Aquarium Fish Tanks

[Flip]

Be careful who you put in with your Betta.

Tetras can be fin nippers. (Piranhas are tetras)
Cichlids are also a bit risky.

All of the livebearers are safe (mollies guppies etc.)
Add lots of plant cover.  Babies will have a chance then.

I prefer to keep Bettas alone.

Edit to add:

Hawk, I think we were writing about the same thing at the same time!

Families (brothers and sisters that have never been seperated) of Bettas can
be left together!  Nothing so cool as a tank full of Bettas!
There's a place in south Edmonton where you can buy very expensive
show Bettas  - Simply awesome.  At 80 bucks he should be.  ;D

 

[Hawk]

If you breed your beta - or any labyrinth fish for that matter, once the male drives the female off, take her out right away. Otherwise the male will kill her. It may be wise to put her in a hospital tank till she recovers. She gets pretty bruised and beat up in the egg-laying process. Himself looks after the bubble nest and babies. You have to watch carefully. When the babies are free swimming, the male will eat them if you don't scoop him out right away.

It seems to me I just ran an air stone in the breeding tank, not a filter till the babies got big enough not to get sucked into it.

Hawk

 

[Flip]

I have a weird story.
Weird thread - why not?

Two years ago - Dec 4 to be exact, one of our Koi decided to leap.
I found her about an hour later on the floor.
Her skin was completely dry and stiff.

I tossed her back in the tank with her buddies because her gills moved just a bit.
I though she was done...........when.........
All of the other Koi in the tank started pushing, nudging, pulling
and generally forcing her forward through the water.
Eventually she started to twitch and then to move.
I left the lights on all night and by morning she was almost swimming normally.
But, being out of water that long was like getting a second degree burn
over her entire body. 

Two days later she started to fail, due to infection.
I plopped her into a 20 gallon tank with a buddy and started to medicate.
I learned the hard way that the water had to be changed ALOT!
The water would get like rotten fish stew within hours.
The meds weren't working and she was getting worse again.
Most of her scales had fallen out and her fins were in tatters.

I went looking for a different medication - Ultimately ended up
at a Vet clinic in north Edmonton.  Dr Allyson Jackson suggested
I bring my fish in.  I did.

She gave my Koi an injection and showed me how do fish injections
and gave me some antibiotics to inject every second day for two weeks.
My goofy fish eventually got better.  With injections, good food,
and two major water changes a day.

When I dropped her in with her buddies in January she was greeted like family.
I would NEVER have believed fish could or would act like that.
Sometimes I even doubt what I saw.
Koi are amazing, sensitive, emotional fish.

If you want a fish that is a pet - get a couple of Koi.

 

[Hawk]

I've heard koi are pretty amazing.

I had a huge algae eater - almost 4 inches long in my 20 gallon community tank. He was definitely the character of the tank. He'd speed along the bottom of the tank and scatter gravel up the side as he turned the corner. Scared the bejeezus out of me if I happened to be sitting by the tank reading! In retaliation I'd tap the tank with my finger tip if I caught him resting near the front glass. He tried sucking onto the side of a big discus. The discus turned round and round in circles till the algae eater lost his grip and went flying against the glass. I thought she'd killed him - he just lay in a corner for awhile, then got up and went to sulk behind the corner filter. (Years ago, there was no fancy filtration systems then). He recovered, the discus suffered no ill effects - except swimming on a slant for a bit, and he never tried that again that I saw.

I had 2 Aequindens that were nice fish - pretty soft blue-gray. One of them would come and curl up in my hand if I cupped it about 3 inches below the surface.

Hawk

 

[krustyrl]

Here is my story..........
We had a 33 gal freshwater aquarium and decided with the kids that we were going to try having two Tiger Oscars.  We bought them as babies but soon realized that this species unlike a lot of others do not grow according to their habitat but they just grow. Before long thet grew to the size of a smallmouth bass.! They are mostly carnivorous and my son asks me what kind of meat do we give them.? We gave them the usual ground beef, lots of brine shrimp etc. but one time my son said Dad, can we give them some worms.?

We washed up a couple of big juicy dew worms and drpped them in the tank and what a frenzy.!  With those two fish that time we must have had 1/3 of the water up the damn wall.!

Quite a show for the kids, though.!

They eventually got too big so we took them back to the pet store and he took care of them in a big quarry set-up.

 

[Rayman]

Koi are pretty amazing fish i'll agree. Of course Koi can live up to 20 years I think. Ive seen some grow to be the size of a good size bass.

As far as algae eaters go I was with my girlfriend and her little sister at a restaurant and they seated us next to this huge aquarium. So half way through our meals I notice the algae eater was hovering where her little sister was sitting and told her to look to her right. She does and shreiks practically jumping out of her seat and taps the tank to get it moving again. I had a good laugh with that one.

Though mind you it would probably be scarier looking down the kisser of a Lamprey.

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~youson/images/lamprey.jpg

 

[Flip]

Koi are pretty amazing fish i'll agree. Of course Koi can live up to 20 years I think.

Rayman - add a zero.

They can live more than 100 years.  The Japanese have a whole subculture
built up around them.

My folks have a Friend who has his Koi moved to what amounts to a fish kennel
each winter.  As a retired physician I guess he can afford it.

 

[Rayman]

Rayman - add a zero.

They can live more than 100 years.  The Japanese have a whole subculture
built up around them.

My folks have a Friend who has his Koi moved to what amounts to a fish kennel
each winter.  As a retired physician I guess he can afford it.

I stand corrected. 200 years? My god! How do you pass that one down to the grand children?

WRT to the Oscar story my moms ex had a community tank and after getting bored with fish dying and cleaning the thing he put a couple Oscars in.... Those things grew like no tomorow. He also got pirahnnas after a while too and I remember those things going from minows to like the size of a baseball in two weeks at the most.

 

[JBoyd]

All I have is a 47 gallon tank with a few cichlids

 

[Flip]

All I have is a 47 gallon tank with a few cichlids

It all depends what kind of cichlids you have!
A colony of Africans can be a hoot!

A few angels can be a major pain.

Personally, I like the Amazon dwarf Cichlids.
Apistogrammas lead a very political life..... ;D

 

[Rodahn]

I owned some piranhas once,

Jeez, I'm surprised that they weren't sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads ;D

 

[armyvern]

Jeez, I'm surprised that they weren't sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads ;D

They were pirahannas with frickin' laserbeams. Who do you think gave little mini me the idea to pass on?

 

[JBoyd]

It all depends what kind of cichlids you have!
A colony of Africans can be a hoot!

A few angels can be a major pain.

Personally, I like the Amazon dwarf Cichlids.
Apistogrammas lead a very political life..... ;D

Bah angels although wifey wants a soft water tank with Angels, Discus, and Rams

I have a SA/African mix  SA consist of a Jack Dempsey and a Convict, the Africans are Ablino Zebra, Red Zebra, and a Yellow Labido. Had a pseudo crabo and a jewel once but they both died off. Oh, and a nice sized Pleco. 

 

[Flip]

Bah angels  although wifey wants a soft water tank with Angels, Discus, and Rams

I've had 'em all but the Africans.
Convicts are great! just the right amount of attitude.

Discus are tough. They prefer heat that will wilt other fish and make plants
impossible. Unless! - you get a UV sterilizer! - I build my own.
You can make Ick disappear in 2-3 days.

My favorite way to get fish is from Aquabid .com - like ebay.
That's how I get my weird little Apistogrammas and they work well with tetras.
Softwater tanks are best with lots of plants. ( my opinion )
The work that goes into it can rival Saltwater for complexity.