luckily the other female and male finished their medication and we're fine. I'm also lucky that the big tank with the other new male did fine. So I guess that's three mistakes! Quarantine new fish. Cycle your quarantine tank BEFORE adding new fish. Have medications on hand. It could have been way worse!
My biggest mistake, I saw a school of 8 baby giant Danios, but I only wanted 3, the storeguy encouraged me to take at least 5. When I got them in my tank something was wrong. There was aggression and my other fish didnt like them. I isolated the main aggressor and took him back to the store. When I looked at the baby giant Danios that were there at the store they were in a horrible state. sluggish, dying, miserable. A different shopkeeper explained to me that by splitting up the brood I had broken them. So I got all the Giant baby Danios, reunited them all in my tank and now they are so happy and I havent had any issues ever since with them. That was my mistake and it's something no one taught me. Don't split up a school of giant Danios. They need each other.
Mine is similar to Ben Ochart's second one.
In early fall 2018 we were hit by a tornado. 50 hour power outage. Mother nature and a Turkey baster for oxygen exchange saved most of them.
A month after the tornado almost everything in my 16 gallon tank but pygmy cories had died.
Fast forward several months: I had the 16 gallon tall aquarium in a lower rack that made it difficult to maintain.
Decided to get a 10 gallon and move the filter, decorations, substrate (black sand), and the half dozen pygmy cories that were in the tank over.
Discovered that with all the other fish dead, the pygmies had bred like crazy.
Caught all the adults and fry, set up the new 10 with old filter, substrate, etc.
Split the group of cories into two 10 gallon tanks.
One established, the other new with old filter and substrate.
About a week after I noticed two cories in the new tank didn't look right. One was coated in a film (looked more like a panda), the other had white fuzz behind its dorsal fin.
Treated the tank for columnaris but the deaths started at a fast pace.
At the end only the pygmy with the fuzz on it's back and a few others were left.
Euthanized the one with fuzz. One of the others died then the deaths stopped.
The remaining two pygmy cories lived another month in the tank without issue.
I caught them and moved them to the other tank. No further issues.
So in the end I lost 22 pygmy cory fry.
Dirty substrate harboring disease? Stress reaction? If I had euthanized the fuzzy back pygmy sooner, would more have survived?
I love this guy's I've done at least three of them in the last 20 years I've never had any equipment failures thank God it's more like overstock the tank, didn't take the nitrogen cycle in account, clean the tank too much thanks guys it's been nice watching others talking about this.👍
Alright, so I guess I will have to come forward with my confession.
It was my first fish tank. My grandmother was with me and we saw a tank we thought would be the best for my room at 3 gallons with an included bubbler, light, and filter.
We asked the person who ran the pet department of the Wal Mart how many fish we could get into a tank that size, and they quickly took the time to basically say that it all depends on what you want in it, and to stay with small fish.
My grandmother picked out a guppy, I picked a Tetra, and my brother got a crab.
Bring them home and the guppy died in a day, and the crab was trying to escape. Pulled out the guppy and I bought 3 of them, and a live plant in hopes that it would help the water.
Flash forward to a month later.
The crab was actively seeking out and killing every fish I put in the tank, now I was just buy feeder gold fish to keep something in it other than the crab I was growing to really hate. Mostly because they are so cheep, but look rather pretty if you take care of them.
Then I look in and see the three feeder fish are gone, as I suspected. But so is the crab.
We spent hours tearing up the room, searching under and behind furniture and even in air vents. Never found a trace of the crab again.
That story was wild from start to finish lol
My father has a koi pond in his backyard and I take care of his pond when he goes out of town. Every time he went out of town I’d always manage to kill one of those fish. This started to really bother me because I was really trying to care for the fish properly by following his instructions for running the pond. Well one of the times he left I was determined to not kill a fish. I had made it all the way until the day before his return without any deaths, woo hoo! I noticed that the pond’s water level was getting a bit low so I decided to top it off before I left. I turned on the valve to let the water into the pond and was waiting for the water level to get to the proper height when I got a call from work with an emergency that needed my attention ASAP. So I left my Father’s and went to take care of the problem. I was feeling pretty good about not killing a fish this time and couldn’t wait to tell my dad that I was starting to get better at fish sitting. The next morning when my dad returned he called me devastated asking me if I had filled up the pond while he was gone. I told him yes and he then asked if I had remembered to turn off the water. “Dang dad, I forgot to shut the water off. Did I flood the backyard?” He informed me that all his fish where dead because of the chlorine in the water. He had over 100 pounds worth of koi fish that I managed to off in one go. After that he invested in an auto top off system and restocked the pond. It’s been about 2 years now and the koi are just getting big enough to not run and hide when someone is at the edge of the pond. My father has been pretty much looking at an empty pond for 2 years because I got distracted. Auto too offs are worth the investment. Sorry Dad...
My first 55 gallon tank had a bunch of community fish, very peaceful tank, I added a Pair of adult Angle fish that a friend could no longer care for, I went to sleep that night, when I woke up, 90% of my fish were dead, and they were actively attacking the fish they didn’t kill overnight.
The lesson I learned was not all fish belong together.
HAPPY MOTHER'S Day LISA of KG TROPICALS
Salvador Velasquez happy Mother’s Day Lisa
Thank you so much Salvador Velasquez
I kept beta in a Bowl for more than 2 years and it died this was 6 years before and I still feel sorry for it
You guys have a great channel. My biggest mistake was buying a betta without knowing about them and putting him in a bowl.. I really did think they were the fish u keep in bowls. Until I found you guys on UA-cam. Bettas might be the most misunderstood fish. Luckily I did have fish tanks and supplies that I wasn't using so I was able to easily upgrade him and give him a heater. Now I have 3 bettas in their own 5 gallon tanks. This video was great.. The best mistakes to learn from are other people's mistakes. ☺
Great videos. My biggest mistake was putting my pump in to do a water change. I unplugged it and walked away. Problem was it was still syphoning. You got it. I walked back in to a fish flop. All the water gone. No casualties though.
Mom used to have a few fish. We got a new aquarium, filter, everything we needed. Set up the tank (old one only got water changes once every 2 weeks at most) and tossed the fish in. Of course, they died immediately. We then proceeded to keep buying new fish to put in the tank and spent about 100 dollars on neon tetras and guppies for our new ONE GALLON aquarium. We eventually gave up and returned everything. Now we have a betta that’s thriving and hope to get more fish soon. Thankfully we learned from our mistakes!
My biggest mistake was just a few months ago when I got into Discus. I did my research but obviously not enough. I mixed uk bred discus with Asian discus not knowing about the possibility of cross contamination. All my Discus went dark and got sick but luckily I managed to cure them and only lost the one fish.
I just set up the first tank in my life, tropical 14 gallon, after watching lots of videos here, reading lots of articles and asking lots of questions at aquarium stores and will be buying some easy fish for beginners (think it would have been pretty daft to choose fish just because I like the way they look) so everything is ahead of me although I don't intend to go bigger tank wise. I've listened to all those mistakes and had to swallow with terror at the thought that I could be next. I'm definitely keeping it small.
All my UA-cam favorite fish keepers all in one video !!
I've been a hobbyist for over 30 years and I just recently started quarantining new fish. Had an ich outbreak, luckily only a few died but - lesson learned.
Thank you for sharing.. makes me feel humbled as to how im learning fishkeeping.. and even with all the research.. the "doing it" portion is the best teacher ever..
I was vacuuming/changing water my 150 gallon and had to grab something. So I didn't lose the siphon, I tucked the open end back in the tank. One thing lead to another and I forgot about it. At 2 AM, my husband woke me up yelling about the puddle in our living room. The open end of the siphon had slipped out of the tank, dumping 70 gallons of water in the living room and family room and basement and....
My dad had just passed away and fishtanks had been his hobby for as long as I remembered. I had to take care of his aquarium (over 10yrs established) but I wanted to make changes, like more fish. Well I was told at a aquarium store that the best way to keep African cichlids is to crowd the tank so they can’t single each other out. Being new to the hobby, I believed them. This was just as I changed the substrate from gravel to sand and scrubbed my rocks in tap water. Not long after my filter died and I had to replace it. There goes all of my bacteria. Before I knew it my fish were spiraling in every direction. The water turned bright green and you couldn’t see past an inch. Every time I did a 50% water change it just got worse the next morning. My nitrogen and phosphate was off the charts. There were not even colors to define how high they were on the indicator cards. Everything died within a week. Over 35 cichlids in my 70 gallon aquarium and 15-20 snails. Moral of the story: respect the bacteria, respect the fish load, and don’t expect snails to bail you out of everything.
Shows to go back on videos of yours to enjoy and learn from you and then to go forward how much you’ve expanded your knowledge love your videos so happy for both of you
Great video pair. Really enjoyed both of these.
My mistake is pretty much identical to Rachel's, in that i didn't QT plants. Thankfully even with issues I had I didnt have any fish losses. Plants Looked good. But i ended up with vorticella, and i can not get rid of the darn things. Still have them in 4 tanks.
Nothing works with out killing everything else . Not even double reef tank dose of salt I believe I was at 6% roughly . I've tried fenben, paragaurd, and other scaleless fish safe things. No luck . Tried in a tank with no fish with clout , and that didn't even work. the bio adhesive on their foot is disruptive to development of mosquito larva and in super high numbers in tank it is also capable of disrupting beneficial bacteria production. I had 2 biofilters go down before i learned how to manage the population. I still can't get rid of them while i have fish.
To get rid of them the only 2 things that work are 1:20 bleach solution and hot water , filling tank to the rim and letting sit 20-30 minutes. Then rinsing tank well , and using like 7x prime dose 3x times with 100% changes and 2 days in the sun to dry.
To save plants they need tubbed with no current ( vorticella are filter feeders no current no food) , for up to 2 months with excel use and minimal ferts as they don't like aldehydes ( discovered this with paragaurd) . Doesn't kill the vorticella but slows reproduction. Not all plants are happy with this. Most of my stem plants died . Only Anubias and java made it.
Beyond that can't rid them in tanks with fish and can't move fish since juvenile vorticella are free swimming and can attach to animals long enough to hitch a ride to a good spot to set down. I tried to move fish to clean tank with a series of baths so as not to transfer any water or vorticella, but with in 2 weeks the new tank was also covered with vorticella. I also run a UV sterilizer in the hope that would help some how , but no. Works great for overall tank health though and I'm a huge fan, but no help with the dreaded vorticella.
I have no clue how to get rid of them . I'm still open to catfish safe suggestions. Lol 😁
Ok i have been in the fish keeping hoby for less than a year and i have done a big mistake.That mistake is the fact that i was forgeting to close the lid of my aquarium and 3 or 4 months ago i had a common pleco. One morning i woke up and found my pleco dead on my desk.(one day after i was able to find a name for him/her)😢
Ofcourse ik that i will probably do some kind of biggest mistake in the future. You just have to learn some things the hard way.
I had a betta and decided to get a few cory cats. I was very new and did not quarintine. Well that on top of not checking my water parameter and just trusting that a weekly water change was good enough. Led to the cory's dying and a week or two weeks later, whatever they had finally started showing in my betta. He got dropsy and died shortly after. It was a small tank with few fish but caused a lot of heart ache. Glad to hear all of these people who I look up to in the hobby have also made mistakes. Thank you for sharing and letting us learn with y'all
My biggest mistake was trusting my heater when i set it to 78 degrees. Little did I know I was running my tank at 86 degrees for months and killing fish after fish. So glad I have a heat gun now. Do not just trust your heater without checking your true temperature with a thermometer
I used to live in a house with 'pay as you go' electricity, you had to buy top up cards and feed them into the meter to continue to get power. I was 16-17, living by myself and incredibly poor, living hand to mouth to the point of only ever having put the heating on once in the entire year of living there. The one exception I made to my poverty was my 500L tank that I had been building up on for several years with every penny and present I had. My grandfather was a fish breeder/show competitor so was always happy to help feed the hobby. Pretty sure you can see where this is going... but worse. I failed to top up the power on a particularly cold day, the tank heater sucked up all the juice trying to maintain tropical temps and then everything cut out. By the time I got back every single fish was at the bottom. Most were not responsive at all.
I started removing all of the ones I thought were 100% dead before begging my neighbour for some electricity money and to boil some kettles of water to put into bottles and try to heat the water a bit faster. Quite quickly most of the fish recovered and I felt incredibly guilty for the fish I had removed that might have lived. Either way it didn't matter. The entire system was out of balance. The fish had been laying on the gravel (not great for them) in poorly oxygenated water, at cold temperatures, the bacteria had probably taken a hit too from first being too cold and secondly unable to deal with the enormous ammonia spike that followed.
There were *some* survivors that came out OK but the tank was never the same. I'd lost most of my favourite and irreplaceable, quirky fish. A harsh lesson learned. Today I would be sad for the loss of fishy lives but back then it was the symbolic loss of something I literally went without food, heating and entertainment to maintain suddenly being taken away.
Back in the day, I put a betta and goldfish together (before the internet and easy research), right before we went away for the weekend. We came back to find the poor goldfish fins half gone and missing an eye. He survived thankfully and lived many years after that, but his missing eye was a reminder to me everyday to do better by my fish.
Yea ive made a big mistake myself. It was when i had my 20 gallon angelfish tank in my bedroom and i had a penguin 150b bio wheel filter on it and over time the bio wheel stopped turning. To help it keep turning i had this tiny fountain pump with suction cups on it in the tank on the back wall and i had a tube from it up over the bio wheel and it worked great the wheel was turning at the perfect speed for the wheel to do its job however, one night i guess the tube curled away from the wheel and spilled down the back of the tank. i woke to the sound of my filter starving for water i stepped out of bed and my carpet was soaked and 35% of the water had drained onto my floor. So if u have a stuck bio wheel JUST LEAVE IT lol that was such a nightmare im just glad i caught it before rotting my wood floor.