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Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
By budgie from the Budgie department, Section News Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 12:31:42 PM PST Tags: (all tags)

On setting up a new tank and rambling thoughts on the past. It's been 25 years since I left this hobby and now with some leisure time and some extra cash, once more I'm taking it up as an old pleasure revisited. Perhaps with advanced age and wisdom I can care for the little pretties with more consideration than I was capable of providing in my hay days.

My son helped me carry a 55-gallon Wal-Mart tank into the basement and I'm filling it as I write this.

For once my tank will be pristine in cleanliness and a jewel to behold, although it goes against my better judgement and long experience.

Decades ago, for decades . . .
I was a guppy man, a true blue raiser of hundreds of the little sexually overzealous devils. They were my sole mates at the time and from 1967 though 1980 I always ran at least two and sometimes as many as 1/2 dozen tanks.

I bred guppies, mollies, platies and paradise fish with great success. Often too much success as my birth rate far exceeded my death rate. But in those days friends and the local fish store would take 'em off my hands. So I imagine some of their DNA is still floating around the Toronto area.

On food . . .
In those days cash was a major problem and even care and feeding of our family's smallest members was a real issue. Often goldfish food was substituted for tropical fish food which was relatively horribly expensive. I saw yesterday in Wal-Mart a large container of food for $12 (can) that I would have had to pay $60+ for in the 70's and in those days . . . $60 was what I was paying for some of my used cars.

Often my fish were provided with flies, worms and various garden pests as extra protein. They, the fish, loved it.

In the 70's there was no Wal-Mart in Canada and no huge chain of petstore supermarkets offering every breed of species on the planet for sale.

Woolcoll ,-?? sold some fish and there were a couple of tropical fish stores, that were actually converted houses, with many small moist rooms filled with mucky tanks filled with very (mostly) healthy fish.

On sparkling clean . . .
My tanks were a ascetic disgrace. I admit it. I could only afford to buy the cheapest $2.00 a dozen air pumps and my 30 gallon tanks needed two of them to work properly. These monuments to poor engineering after a few weeks of use would start to make the most hideous jackhammer noises and disturbed my wife's sleeping so much, she would sneak downstairs and unplug them.

I (as a shift factory worker) would not generally notice this until the weekend and by that time the bottom of the tank resembled a septic tank. I would try and keep the bottom clean from sludge but it was a losing battle as was the battle with my wife over keeping the pumps running. So my filters were not operating mostly and the air pumps were supplying air mostly.

Now I'm gonna take a few hits here and as a newbie to this group I should perhaps not go against "common" wisdom and try to make a good impression.

But . . .that . . .ain't gonna happen cause I'm a young Washington when it comes to telling the truth.

The truth is this . . . my fish loved their terrible environment, especially at it's very worse.

The Coolie loaches, catfish(3 types) and snails (two species) and one lost and lonely fresh water mussel, spent hours burrowing though the sludge in ectasy. No fish died of strange and mysterious diseases, just old age or were selectively culled.

The plants and snails grew so fast and so thick I had to constantly throw handfuls of them out (probably contributing to invasive species problems in Lake Ontario).

None of the fish (zebra, neons, guppies, mollies, Egyptian mouth breeders, angelfish, tiger sharks, loaches, catfish etc)<-- yes they were all in those 2 - 25 gal tanks, were ever seen to be goldfish gulping for air and the breeding of the mollies and guppies was continuous and prodigious.

Hint here. A thick mass of floating plants is perfect for the tiny babies to hide in from predatory angelfish and other like minded baby eaters.

An apology in self defense . .

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating fish abuse. I'm just telling you that the little devils do not come naturally from a pristine environment and if you've ever seen a river full of silt in flood, you might develop a different perspective on what kind of environment they need in order to thrive and this relates to air food and water quality.

Only a tropical coral saltwater reef is a clean environment rivers and lakes are often dirty as H*** and many fish thrive in such situations.

One has to think on what they eat in the wild! Bugs are a real treat for many species, take the archer fish, which has learned to spit them off branches and many have learned to jump out of water to catch a bug on the fly.

One has also to remember that few tropical lakes come with a waterfall to provide a great oxygen supply and and as well, water temperature is a constantly changing variable quantity as well. In shallow lakes from cool at night to bath water warm during the day.

Tank heaters for instant. I never had one that worked, never used one in the tanks. The fish didn't seem to question my judgement by dying.
In the old days tank canopies (an expensive one) had provision for two 40-watt light bulbs, which usually burned out rapidly due to excessive moisture, but provided some heat.

On communities . . .
Some fish are bullies and are constantly pestering smaller fish , so much so that the poor victim fish dies of stress. Some Angelfish are nasty and as well red tail swords and paradise fish should be in a penal colony.
It drives you nuts to see a show class male long tailed guppy (they are poor swimmers with all that flash of a tail) with his tail tattered and torn to ribbons after being nibbled halve away by a bored sulking bully of another species.

Enter the hero . .
The Red Tailed Shark (actually a type of catfish I think.)
This fish is the most fearless playful pest in any tank and to my experience dominates any community tank it is placed in. It does not nibble tails or annoy smaller fish but it constantly pesters and drives bullies crazy.
Constantly . . they never seem to rest .

I always used them as policemen in my tanks with great success. Except the bullies hide a lot.

Back to the present and the future . . .
Anyway my tank is 3/4 full now and it's time to consider sand and rock placement. This house is a museum of pretty rocks but many are of a toxic nature (ores) or from a saltwater environment. I may boil some to remove the salt or perhaps purchase some from a local supplier. Although the thought of purchasing rocks makes me shudder.

My son was telling me he gave up his tank as his fish kept dying. He further told me that he'd used natural local slate for caves and decoration. I had to advise him that our local slate is laced with arsenic and may have caused the mortality problem.

Enough of this long-winded reminiscing.

I'll provide pictures perhaps someday if I am pleased with my progress.

Fear not,Dear Fellow Fishophiles, my tanks will be clean and healthy, conforming to public norms.

Budgie

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Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

(Comment Deleted) (none / 0) (#13)
by hn00092000 on Sun May 21, 2006 at 08:08:54 PM PST

This comment has been deleted by unclescott

Re: Once more unto the breach (none / 1) (#1)
by angelhologram on Tue Feb 07, 2006 at 06:52:14 PM PST

I'm sure others will be able to fill this in more but right now I am once again typing in the dark and overusing the backspace key. I believe there have been a few discussions on here before about how mch more hardy the earlier fish were as compared to the ones available now. Whether it's from inbreeding, medications, or fish who have just become accustomed to being spoiled I don't know but I recall even 20 years ago when I had fish and knew nothig about keeping them and they still seemed to live for years in conditions that now make me shudder. I had no idea what cycling or testing was about, it was just buy fish, add water to a tank, add el cheapo UG filter, add fish and try and remember to feed them everyday )I was 8-9 years old). I remember using plastic wrap over the top of the tank to keep them from jumping out and cleaning the tank (what we would now refer to as a tear down) once a month. How those fish survived in what must have been skyhigh ammonia levels I guess I'll never know! I guess what I'm getting at is the fish now are wussies lol.
*BEFORE you buy fish make sure you understand what "Cycling" a tank means <- quoted from miskaral* ~Trying to make a difference one fish at a time~

Re: Once more unto the breach (none / 0) (#3)
by budgie on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 07:56:20 AM PST

Dear "angelhologram" - I only wish that I had the excuse of being the wonderful age of 8 as an excuse for the terrible conditions I must have put my pets though.

I can only plead too many other distractions in that bygone age. Limited leasure time, financial resources and total lack of informed knowledge will have to serve as my apologensia.

There was one book. One book available at the town library on tropical fish.

It was constantly out, it was missing pages as the kids (I'll blame the kids), had cut out many of the pictures for school projects. I think I managed to borrow it once but never had time to actually read it.

No internet in those days young persons (anyone under 40).

But then again and this is the gospel truth. Note folks - here I'm wandering off subject but there is a point to it all this at the endless end.

Our dog pets ate table scraps, always. That's always.

The only bones we did not feed to our dogs were chicken bones. They would gnaw on a large roast bone with great relish for hours and hours and our children had to learn not to try and take it from the pet at peril of the loss of a limb.

My wife was a concerned and loving mother and always, when our family went our for a drive the baby would be in the front seat on her lap or between us on the front seat.
Studies on baby mortality in car crashes did not exist. Nor were there any recommendations on not holding your baby on your lap. The whole overblown media feeding frenzy Brittany thing is a joke to some of us old timers.

Airbags in our cars were not an explosive option, you could not buy a car with them, they did not exist.
As a matter of fact some of our family cars were so old they did not have seat belts.

I seem to remember most of my tanks had a piece of unfinished plywood as a top .

I had from experience found out that cardboard did not hold up too well as a tank top. All the moisture dissolved the cardboard and it would fall into the tank.(Yes I did it a few times - my learning curve is a flatline)

The fish seemed to like the new decoration though . . .they ate it!

We all survived and thrived and that includes the pets and kids, the family as a unit didn't but that's another story.

Ignorance is not really bliss . . .but it's a living. :-)

Peace to all.

Budgie
So many hobbies, so little time.
[ Parent ]

Hey Budgie, welcome to Guppylog! (none / 0) (#2)
by unclescott on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 02:37:10 AM PST

I'm delighting in the wit and wisdom of the reminiscences of your experiences in the hobby. For the last frantically busy two days, you've set me to thinking about what's changed,

You cheer my soul with your talk of live foods and what is natural for the fish to eat. Even as the commercial foods have profoundly improved in the light of three more decades of aquaculture research, it is still marvelous what some live blackworms (which have replaced the vastly more dangerous live tubifex worms) or mosquito larvae (even in this age of West Nile Virus, for they can be responsibly snatched out of the backyard) will do to the behavior, health and reproductivity of aquarium fish.

After reading of your frustration with cheap pumps and underused filters, I pause to think that your water was merely well oxygenated and frequently given partial changes. Darn! ;)

Your jousting with mulm or that stuff on the tank bottom sounds familiar. 25 years ago there was even an article by a German aquarist, which found it's way into English translation. He spoke proudly of "Clean Dirt." He understood a lot of that stuff needed to be removed. But in the meantime, it was shelter for fry and even eggs. All that surface gave a home to factories of beneficial bacteria and microscopic critters which machined down the fish wastes in the tank and provided forage for small fry.

Like you, I have had trouble of a similar sort. In my case it had to do with a Sweetwater pump - which kept a bunch of tanks going for a long time. Nothing on the pump instructions suggested that one use an air filter (even a clean sock) over the air intake and the thing eventually clogged up with sludge from the air. (An encouraging thought in the southern, formerly industrial, suburbs of Chicagoland.)

A buddy with a mechanical bent cleaned it up, so that it was pretty nearly as good as new. Another friend of two decades begged me for the loan of it for the last four months of my teaching career. That was three years ago. There was so much to do anyway, that with modest populations, lots of plants, a few tricks of the trade and the judicious use of R.O. water to top off evaporated tanks, that the fish and I have mudded through. And that was without even your airlines.

And the idea of taking him to small claims court is troubling.

Rocks. You observe what we sometimes do to the fish with rocks in the tank. That hasn't changed much in a quarter of a century. I keep seeing these great rock fragments in rough passes on the Interstates though. Then I think of what has sunk into them from auto emissions.

Unique is your use of the red tailed shark as a policeman for the bullies. You've spent time studying and reading/ listening about fish and their behaviors. Never thought of a red tail as a hero!

They aren't the "sharks" who are catfish, that would be the silver or bala sharks. The red tailed shark are among the African and Asian "Labios" (if I got that right), a group of Cyprinids. Your memory of what isn't, is certainly still in the ballpark. The genus of those guys has probably changed, but they are still red tailed sharks.

And speaking of Cyprinids! As a zebra danio person, you are about to be blown away by the Danio relatives beginning to trickle out of South East Asia, especially out of Myanmar, formerly Burma, since the turn of the century. Why, there is even a new species of White Cloud out of Vietnam!

I'm hiring a local college guy to help me haul large tanks, much as your son is helping you. Our sons are probably about the same age (even though I'm still 23.) Probably like you, I don't really want to be 23 again, with all of the uncertainties and anxieties of that age (though it is better than those challenges. anxieties and terrible temptations while being a teenager). But it sure would be nice to have the physique of a 23-year-old again! ;)

Our LFS (Live Fish Shops), back when, must have been very different. in Chicagoland and near Toledo. Some of the old mom and pops were messes, with hoses all over and funky tanks. There were those deserved to go. And many of them were perpetually on the bubble. A friend with a wholesaler noted, in about '75, that nearly a third of the Chicago area pet shops were near bankruptcy. (I found that I could recognize the smell a shop, which would be out of business within six months or so.) But there were a lot more "keepers" back then than now.

Where the big boxes go in, 50-75% of the independent shops will go away. That includes places, which would have that owner or employee who would take a newbie aside on the slow day and mentor him or her into the aquarist's craft. There are a few like that still, but even fewer of those people in the big box stores.

They do have some fish not available 25 years ago in the big boxes, but those fish weren't available to anyone 25 years ago. They also are forbidden by company policy from buying from home breeders in the big boxes. And if you were to lurk on the site of The Aquarium Hobby Historical Society, you would hear quite an indictment of the quality of many aquarium fishes in the hobby today. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AquariumHobbyHistoricalSociety/

An exception may be Petco. Evidently they are franchises? One mailing list post suggest that some enlightened managers in some if those will buy stuff from hobbyists. I need to learn more about them. Past experience with one of them was really dismal.

Water and all of the crap that is put into it will be a surprise. In 1980, I was getting used to chlorine. Well chlorine, it turns out, combines with some organic substances in the pipes. At least one of those can even be carcinogenic, so some bright civil engineer hit upon the idea of adding ammonia to bond with the chlorine to form chloramine, which you could leave in a bottle for a month and it will still be there. And be pretty toxic too. In this age of "sue the bastards" as a business model, for some, it was discovered that there was real danger to citizens of lead leaching out of pipes. The solution was to raise the pH of the water, with stuff like baking soda or even alum. More on this, from qualified people, later.

Diseases: we have more meds and more disease organisms resistant to them. We even had fish diseases which were uncommon 25 years ago - though maybe sometimes they are just being better identified. Yet there is also a better understanding, to a degree, of what is going on and how we need to help the fish by helped their immune systems to remain strong. (Take a gander at Terry Fairfield's book or the one by Burgess, Bailey and Excell sometime.)
http://www.barronseduc.com/0764113380.html
http://product.half.ebay.com/A-Z-of-Tropical-Fish-Diseases-Health-Problems_W0QQprZ782400QQtgZinfo

If you know where to look and are patient, there are guppies, other livebearers killies, catfish , cichlids, Anabandids, rainbowfish and (as mentioned) even Cyprinids we wouldn't even have dreamed of before.

"For once my tank will be pristine in cleanliness and a jewel to behold, although it goes against my better judgement and long experience." Well maybe. Certainly the aquatic garden crowd shoots for that.

Please stay around Guppylog. Most of the members here have come into the hobby within the last five years, often much more recently than that. Some who have tarried here a bit, were in the hobby way back when and have also returned. (Fish keeping can be a bit like malaria for some. Once it gets in your blood it is there to stay.) Maggie (on hiatus for a bit), Charles, Nate (who isn't around nearly enough) and I are among the relatively few "old-timers" who stop by.

Guppylog is a wonderful place to meet newer hobbyists. Browse the back discussions here. Net sites like this may replace Friday and Saturday afternoons at the old pet shop.

Your reminiscences will be fun and would put some things into a more understandable context. It will also be neat watching your Rip Van Winkle experiences too, as you discover the state of the hobby.

All the best!
"uncle" scott

[ Parent ]

Re: Hey Budgie, welcome to Guppylog! (none / 0) (#4)
by budgie on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 10:13:07 AM PST

Thank You for the kind welcome. I'll try not to be a "ship in the night" to the group although you will soon see that my knowledge of the professionalism of the art is . . .well truthfully non-existent.

I made another foray yesterday to pick up some odds and ends.

I needed bottom gravel, an airpump some airstones , some plants, a small supply of starter food and what ever else happened to catch my eye.

Total cost of the eye candy was $260 Can. Bringing the total investment so far to around $500 (tank kit was $160 +15% tax).

I was completely overwhelmed by the range of choices available.

Food. There's got to be a dozen brands for sale tween Walmart and the local Petshop. All in huge ranges of sizes and specialized for the different breeds you wish to raise!

I don't know what breeds I wish to raise so I just settled on a Nutrafin Max with PDP .
What ever the max, maximizes and PDP , kills cures and or prevents is completely beyond me?
I guess I'll have to read the book published on the back of the can.

Note in the old days <60's> there was one good brand available in Toronto - one fini..

PH!!! Yas is with the PH! I hate PH! Years ago I had a backyard pool and every time it rained getting the PH back in line cost me a fortune. (no top cover)
It was a lucky day for the family when a tree fell over and landed on the pool smashing the sidewall to rubble.

Now I `ve got to mess with controlling PH in my fish tank by buying tiny micro quantities of expensive chemicals!! Ain't gonna happen.

I think I'll pay my local Culligan store a visit.

And a vast selection of algae controllers and even more Medicines (enough to embarrass a drugstore) and a host of other misc "stuff" I haven't yet identified.

Oh Lord , what have I got my self into.

I want to do this right but I'm so lazy and learning is such a hassle. :-/

And I noted at least five brands of pumps in tons of size ranges and usage styles.
The choices are mindboggling, especially to the mindless masses , of which I'm a card carrying member in good standing. Except for that one little slip in the 80's when I actually did read a book called Sinful Susy or somesuch title.

I settled on a Optima 4 PSI with variable flow range and it's humming merrily away. I linked 4 airstones (the linier kind) in two ganged banks with a centre( <- British spelling you stupid computer spell checker idiot), disk airstone under a decorative rock.

Controlled by a 5 ganged air valve it seems to work pretty good although at a fast setting I think the massive supply of bubbles will scare the poor fish to death! But they'll breathe their last . . .well.
I noted that the valve setup is now plastic and really cheap, they used to be brass and really expensive.

I didn't buy any rocks, because , one ain't enough and a dozen is a financial ruin.

I settled on using some of my decorative garden rocks, which no one except myself ever noticed anyway, as the tank decor. Which means, I've found another reason to display my little bragging treasures to the world.
I'm a rockhound, registered prospector and collecting rocks is another deep seated problem with me. I have a few ton of them around here. Worthless, valueless , but some pretty.

So last night I made a dozen trips outside with no shirt on and it was like -4 and the rocks, actually boulders some of them, froze my hands and they had to be washed off in the laundry tub which isn't working all that great now as I think I plugged the drain washing the so called washed gravel.

I waited an hour before putting them in the tank and the tank temp dropped to 50 degrees. Glad I didn't do that while fishies were in there!

Plants . . .Holy Smokes! Another story.
Yesterday . .
On sale at the local petstore -->3 plants of $44.98<--
Pardon ME!!! On sale?
Are they out of their minds!
I can buy a Rhotodendron that will grow to cover 100 square feet , give me a glorious display of flowers and live for two hundred years for $29 bucks and they're offering me 3 lousy wilted green whatevers for $50 bucks (with tax).

I don't think so.

Settled on plastic plants for now. Grumble Grumble.

I notice that even after 40 years these plastic plant wannabes are still a pain to set in (and keep) in place and one of them is already breaking out of it's base and heading for the tank top.
I'd use lead to hold it down but that's another no-no now.
To think we once used lead in all our water pipes and now they say that just small amounts of buckshot left from duckhunters in our lakes is killing the ducks. Who'd ever believe it.

Lets see what else. Oh yeah. Decided to buy one of those pretty tankback drops and didn't know the correct size but the young male clerk convinced me (against my profound skepticism)that my tank was exactly 4 feet long, cause he had one himself and so he cut me off a length.
$4.98 a running foot, more than I paid for my wedding pictures. Well, not really true cause I don't think I ever did pay for my wedding pictures, In hindsight, Another wise decision.

Anyway, the background is, of course, exactly 6 inches too short. Story of my life~!

But I need to go back to buy fish anyway and I didn't have a clue how to or have anything too . . . hold it onto the back of the tank properly as all the scotchtape around this house has long past focalized into one solid mass of glutinous, frustration creation.

Stop Timeout. Hey, I'm having fun here and just "old guy grumbling". I'm bored and enjoy the writing,
If your reading this and enjoy it you may wish to seek out professional help. :-)

Sorry, I always was a punny guy.

Anyway . . .

The tank is set up now and everything is working and it is some pretty. Really it is.

I added the prep treatment that came with the kit , . . .don't know what it does but it's in there.

Gonna let it run for a couple of days and my first fish will be unsuspecting guinifish selected for their bravery and low cost!

Russian conscript fish thrown into the battle against my tank without a rifle.

I think I'll name the surviving colony - The Gulag Archiplago.

Enough for now. The Thank You at the start alone was enough.

But I never did know when to quit.

Which reminds me of the story about /// <-- connection terminated by forum administrators.

giggle

Budgie

So many hobbies, so little time.
[ Parent ]

Why use fish for cycling the tank? (none / 0) (#5)
by unclescott on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 12:02:37 PM PST

One of the things I wish they had had "back when"is the fish-less cycling, where a measured amount of ammonia (pure, not with laundry soap) is poured into the tank. One does have to buy test kits for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. But you save the fish (and heartache) involved with getting a nitrogen cycle going.

First, let your tap water sit a few days so that some nitrogen and extra carbon dioxide can bubble out and some free oxygen can be absorbed. Then follow the recipe(s) found in

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-fishless-cycling.htm
http://malawicichlids.com/mw01017.htm
http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Fishlesscycle.htm
Here is a chart one aquarist compiled doing this:
http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/flc-data.htm

This is one I really wish the hobby had had "back when". It makes a ton of sense and therefore is not something I would ever think of by myself.

If your plastic plant has aspirations as a 100 yard sprinter, do you have an odd piece of slate? (It helps to have broken an old tank.) Silicone glue it to the plant. Let the aquarium silicone sit for a week, unless you are in a hurry. (But that week for complete strength explains why I did terrible patching aquariums.)

Or tie the plant bottom to a rock with fishing line or just bury it in the gravel. How about using one of those plastic ties? (The duck tape of the 21st century.)

Those plants do sound expensive. Were they plastic and family sized?

Ah, you are north of the Great Lakes. That would explain something about prices and the Canadian exchange rate. 15% sales tax! That is way higher than even the notorious Cook County (a wholly owned subsidiary of Chicago).

What are "they" including in "the prep treatment that came with the kit?"

What kind of rocks did you scarf up? Would you be really glad to have them or do you take them for granite? ;)

A lot of aquarium equipment is plastic rather than some other material. As you noted, plastic valves will cost significantly less than brass. They also last less time.

What is your concern with pH? I would hazard a guess that old time aquarists wayyyyy over emphasized it. Collectors made a big deal about it, not realizing that a pH was probably (but not always) a reflection of the hardness or KH (Buffering) ability of the water.

Ha - that may have been the only instrument or measuring kit they had with them. Now-a-days there may be a dozen perimeters measured!

"If extremes are avoided" it is no big deal. If you lived in the U.S., by law your municipal water is buffered to be above 7. That is good for guppies. While it is true that the higher the pH, the more lethal the ammonia in an aquarium, if yours does stay under 8.5 and you ease your new fish into the tank water over an hour, it is no big deal. Rain or demineralized water could stir things up in a pond, but aquarists have killed hundreds of times more fish by topping off tank evaporation with tap water, than by diluting the water a little.

In the rainforests, when the wet season rains arrive, lowering the pH, hardness, buffering capacity, TDS and probably a zillion other things which we still don't know about, that is waving the green flag for a lot of rainforest fishes to begin spawning.

After all, if they spawned in the dry season, their fry would have no where to hide and nothing to eat. But they would have more predators and diseases available. This doesn't refer particularly to live bearers, but I recall field work in Nigeria (when it was safer for westerners to do that there) where they discovered fish with adult coloration and fins. They laid no eggs however and when a couple were dissected, they had no adult sex organs. Within two weeks of the beginning of the rainy season, they fish had matured sexually and were laying viable eggs in the less mineral laden water.

What is the pH of your water? What does your water department say? Do they have a report available of what is in their water? I think the US EPA asks for those reports from time to time. Does Canada have something similar? See if you can pick one up - it is your tax dollars at work and probably your right to have that.

That Optima 4 PSI sounds good. You can have several outlets in one tank. Suppose it could also be used with more tanks. :)

You probably can't miss with a good general fish food. I'd get little more until I had a good idea what fish I was going to keep. Then I'd sketch out what I wanted in my tank and look them up. Get them in several installments. Plan on purchasing the smaller fish first. When the nitrogen cycle levels out for them, get your next batch, maybe of slightly larger fish. After all, if you are doing a fish-less cycling, you've got a few weeks for reading and asking around. ;)

Does you public library order books through inter-library or inter-province loans?

What large population center (if any) do you live near? We are getting into the aquarium club show and auction season. You may be able to luck upon some terrific fish and prices, especially if your kidneys and patience allow you to stay until the end of an auction. Just as that country and western song suggests that "the girls all get prettier 'bout quitting time", so those prices get incredible at the end of the auctions.

Often those fish are raised in local water. While somewhat stressed by sitting on an auction table, they haven't been flown around the world, chilled in the airplane or on the tarmac, shocked with several different kinds of water and exposed to an amazing array of diseases on the fish farm, at the wholesaler's and in the shop.

One thing hasn't changed in the hobby. Some shops, on purpose or because of ignorance, sell fish that get much too big for most aquaria or are terribly incompatible with the others. In the sound and fury of an auction, it is still too easy to become enchanted by "those cute little guys."

As always, Caveat Emptor!

unc

So many neat fish and fish-heads, so little time. :)

[ Parent ]

More food for thought, There has been (none / 0) (#6)
by unclescott on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 02:18:57 PM PST

a thread on the ALA (American Livebearer Association) mailing list today on what goes into a fishroom. For many of us on GL, attempting that (at the moment) might be grounds for domestic mayhem.

But there are some neat ideas being batted around. Some could be scaled to the activities of someone with one or two aquariums. If you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmericanLivebearer/messages/791?viscount=-30
and look at Mike Hellweg's post for about 2:46 this afternoon, what he does to prepare his water may be instructive.

I'm sure many GL people think I am anal retentive when it comes to seasoning water. However look at what one of St. Louis's most active aquarists (and ALA-VP) does with his water. Notice how little he worries about pH or altering that water. (Of course they have tap water I would kill for.) Notice what he sees happening when he takes the time to monkey with the water's chemistry. (There will be a quiz later.)

The way he changes water, you'd think he has been hanging around Charles. ;)

All the best!
unc

[ Parent ]

Re: More food for thought, There has been (none / 0) (#7)
by budgie on Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 05:44:05 PM PST

Scott; I stood in Pets Unlimited the other day making a decision. There was the cutest puppy, sitting pretty, staring at me with big old baneful eyes and she was on sale for $699 plus tax = $803 plus you have to have a dog carrier or they won't let you take it home (another $100).

A lot of money but the pup was cute and I had almost decided yes when the puppy squatted and completely brought me back to reality.

I walked over and priced the fish tanks as I don't ever remember having to clean fish S*** off the carpet.

:-\

However; I didn't expect to run into such a advanced and required pool of knowledge on the care of my new pets.

In hindsight I'm grateful because guppies , which used to be, - males , 12 for a dollar and the females were usually given to me for free - but not anymore.

Tonight I paid $5.98 for one male (good color but only a medium sized tail) and $4.98 each for two females and the kid threw in a ½ babies for free. (Giggle).

All I'm saying is fish , even guppies are now expensive and an investment to protect. Some species though are even cheaper then they were in the 70's.

I was amazed to see females with color and pretty good color also. That was not the case in the 70's I never saw a colored female guppy (black tail excepted).

I purchased as starters, the guppies, one pregnant redtail sword, one blue fin molly also pregnant, one Red tail Shark, whose making a complete liar out of me, by hiding under a rock. One Sucker mouth catfish, name known, but unspellable with this spell checker.

I wanted 10 tetras, which looked fat, healthy, real colorful and on sale 10 for $18.00 but when I asked him to dig me out 10. The kid said that the fish in the tank, with the sign were NOT the fish on sale, as he'd just put them in there, as he didn't have any place to put them.

I was thinking of telling him where he could put them but deferred to my better nature.

I then asked him if he had any isolation tanks for the babies but he didn't understand what I meant so I got him to show me where the cheapest plastic goldfish tanks were kept , which he did.
There was a size to price guide there, ranging from $6.98 to $32.00. I picked out 2 of the smallest and he said they were $6.98 . .no $10.98 . . .no $15.98 . . . at which point I just stared at him, turned my back and fled with my fish and my obviously open and about to be pillaged wallet.

Total cost, starter colony $51.00

Total investment now around $550.00

By the way, plants at this store were 4 for $30 putting the lie to the other stores sale but this store had dead visible fish in 1/3 of their tanks and ich visible, in as many more. I fear for these poor ones I have purchased even though I based my purchase decisions on the state of the visible health of the tank's occupants.

Old rule; if there is one sick or dead fish in a tank, don't buy any of em. Period.

I let my new pets climatise for a couple of hours then scooped the fish out of the bags into the tank, making sure to carry over none, or as little as possible, of the store's water.

Speaking of which.

I guess I have to learn about water. We're on city supplied water and probably do have a report available someplace.

I noticed the test kits available but never thought I'd need one. Oh well.

Not too sure about a local show for tropical fish, perhaps there is one but when your not in a hobby, you don't pay no never mind to it's goings on. I can get any books on anything locally from our local library however I expect to be able to acquire them on line as well by asking around.

Pictures coming

Budgie
So many hobbies, so little time.
[ Parent ]

I've had fish poop on the carpet. Boy did that (none / 1) (#8)
by unclescott on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 01:00:30 AM PST

bucket flip! ;)

Also left a male golden lyretail in a small bowl where I'm afraid our thirsty dog - who follows me around waiting for the errant flake which falls to the floor - drank him. :(

Look at www.aquabid.com if you want to talk about expensive guppies. Yours do sound, price wise, similar to some Angelhologram reported upon recently. I think we paid $5 at our favorite shop for a real pretty pair of gold bodied, red delta-tails in '73. (Actually a wedding present of sorts.) Your fish did of when inflation and the cost of living is figured in.

"I was amazed to see females with color and pretty good color also. That was not the case in the 70's I never saw a colored female guppy (black tail excepted)."

I do think they are even more impressive today. However I also recall some awesome long finned, light blue finned females from the '70s.

For some neat images, go to the IFGA site http://www.ifga.org/
and look at their show photos. Also go to their store and look at what some of their members have for sale. Once you start jumping from link to link, you are off to the races.

"... one Red tail Shark, whose making a complete liar out of me..."

Time will tell. :)

"One Sucker mouth catfish, name known, but unspellable with this spell checker."

Hypostomus plecostomus? They can be museums of diseases, so watch him. If that is what that is, they also theoretically can grow to well over a foot long. (Popular in soups in the Amazon Basin.) They are fond of cooked peas, blanched zucchini, cucumber, algae tablets...

"I wanted 10 tetras../ The kid said that the fish in the tank, with the sign were NOT the fish on sale..."

Give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that shop actually quarantines new fish.

"I then asked him if he had any isolation tanks for the babies but he didn't understand ..."

Yeah, it scalds my mind what any kind of bowl costs today! Wait for the spring garage sales.

"Total investment now around $550.00"

Cha-ching!

"Old rule; if there is one sick or dead fish in a tank, don't buy any of em. Period."

Second old rule, if they move nets between tanks, run like heck out the door.

"I let my new pets climatise for a couple of hours then scooped the fish out of the bags into the tank, making sure to carry over none, or as little as possible, of the store's water."

Bless you!

"I guess I have to learn about water."

'fraid so.

"I noticed the test kits available but never thought I'd need one."

I am a real hypocrite on this one because I do few tests. I start new tanks from old ones, importing waterm gravel, plants etc and stock low in the new ones. In that I'm importing the nitrogen cycle, I don't do that appropriate testing. If I was starting out and had the mollah, I'd like to think that a test kit for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates would be included.

"Not too sure about a local show for tropical fish"

Google Ontario Guppy club, Ontario Aquarium Societies , Ontario Guppies...

Doug White lives a ways down the road from you. Great site. Check his Gallery. After you have your drolling under control, check his Links.

http://www.deltaguppies.com/

"Pictures coming"

Great!
u.s.

[ Parent ]

Re: I've had fish poop on the carpet. Boy did that (none / 0) (#9)
by budgie on Sat Feb 11, 2006 at 08:13:31 AM PST

Google Ontario Guppy club, Ontario Aquarium Societies , Ontario Guppies

<---1253 miles away Scott. I'm in Halifax, 600 miles or so from Boston which is a much better city to shop in.

Mind you my sister and a daughter and a son are in the Toronto area and I do need to go up there probably this summer to pay them a visit.

----------------------

I identified my male as probably a poor cousin to the "Texas" strain.

----------------------

Lost my female red tail sword - sigh! She could not take the shock of being squished against the tank side in the store.

----------------------

I see Guppylog doesn't ship to Can. Sigh! Probably wouldn't get pass the border anyway or if so, they'd want to put them in quarrentine for a month or so :-/

----------------------

Thanks for the guppy photo sites btw - loved them

----------------------

I see either I never did post my commment to Alicia? or it was purged. In reflection I was commenting on males breeding display and this site may run a wide guantlet of age ranges and I must remember to moderate my reflections to suit.

(I have 5 children (adults now) and 14 grandkids so I have no difficultly with the concept of protecting small fry from preditors.)

----------------------

Enough for now off to the store to return one demised fishy before the storm hits.

Budgie

So many hobbies, so little time.
[ Parent ]

Halafax! Wow! (none / 0) (#10)
by unclescott on Sat Feb 11, 2006 at 10:34:49 AM PST

You had mentioned the Great Lakes and Toledo. I mistakenly guessed you were still somewhat in the neighborhood.

I fear your observation about shipping to Canada is correct. It is hard. The only time I shipped fish to a Canadian gentleman, they arrived weeks later and dead. Some Canadian aquarists will go across the border and maintain a postbox in a post office. Americans on the border will drive across and mail their fish in Canada.

It is easier going to Canada than going to the U.S. with fish these days, if one has more than a pair or two of guppies or whatever. A number of Americans who belonged to one of the two Montreal Aquarium Societies have let their memberships slide because of the avarice of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. (They’d like to charge for an import license ($100) and an inspection fee at a port of entry ($50). If people are up front and only have a pair or two, they may be recognized as small time hobbyists and waved through.

Even Montreal is a very long haul for you. There is a Montreal Aquarium Society which seems especially strong in killies and livebearers. (That according to a correspondent on the ALA livebearers mailing list.)
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/6977/

There is also the Quebec group: Association Regionale des Aquariophiles de Quebec
http://www.oricom.ca/pierdes/

And the Soc. D'Aquariophilie de Montreal, which is long on cichlids. 2450 Workman, Montreal, QUE, Canada H3J 1L8

There is also a form to be filled out for fish entering the US. It is available in PDF at F&WL’s website. I do not think Canada has similar requirements.

Having mentioned all of the bother taking fish over the border, it probably isn’t worth your bother investigating the big NE Council show coming up. I include the April 7-9 event for the benefit of lurkers. http://northeastcouncil.org/

In the Toronto area your have:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tasociety/
Toronto A.S.

There is also a Toronto Extreme Fishlovers’ list. Certainly not trying to get rid of you, but if you also check with them you might be able to make requests and cut a deal.
http://www.extremehub.com/phpbb/index.php?pf=27&h=1&start=0

Doug White, the guppy guy also lives in “the greater Toronto area.”
http://www.deltaguppies.com/index.html

I hope the shop has some sort of return policy on fish. I know that is tricky, because sometimes shops make blunders. However, after listening to war stories from a friend who had a shop, a lot of aquarists get in their licks too.

Resubmit that response you didn’t see. It is easy to save it to preview and then forget to submit a comment. Sometimes, as you know, things just disappear while typing on-line.

I’m typing this in Word and saving before every third phone call. That preserves what is being typed a little more. In my case it spots some of the many typos and miss-spellings I generate too.

The only problem with cutting from Word and pasting into Guppylog (unless I remember to save first to text only) is that a lot of punctuation shows up as goofy code, which then needs to be corrected.

I am grateful for that delete button under a story or comment. I will highlight and save, then delete (hitting the initial request and the do you really want to delete? button). Pasting in gives one a fresh start.

Watch out though if others have made comments after you. If you then delete your comment, you delete what ever came after you as well. Then I have to live with my blunders. ;)

Ah! Enough administrivia! I hope you beat that storm to the shop and got a new female swordtail.

All the best!
unc

[ Parent ]

Re: Halafax! Wow! (none / 0) (#11)
by miskairal on Mon Feb 13, 2006 at 12:09:08 AM PST

" It is easy to save it to preview and then forget to submit a comment." - Oh how true unc. Done it several times and it's always when you've written the most, never on a short comment.

Unc, it looks like you have competition in the "Who has written the longest post" here at GL, although some of PeterW's were biggies :)

Hi budgie - you're not native to Oz by any chance?
What Americans call parrakeets (?sp) we call budgerigahs or budgies. The native version is a tiny green bird with yellow and black, not like the bigger ones found as pets and that now come in many different colours. I think they are only found in central parts of Oz, not near the coast anyway.

Cheerio
miskairal
--
Repeat after me,
I will read the Immediate Help
[ Parent ]

"It is easy to save it to preview (none / 0) (#12)
by unclescott on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 10:47:55 AM PST

and then forget to submit a comment."

By the bye, if you catch that, you can often back-arrow to where you left that comment/ diary/ log and resurrect it. So long as that frame, or window or whatever it is called, is not closed, one can redeem their comments.

Sometimes there was too long a title or introduction. The red ink will tell you. A little adjusting and it will save.

Elsewhere, I just posted a diary (as opposed to a dairy) and went to the GL everything page to see if it was recorded. Sure enough, the comment was NOT in evidence. So it was "green arrow time" back to the preview (frequent previewing also helps insure that something will still be there) and a click on the post button.

Previews are also easier to save to Word, so the spelling can be checked and grammatical atrocities (first spelled gramatical atrocies) hunted down. Comments are easier then to save to file then too.

The last hour or so just became more worthwhile. ;)

All the best!
uncle-gee-I'm-glad-I-double-checked-for-a-change

[ Parent ]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; | 13 comments (13 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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