An open letter to the aquarium industry

[HumbleFish]

Then there are known difficult to ship and care for specimens but ignored.

When I QT tangs, angels, butterflies, Pseudocheilinus + Halichoeres genus wrasses and other "bread and butter fish", I have little difficulty. But fairy/flasher wrasses and anthias (especially deepwater species) are a whole different ballgame. It's not just me who has noticed this trend. And yet, those are the fish people keep buying over & over.

 

[PCguy21]

This was what i saw in my local petco today... and i buy from this store... geesh.


Yea my fairy wrasse and anthias i got during the 30% off sale all died in hypo... so i learned the hard way they cant handle hypo..so much for articles saying all fish by rays and sharks csn handle it... flame angel died from it too.. all the fish porcupined like dropsy

This scopas tang was in bad shape.. i dunno of this is ich or velvet or both or what... but this is what my kole tang looked like 5 days ago.. i bought it from this stole he looked fine.. in 24 hrs he looked like this tsng.. and his started peeling off... Thankfully he was in hypo and i started cupramine so whatever it was has been going away... tang looks alot better now but still has some on him.. its been 4 days in cupramine now

 

[RobbyG]

I have been in the hobby now for about 40 years also. Over that period of time I have had my Current Tank running non stop for the last 19 years. At it's peak I had about 12 fish, numerous shrimp and lots of soft and hard corals. Most had been thriving and growing for almost 10 years. My pair of Mandarin and my pair of Clown fish laid eggs so often it was annoying. In the end the tanks inhabitants were bought down by a Temporary Maid that came to clean the house for a day. She saw some ants near the Tanks base and decided that a half a can of pesticide from the closet would do the Job nicely. I came home about 8 hours later and only noticed an ever so slight smell of pesticide. By the next day one fish had died, by the following three more died along with the corals starting to look really bad. The whole time I had no clue what was going on. I did water changes and used Carbon packs but by then it was too late. At the end of the week all but one fish had died and almost all the corals were wiped out. On the following Monday she came again and admitted that she had sprayed the area to get rid of some ants. I told her to leave lest I do something to her that would put me in jail.

Anyway since that time I have had a lot of time to reflect on the hobby. My system was built in a very meticulous way with an insane amounts of automation and Triple redundancy for most systems. I even had the system on a 1500 Watt UPS system along with the tanks own Honda 3000EU Generator for backup power and In the end it was an idiot with a spray can that did me in!

I now believe that it is nearly impossible to keep an aquarium going long term. Too many things that one cannot predict can go wrong. Call them acts of God or whatever, but they do happen and no matter how knowledgeable you are and how well your equipment is setup and maintained these thing will happen if your tank is running long enough. I would say that almost every year something would happen but on almost every occasion I caught the problem and fixed it before any damage could occur. I also made changes so it could never happen again. Unfortunately it is that one out of ten times when you don't catch the problem or the problem just cannot be solved that will do you in.


Rob

 

[PCguy21]

This is why fresh water is so much easier.. Besides one bad case of discus plague that wiped out my discus once... I litterally in 20 years never had issues.. you can litterally stuff a tsbk with fish and plants.. do 80% water chabges every week or two straight from the tap and never have a issue... I litterally never see ich or any parasite.. and if i do see ich its so easy to get rid of its a joke.


Started salt water a year ago almost and its been one hassle after another after another... tons of money in fish loss from parasites.. corals are too expensive... Its actually causes me more stress then it fixes. Ive lost sleep at times and gone into depression sometimes.. with how bad the ich.velvet got in my tank.

Ive been doing hypo for 4 weeks.. and i still lost fish who cant handle hypo like anthais. Wrasse. And a flame angle... Now im doing cupramine and hypo together for the last 2 weeks.. and i hope to god once this done.. that it wont come back... because ill be honest if it does and i lose all my tangs... Ill put ny salt water tank backcinto my 55g hexagon... and just focus on the corals and hsve no fish but damsels.. my flame hawk and chromies... which are the only species i noticed that never get ich or velvet.. Wheb my 55g hex was running.. it was so beautiful.. corals were doing great.. fish were happy.. then i switched to my 135 and put my discus in my 55g hex.. ever since going to the 135 and trying tangs and sngelfish its been nothing but parasite after parasite.


So yea i hope once this hypo and copper in ny 135 is done... it doesnt come back.. i have the tank stock i want.. so i dont need anymore fish.. and my corals are sperated but ive lost 3 of em being in that 2pg tank.. Hopefully this ends soon.

 

[Joe0813]

companies these days would rather make so much product as cheap as possible and sell for as much as possible