Beginner years?

[Analisemcg]

This may sound weird, but how many fish did you kill in your beginner years?
I’m starting to think I suck at this….
I’ve had two things die in the past three nights. Feeling very bummed out.

 

[Cody]

I don’t have a real number. But I know my fair share. Mainly due to bad advice or just pure ignorance from being young and not wanting to listen or believe what I read.

There also the part of this hobby that you have to accept that fish do just die at times and it’s not always from our doing. There’s fish that are over bred, raised in poor conditions and farms, or removed from wild that have a lot to over come to thrive in our tanks. And we often don’t always have the time they need to get them there.

I don’t know you’re specific woes, but don’t beat yourself up too much.(assuming your doing the best you know/can do)

 

[BigManAquatics]

Sometimes helps if you have luck on your side. But i have lost a lot of fish over the years-kept a lpt, too-especially early on. Usually due to water quality way back then...or putting fish barely small enough for the catfish to eat...

 

[Lucy]

Not weird at all.
We managed to kill our first 6 guppies in about a week (If I recall correctly)

We didn't do our research and those pretty fish paid the price

 

[BlockHead1981]

To answer your question....Alot. Don't beat yourself up, just learn from your mistakes.

 

[Kzza]

I got a few platys around two years ago when I started the hobby. 1 died. Then I got more of them, about 4 I think. They all died. Then I started learning about the nitrogen cycle, and stuff, I’m doing a lot better with caring for them now! I did end up killing a few more on accident I believe…Sometimes it happens. Fish do trust us with their lives, I would often feel bad about the mistakes I made.

At least you’re trying your best, research is key!

 

[Fisch]

As a Newbie keeping fish feels like a gamble, fish don't come with a user manual, and lets face it, the communication is very, very, very limited.
Overfeeding, underfeeding, too high pH, too low pH, bad water, not enough waterchanges, wrong medications....the list of pitfalls is endless.
Who does not know the dread looking into the tank in the morning, and finding another dead casualty.
I would say that the all of the deaths I experienced at the beginning were caused by overfeeding.

 

[DragonFox91]

My first month I lost 2 bettas & felt horrible. Was about to give up. Let my aquarium sit for a month & now I've had my third betta a month & a half.

 

[Tjkj]

This may sound weird, but how many fish did you kill in your beginner years?
I’m starting to think I suck at this….
I’ve had two things die in the past three nights. Feeling very bummed out.

I’ve been keeping fish for around a year so far and have lost 3 fish. 2 young angels and my beautiful peppered Cory . They all died in the transition from my old tank to my new tank. Luckily I’ve lost no more than that but have spent a massive amount of hours researching all sorts!

 

[Chewbacca773]

This may sound weird, but how many fish did you kill in your beginner years?
I’m starting to think I suck at this….
I’ve had two things die in the past three nights. Feeling very bummed out.

I poisoned my first 4 WCMMs with chlorine on accident when I was water changing

 

[JTW]

I knew I was going to buy an aquarium for about a year before I actually did. And I did a lot of reading leading up to it, so I avoided most of the common beginner pitfalls.

But I was still plagued by a discouraging wave of fish deaths early on because I was determined to keep guppies. I don't know what it is about guppies, but they die on me like no other fish that I've ever kept. I brought home a lot of guppies of different types, hoping that they'd be stronger stock. But without fail, and without exception, they died on me within days.

It wasn't until I gave up on guppies that I had any success. Once I stopped buying guppies, I didn't lose a single fish for a good long time.

So despite all the research, I still had a hard beginner lesson to learn. And that lesson was that if you are going to thrive in this hobby, you need to be able to adapt. Adapt to your water conditions, adapt to the livestock that is available, adapt to your space, adapt to your budget, adapt to the problems that inevitably arise. There are times when you need to accept failure in order to succeed in a different way.

 

[DuaneV]

Fish die, it happens. HOWEVER, as long as your tank is cycled, isnt overstocked/incorrectly stocked, temp is correct and youre feeding them correctly, deaths can be DRASTICALLY lowered.

That said, temps and tankmates are the biggest reason for untimely deaths in most cases, in my opinion. I see people losing Bettas all the time but theyre keeping them without a heater or in 78 degrees and overfeeding them. I see Guppies dying all the time when 6 are added to an uncycled tank. I see Neon Tetras dying after an Angelfish gets to adult size.

There are a few SMALL factors that play a huge part in fish deaths. Do some hard research on what fish need for temps (this is more important than PH in my opinion) and ESPECIALLY what their attitude will be once full grown. Not all fish can be housed together. Its just not possible.

 

[Tryne]

I killed a handful of my first chili rasboras because I didn't realize the water flow was way too high for them. I also killed a couple blue velvet shrimp seconds after adding them because they were still trying to recover from the transport and ended up right in the claws of my dwarf crayfish. The dwarf crayfish are pretty bad at catching healthy shrimp otherwise. I had two badis badis together a while back. One ended up killing the other one after chasing him around for days.