I can't image you just walk in with a fish in a bag?
No, you have to call first and try to get someone on the phone that is not a cashier or a computer generated voice. Aquariums don't like to take livestock from aquarists. I had a hard time convincing the Riverhead Aquarium to take my burrfish. They think everything has ich.
Is there a specific version or era of your tanks you enjoyed more than the others?
I think I liked it just before corals started to be kept. Keeping fish was still new and I still only knew one person with a salt water fish tank. Learning by trial and error was fun and I learned a new thing every day. When I went to a LFS or wholesaler I always saw a new animal that I have never saw before and I wanted it. Then I could get all excited learning about it by reading all I could even though information was limited.
I still like inverts such as crustaceans better than fish, I find them facinating.
The hobby was a challenge then and there was so much to learn.
I also enjoy building equiopment, there were wet drys, skimmers, ozonators, surface skimmers, UG filters, algae filters etc.
Now it is mostly people telling you you can't do this or that. There is so much incorrect information out there that it is staggering and I personally am tired of trying to answer questions and then having the person telling me something like I never heard that, or I heard that is wrong, or I heard you can't do that.
We all have our own ways to do things and I didn't learn on the internet so my ways may be different.
We now have a lot of "experts" and some of them are very knowledgable and I admire some of them, but some of them are so adament that their way is the only way and it annoys me. Some people actually want to fight you over this stuff thats how sure they are that their way is the way to go.
It's a fish "hobby" why would you get mad over a hobby?
I run a reverse UG filter but I would never tell anyone else to do that. It's my thing and I am in the vast minority, I may be the only one running one but it works for me. You should see the mail I get saying that is a terrable system and it can't work
No one is shooting at us here, it's a Hobby and not very important except to us.:uhoh3:
The majority of us share your experience on this one. I'll add coral to the accidental fatality list as well.
Many of the accidents were from using Clorox. You have to be careful with that stuff and if you don't use Regular Clorox, the fish will die in seconds. I lost my entire fish population like that. Then once I had to leave on a family emergency and I was a away for a few days. This happened to occur when I had many of the fish in a smaller tank because I was re aquascaping and cleaning.
I thought I would be right back but I lost my 5 year old moorish Idol, an old mandarin and about 12 other fish.
I lost a puffer that got stuck in a pump where the screen came off, I actually lost a few fish like that, mostly puffers, they love intake tubes.
If you keep a tank long enough, you will have accidents.
Just a few weeks ago I was in Europe and my tank sitter let the water level drop 7". My 8" acropora was above the water as was many other corals. I still have frags from it but it was a nice size. The many gorgonians almost died from the increased salinity and still have some dead places on them, but most of the stuff came back.
Luckily, It is only a hobby
