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Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
I got my daughter one for her birthday but i've never owned one myself so i have no idea how to operate the fucking thing....help
You'd think they'd be easy right? 
Get her some easy fish, like guppies or a couple gold fish. Get a tap water conditioner, and aquarium salt to prevent fish disease.
The general rule of thumb is one inch per gallon, so your tank size depends on how many and what kind of fish to get. Whatever you do, don't get pot-belly Mollies. Half the time you get them, they're pregnant, and can stay pregnant for 6 months and give birth multiple times, sometimes 20 babies at a time.
Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
i got 4 guppies for her right off the bat...i paid for 3 but hey accidentally gave me 4. and one died right away so that sucked...my kid was watchign and it kinda just slowly floated tot he bottom and that was it, so now whenever she talks about her fish she always says "one died"
but after that i got 3 more guppies and they did ok and last week i picked up an algae eater and he's doin good so far
but yeah its goin good....a bit of work though to keep cleaing it and stuff, i never realized that you had to empty a 3rd of the water every week
Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
Yeah water changes and cleaning are a bit of a pain. I often leaving mine longer than a week sometimes (even though I shouldn't).
Isn't it interesting how kids view death, they are usually really pragmatic about it and don't hesitate to bring it up.
Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
Have you got a filter? A filter and few algae eaters keeps the tank fresh.
Beware of rogue algae eaters, those fuckers can turn from cute wee things to complete psychos.
Its the chinese sucking loach you need to watch out for:
http://theaquariumwiki.com/Gyrinocheilus_aymonieri
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_Gyri … ieri_3.php
I bought 3 of these wee things from a pet shop to clean the tank, they started off great then things changed.
1 of them grew faster than the others and started harrassing the other 2, those 2 took to hiding mostly but whenever they came out he was on them in a flash.
He got even bigger, about 4 inches long, they stayed small and he began to chase them out of the hiding places. Fish dont tolerate stress well and it will kill them, those 2 wee guys turned up dead one day after each other.
I have a castle in my tank and this motherfucker moved in and guards it with his life, god forbid any other fish goes near it or he chases them round and round the tank.
I had 5 different types of goldfish, they were social and boisterous, it was a nice little community for a while.
I never really thought that him chasing the fish was that big a deal, over the course of a few years 2 died and I just assumed that was natural. But with less fish I noticed that he would go for them even when not near his castle. Another died last year, he was really old but I was still suprised to wake up and find him dead, he looked healthy beforehand and the other seemed fine.
Then I had 2 goldfish left and this cunt in the castle, now 6 inches long and chunky.
I noticed that he seems to harrass one fish more than the other and he rarely left it alone. The last few months the goldfish started showing real signs of stress and damage to his scales and eyes. I isolated him and he seemed to recover after a while so I returned him to the tank and sure enough that fucker started harrassing him again.
I started googling it and discovered as these things grow the become more and more terratorial and aggressive and develop at taste for the protective slime coating on other fish, even a taste for flesh and eyes.
I have been trying to figure out what to do with this thing recently, and just the other night I was feeding the fish and there was only one goldfish, I looked around for the other and found it dead, inside the castle with a big wound on its side 
All I fucking wanted one a wee algae eater to keep the tank tidy 
Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
damn i think this is the same fish i just got....hes like an inch long and very fast, the store called him a golden algae eater
I'll have to talk to the pet store peopel when i go back there
I'm waiting for some thing called otto cats to clean the gravel
Re: Anybody own an Aquarium?
They are fine when little, but they will grow and are not suited to tank communities. They are supposed to get less efficiant at cleaning the tank as they get older as well, but mine never stops going. I honestly believe he just pretends to clean the tank and is actually watching the other fish and edging closer to them.
There are different type of sucking loach, some less aggressive and terratorial than others.
Yours sounds like it might be a golden loach.
Heres some threads:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/f … php?t=6899
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile47.html
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_Gyri … onieri.php
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/algeater.htm
The siamese algae eater is more suitable to communities:
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/algae-c … iamese.php
http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Algae-Eaters/
I dont know what I'm goint to do with my loach, I dont like hurting animals and not prepared to just flush it.
It used to be quite amusing watching it guard the castle and patrol the perimator, I dont fancy just having just him as a pet and no other fish.
I'm a little tempted to try feed it up and see how big I can get.
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