Welp, There Goes Another Cherry Barb, Probably

My barbs are in a nice 20 long that I just rescaped last night, they are beautiful fish and I love them dearly but OH MY LORD THEY WILL EAT ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING!

They live alone because of this ravenous hungry they exhibit, one died from choking on a bloodworm (when I first started out) I've seen them eat crab pellets whole (those were for the corys) and I have removed all their corys from their tank because they out ate them to the point of starvation.

Now I just watched one completely inhale a chunk of cuttlebone. CUTTLEBONE. She didn't even try to spit it out! Literally all 5 of my Bettas have looked at the occasional small snail and spit it out immediately. But these barbs...

Anyways. She's really fat, and I don't expect her to live. Id say I'm at a loss for words but this was quite the rant.

Maybe share tales of your dumb fish below? Thanks all

 

Got a fish stuck in it's mouth for a long time until he swallowed it. I don't feed fish to fish it was a live bearer trying to eat a fry that was too big.

 

Got a fish stuck in it's mouth for a long time until he swallowed it. I don't feed fish to fish it was a live bearer trying to eat a fry that was too big.

Wow that's horrifying, I would be yelling at them like "you really just HAD to eat your own spawn that bad you'll choke on them??! Your eyes are bigger than your stomach smh"

 

My goldfish used to chew on small gravel (don't put goldfish with small gravel tho, it's a bad idea).
They were small enough she could spit them out easily, but she'd always just have one in her mouth and just chewed on it for several minutes before spitting it out. She never once swallowed it, so that's something.
Snails. One of my mystery snails likes to float a lot. He's not sick or anything, he just floats around the top of the tank with his antennae waving around. Well, quite often he floats directly into the filter flow... It's like a little carnival ride for him I guess. I've even seen him climbing up the glass directly under the flow, then jumping off the glass so the flow pushes him to the bottom... Then he starts floating up and doing it again.

Haha pictures tell a thousand words, right?
Edit: sorry mods for the double post

 

Wow that's horrifying, I would be yelling at them like "you really just HAD to eat your own spawn that bad you'll choke on them??! Your eyes are bigger than your stomach smh"

I said something like that.

 

My goldfish used to chew on small gravel (don't put goldfish with small gravel tho, it's a bad idea).
They were small enough she could spit them out easily, but she'd always just have one in her mouth and just chewed on it for several minutes before spitting it out. She never once swallowed it, so that's something.
Snails. One of my mystery snails likes to float a lot. He's not sick or anything, he just floats around the top of the tank with his antennae waving around. Well, quite often he floats directly into the filter flow... It's like a little carnival ride for him I guess. I've even seen him climbing up the glass directly under the flow, then jumping off the glass so the flow pushes him to the bottom... Then he starts floating up and doing it again.

Haha pictures tell a thousand words, right?
Edit: sorry mods for the double post

My goldfish did the same with a snail shell, just pick it up and think about if it was food or not. And that is a very handsome snail, tell him "well at least you're cute"
I like reading articles that say "these fish want basically still water or low flow" but every fish I own swims directly under the new water I pour in, getting pushed all over the place. And my betta Archer (profile pic) used to fight against the current of his Fluval Spec tank. I had to put a sponge on it because it would fling him around, but he kept coming back for more

 

I can’t tell you how many times my mother has said “Your fish look so hungry, are you sure you’re feeding them enough?” My usual response is along the lines of “Mom. They always look hungry. If I fed them every time they acted hungry they would actually eat themselves to death.” Thankfully she respects that I know what I’m doing when it comes to feeding my fish, and she doesn’t try and feed them. Though she does occasionally convince me into feeding my Cories an extra bottomfeeder wafer or two.

With my Cories, I break each wafer into a few pieces, usually small enough so that they can fit them in their mouth and do their whole eating routine. But even though I spread them all throughout the bottom to give everyone a chance to get their own, they often all want the same wafer piece. It’s actually really hilarious to watch, it looks exactly like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

By the way, the wafers I feed are HikarI Sinking Wafers, not algae wafers.

 

My goldfish used to chew on small gravel (don't put goldfish with small gravel tho, it's a bad idea).
They were small enough she could spit them out easily, but she'd always just have one in her mouth and just chewed on it for several minutes before spitting it out. She never once swallowed it, so that's something.
Snails. One of my mystery snails likes to float a lot. He's not sick or anything, he just floats around the top of the tank with his antennae waving around. Well, quite often he floats directly into the filter flow... It's like a little carnival ride for him I guess. I've even seen him climbing up the glass directly under the flow, then jumping off the glass so the flow pushes him to the bottom... Then he starts floating up and doing it again.

Haha pictures tell a thousand words, right?
Edit: sorry mods for the double post

I have seen them float but never with antennas out like that. They usually close up when they decide to float. Do you feed food that stays on the surface?

 

I can’t tell you how many times my mother has said “Your fish look so hungry, are you sure you’re feeding them enough?” My usual response is along the lines of “Mom. They always look hungry. If I fed them every time they acted hungry they would actually eat themselves to death.” Thankfully she respects that I know what I’m doing when it comes to feeding my fish, and she doesn’t try and feed them. Though she does occasionally convince me into feeding my Cories an extra bottomfeeder wafer or two.

With my Cories, I break each wafer into a few pieces, usually small enough so that they can fit them in their mouth and do their whole eating routine. But even though I spread them all throughout the bottom to give everyone a chance to get their own, they often all want the same wafer piece. It’s actually really hilarious to watch, it looks exactly like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

By the way, the wafers I feed are HikarI Sinking Wafers, not algae wafers.

I feed the same thing! With some HikarI Crab Pellets for some extra calcium, the corys are great and healthy in their new tank with some Neon Green Rasboras. They get along great. And yeah, my barbs FLY to whatever corner of the tank I'm standing around like they aren't already the fattest fish around. They are worse than my goldfish

 

I have seen them float but never with antennas out like that. They usually close up when they decide to float. Do you feed food that stays on the surface?

Actually I don't, I only feed sinking pellets and wafers. Sometimes veggies float, but honestly I hadn't fed any veggies for a few days at that point (oops). That's the only snail that does that, and he normally floats around with his antennae out, it's pretty bizzare. My other one doesn't float at all, which makes it more weird. Oh, and the floating one also likes to try and climb on the surface tension of the water, but he always falls once he lets go of the glass. At this point I just assume he's a weird one.

 

She's still alive, think there could be a chance that the cuttle bone.. Doesn't kill her? She still has the same bump in her belly, but I wonder if it could actually dissolve??

 

My mystery snails eat it, and it dissolves by itself in the water given a few weeks, so potentially she could live. Best of luck!