Burt Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 Any of yall mess with aquariums? I've got a 3, 5, and 10 gallon aquarium. I almost bought a 40 gallon, but that's just so much weight (8 pounds a gallon?). I ended up using a ~30 gallon tub because I can put a lid on it to prevent my toddler from falling in. Planted some veg in the big tub and have some (legally obtained) mosquitofish swimming around in it. I'm hoping to breed them as forage for a parasite study I'm doing (flukes!). In the other tanks, I have various communities of native snails and native fish (again, not normally legal, but I have the clearance to do this). Seeing how fish respond to different fluke infection rates. I had a tank of mollies and cory cats, and I killed them with hours. I understand native fish, but the tropical/pet store variety confound me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms. Spam Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 When I was in high school my first job was to pay for my aquarium. I got a nice 20 gallon and worked super hard to set it up as a natural habitat. I had a good substrate filter and water circulator that I could change the speeds of the water rate and set up some aerators too. I read every book I could checkout about fish and aquariums. I started out with clown loach, a pleco and some of those mountain minnows as I wanted a school of fish for interest but size dictated what could happily live. Then I graduated to cichlids. OMG! I loved there weird ways. Oscars love to come to the top of an aquarium and rub like a cat against your finger. My step mom hated that they spit rocks out onto her carpets though when moody. I don't have any aquariums anymore as It is work but fun work to keep them maintained like with water changes. I do recommend you go up in size. I had one in school and kids liked it and as long as you have it setup on a stable surface and you get a fitted lid the kids will be okay with it. It really helped a few of my students to calm. Going up to at least a 20 gallon means easier maintenance work. My early love of fish led to my step-brother having a 150 gallon tank with big angel fish. He has five and they've grown to fit the tank. Angel fish can be hard as they like a certain water. Something fun I do to teach kids about ecology is make an ecolarium. We get one of those giant 1 gallon wine or cranberry juice jugs - empty of course, using a funnel you can put in a substrate of peat, attach a small plant and put water in and let sit for a day or so. Then add a snail and some tiny fish like those White Cloud Mountain minnows and add them. All of this stuff starts to live off each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Driver Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I've always wanted a big salt water aquarium. I love them. But I've never been able to manage a one gallon more than a week without the fish dying. I suspect it requires a patience level I don't have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms. Spam Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 One gallon aquariums kill fish - they're just unhappy - but it's a money making business for people who like to inject neon colors in fish and sell them to kids. I've wanted to do salt water too but the advice I got was be prepared for the most expensive fish to be eaten by the cheapest fish and they're high maintenance. Really I've learned to settle with one of those screen saver things from the 90s for the classroom and the fancy ones at the doctors office where a professional takes care of the tanks. Mollies and platties are a lot of fun to raise because they have children called fry and you can tell the male fish right away because his gondopin is always "hangin' down". I always got squeals from the girl kids when we talked about fish reproduction when I had an aquarium set up with them in the classroom. I teach in a poor school district so getting to see even a basic fresh water aquarium and teaching the kids about the growth cycles of fish was fun and not something they can experience everyday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeygirl Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 We had a fresh water when I was a kid. I found it to be an incredible pain in the ass to keep clean and balanced and didn't care for many of the fresh water fish. I, like Seth, wanted a salt water habitat but they were cost-prohibitive then. Lately, I've come to wonder how much space the saltwater fish should generally have and wonder if any commercial aquarium is large enough, so that, with the fact I love the kitties, is enough for me to just admire the tank in my doctor's office and be content with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pavonis Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I have nothing to add, save that the plural should be aquaria. But I'm old-fashioned. And cranky. And unable to keep fish alive more than a couple weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pong Messiah Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Maintaining an aquarium isn't very hard, but it requires a lot of diligence. Am still not sure if I'm gonna stay in my current house for 5+ years, but if so, will probably get a saltwater aquarium because why not? If it looks like I'm moving, no way, because moving a large tank is a huge hassle for people and very stressful on the fish. Most experiences have been good -- as long as you regularly monitor the cleanliness, temperature, and temperament of the aquarium and adjust as needed, it's easy to stay on top of. I have had an aggressive fish or two, which can be a pain, and my experience with African dwarf frogs, despite starting out well, was a net negative. Had a lot of food issues -- a couple were just too slow, so the fish would sneak in and take their food -- OR -- the food would get lost before they noticed it; there were also a few that I could ONLY get to to eat by wriggling a bloodworm from the end of a dropper right in front of it. Definitely made it harder to manage the aquarium. But outside of that, it was pretty cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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