What’s your best and/or worst fish memory?

Heyo

What’s your best and worst experience dealing with fish?

I’m new to the hobby and would love to hear some stories

Share that time your 100g tank busted and dumped water on your carpet.
Talk about your favorite, cutest, fish that swims around your hand when you do tank maintenance.
Share something about that nightmarish shopping trip where everything went wrong looking for fish supplies.
Tell me about the time you got an epic deal on a canister filter.
Literally whatever.
If it was significant to you—funny, depressing, joyous, satisfying—I would love to hear it, and so would others! Pictures and long posts are more than welcome!!

 

I have a couple to share; one of them is of my first guppy Mr Bubbles. He would always hang out near the siphon, be the first to go up to be for food, and was the leader of all my guppies. Another was the time a got a 55 gallon tank with all the supplies free, unfortunately my mom wouldn't let me keep it, and I sold it for a nice 80 bucks, which were used, on fish.
My worst was experience was also with Mr Bubbles, as the boss, he would occasionally clash with some of the others, but they would always be fine, until Emerson. He was the pretty guppy, the expensive one, a whole $8. Mr Bubbles, wanting all the ladies, (even though there were none in my guppy frat) he attacked. At first I thought they were playing, but then I saw Emerson laying on the gravel, barely moving. I came back a bit later and he had moved! I thought he was fine, until I saw him stuck to the filter. I moved emerson to a different tank, where he died the next morning. Fortunately, he was within the Petco 2 week guarantee, so I used the refund to help buy my breeding trio.

 

just 2 weeks ago i bought a new hang on back filter. then i went for my badminton game with it. during inbetween rest, i took it out to check and realised that the filter seems abit oily. so i brought it to the toilet and wash it with soap....went home and was excited to install it

next day all the fish and 4 shrimps dies. guess i didnt rinse it clean enough and only learnt that soap water is killer for fish!

lesson learnt.

 

I have a couple to share; one of them is of my first guppy Mr Bubbles. He would always hang out near the siphon, be the first to go up to be for food, and was the leader of all my guppies. Another was the time a got a 55 gallon tank with all the supplies free, unfortunately my mom wouldn't let me keep it, and I sold it for a nice 80 bucks, which were used, on fish.
My worst was experience was also with Mr Bubbles, as the boss, he would occasionally clash with some of the others, but they would always be fine, until Emerson. He was the pretty guppy, the expensive one, a whole $8. Mr Bubbles, wanting all the ladies, (even though there were none in my guppy frat) he attacked. At first I thought they were playing, but then I saw Emerson laying on the gravel, barely moving. I came back a bit later and he had moved! I thought he was fine, until I saw him stuck to the filter. I moved emerson to a different tank, where he died the next morning. Fortunately, he was within the Petco 2 week guarantee, so I used the refund to help buy my breeding trio.

Aww poor Emerson I had a platy that I named Gus. I had to separate him from my gourami temporarily so I put him in a 2.5 gallon. Sadly, he got stuck to the filter and died the next day. It’s sad when fish get stuck to filters.

just 2 weeks ago i bought a new hang on back filter. then i went for my badminton game with it. during inbetween rest, i took it out to check and realised that the filter seems abit oily. so i brought it to the toilet and wash it with soap....went home and was excited to install it

next day all the fish and 4 shrimps dies. guess i didnt rinse it clean enough and only learnt that soap water is killer for fish!

lesson learnt.

Oh, no! That’s terrible! I’ve found that diluted bleach works well for sanitation; what’s nice is de-chlorinator gets rid of any excess that you miss!

 

Aww poor Emerson I had a platy that I named Gus. I had to separate him from my gourami temporarily so I put him in a 2.5 gallon. Sadly, he got stuck to the filter and died the next day. It’s sad when fish get stuck to filters.

Oh, no! That’s terrible! I’ve found that diluted bleach works well for sanitation; what’s nice is de-chlorinator gets rid of any excess that you miss!

i removed al the shrimps, plants, teat down everything and wash/rinse them like more than 10 times. not its ok already. soap is worst than oil...

 

A few weeks ago I packed too much filter floss into the filter and it overflowed all over my floor

saddest once I had a female apistogramma agasizii I knew something was wrong with her but I coudent do figure it out so I put her in a Beeder box to get a closer look but instead I had to watch her slowly die. The week before that the male died from dropsy as week It was not a joyful 2 weeks


but on another note I had the great experience to get my Bristlenose to breed and I loved watching the fry grow

 

Best fish memory:

Probably my danio and WCMM tank I had about 15 years ago. I was a complete idiot compared to now with my fishkeeping but i remember that being such a fun little tank with them swiming around like maniacs and I would feed them live shrimps from a nearby Brook.

Saying that Im sure I will have happy memories of my tanks now in years to come

Worst fish memory:

I think recently losing an angelfish and then watching the remaining 3 angels turn aggressive, 2 pair up and rehoming them all as it was a warzone once they were breeding. Male angel would full on attack my hand and I didn't even want to WC the tank.

 

Best: looking at my tank and seeing 2 really small eyes looking back at me! My green cory cats had a baby that survived int he tank!

Worse: Other day, I forgot to strain the guppy water & lost a baby fry

I even told myself 'hey strain water...' but i forgot to because I got caught up into the process of cleaning tank as a chore. I feel so bad. RIP baby fry

 

i removed al the shrimps, plants, teat down everything and wash/rinse them like more than 10 times. not its ok already. soap is worst than oil...

At least you learned something! Thanks for sharing

but on another note I had the great experience to get my Bristlenose to breed and I loved watching the fry grow

Yes, I’m sure watching fish grow up was super fun! When I get more experience, I would like to breed fish, too. It seems like such a cool thing to do

saddest once I had a female apistogramma agasizii I knew something was wrong with her but I coudent do figure it out so I put her in a Beeder box to get a closer look but instead I had to watch her slowly die. The week before that the male died from dropsy as week It was not a joyful 2 weeks

It’s really sad about watching a pet die. My mouse died yesterday after being sick a few days (I know she wasn’t a fish, but not being able to do anything about it was troubling).

Worst fish memory:

I think recently losing an angelfish and then watching the remaining 3 angels turn aggressive, 2 pair up and rehoming them all as it was a warzone once they were breeding. Male angel would full on attack my hand and I didn't even want to WC the tank.

Oh, wow! I didn’t realize angels could get so aggressive..especially to the point they’d attack your hand! Woah.

Best: looking at my tank and seeing 2 really small eyes looking back at me! My green cory cats had a baby that survived int he tank!

Worse: Other day, I forgot to strain the guppy water & lost a baby fry

I even told myself 'hey strain water...' but i forgot to because I got caught up into the process of cleaning tank as a chore. I feel so bad. RIP baby fry

So cute! I want to get me some Corys! They’re on my list of next-fish-to-buy. And sorry about the fry! We all get distracted. At least I do

 

Best experience, few years ago, when my Dario myanmar started to breed.

Worst experience; spending too much time and money on ugly heaters, overrated CO2 systems, and... worst of all, "designer" tanks. I still feel ashamed purchasing the latter.

 

Best experience, few years ago, when my Dario myanmar started to breed.

Worst experience; spending too much time and money on ugly heaters, overrated CO2 systems, and... worst of all, "designer" tanks. I still feel ashamed purchasing the latter.

I may have said this already, but breeding fish seems like so much fun! What did you end up doing with the babies? Yeah it’s easy to spend way to much on stuff we don’t need. Haha what’s a designer tank??

 

I have been keeping them to myself. I breed them without taking out the adults; so most fry are consumed by the parents; a few survive. I only have 1 tank were I keep males and females in the same tank. All others Dario's I own, the males and females are kept apart (I have many tanks ).

Designer tanks are complete setups that are supposed to look good in your living room, like the Fluval Edge that I once had. Those days are long gone by... I just had to give it a try...

Nowadays, nothing beats an open rimless tank with plants growing out of the water surface. As the picture in my avatar shows.

 

Best fish memory was when I got my first bettas to spawn.
Worst fish memory was when my betta strider passed.

Worst reptile keeping memory was when my leopard gecko had to be but down because the vet couldn't do anything for her and she was egg bound and anemic.
Best reptile keeping memory was when my baby geckos hatched.

 

Best - when I rescued Sunny, my favorite betta of all time, from Wal-Mart (he is the betta in my avatar)

Worst - every single time I have had to euthanize one of my bettas (specifically last year when I had to put down all 3 of my bettas, including Sunny, due to illness caused by a very lengthy power outage due to a hurricane; horrible having to euthanize your fin babies who get deathly sick due to circumstances beyond your control). I hate the smell of clove oil.

That's why I only have one betta right now...working my way up to adding a few more after this hurricane season is over.....

 

Gotta say one of the worst experiences is coming home one day, looking for my pleco, then finding him on the carpet behind the stand, completely dried out.

One of the most fun experiences was watching my cat at the time, jump to the top of the tank, expecting to land on the hood, and dropping right into the tank instead because the hood was off and i was vaccuming the gravel.

 

Gotta say one of the worst experiences is coming home one day, looking for my pleco, then finding him on the carpet behind the stand, completely dried out.

One of the most fun experiences was watching my cat at the time, jump to the top of the tank, expecting to land on the hood, and dropping right into the tank instead because the hood was off and i was vaccuming the gravel.

Aww poor pleco. Do they jump?
Lol I can totally see the shock of your cat! That’s hilarious!! Great story.

Best - when I rescued Sunny, my favorite betta of all time, from Wal-Mart (he is the betta in my avatar)

Worst - every single time I have had to euthanize one of my bettas (specifically last year when I had to put down all 3 of my bettas, including Sunny, due to illness caused by a very lengthy power outage due to a hurricane; horrible having to euthanize your fin babies who get deathly sick due to circumstances beyond your control). I hate the smell of clove oil.

That's why I only have one betta right now...working my way up to adding a few more after this hurricane season is over.....

Sunny looked like a wonderful boy Ive never owned a Betta, but some day I shall. What’s the most bettas you’ve had at the same time?

 

Aww poor pleco. Do they jump?
Lol I can totally see the shock of your cat! That’s hilarious!! Great story.

Sunny looked like a wonderful boy Ive never owned a Betta, but some day I shall. What’s the most bettas you’ve had at the same time?

I had 4 at one time, each in their own tank, and all in our living room. I find that they are little stress relievers when everything goes right!!!! I love working with them, training them, watching them interact in different ways, and feeding time is very fun!!!!

They just aren't the easy beginner fish that lots of people say they are. If anyone doubts that, just count the number of threads at any given time concerning betta fish problems.

 

Worst memory was when I was netting platy fry out of the tank and one jump out of the net! They were so tiny still so I could not see him! I franticly looked around until I found him on the fish food container. I tried to get him but he jumped again so I had to look for him again. I was finally able to locate him and now he is happy and healthy.
Best memory was when I got my 20 gallon. After it cycled was very exciting also because I got to stock it!

 

Exciting! I’ve got a few I could share, but I’ll share this one in particular…

My worst memory from keeping fish, mind you I have for as long as I can remember…

I was a young girl who had a 40G tank in her bedroom, gorgeous tank, I loved it with everything and was constantly working on it.
One evening I had that strange urge, as I had often felt when I was younger, to rearrange my whole bedroom in the middle of the night. I was on FaceTime with a friend while I was doing so, I decided to place my laptop on top of my fish tank, that way my friend could get a good perspective. Anyway, time came to move my extremely large wooden wardrobe, I was quite a petite young girl, so really I had no business moving this GIANT wardrobe. In the process of moving this wardrobe from one side of my bedroom to the other, the wardrobe tipped and fell. Crashing right through my tank. My laptop feel into the tank, the glass obviously cracked and my fish and whole aquascape came crashing out onto my carpeted bedroom floor.
The electrical cords and box were kept right beneath the tank at the time too. It was chaos. I tried to pull the wardrobe up off the tank, but I had no hope at all.

Luckily, I had managed to save all of the fish in the tank and suffered no casualties.

Traumatised from the experience and definitely did not go around rearranging my room in the middle of the night after that.

 

Aww poor pleco. Do they jump?
Lol I can totally see the shock of your cat! That’s hilarious!! Great story.

Sunny looked like a wonderful boy Ive never owned a Betta, but some day I shall. What’s the most bettas you’ve had at the same time?

Yes, plecos can jump. Not exactly notorious for it, but most fish if the mood strikes them, can jump right out of a tank. Which is why i never understand tanks without hoods.

 

I even have my water levels at par with the height of my open tanks. Looks great, works great
Unfortunately, I did loose fish in the past because they jumped out of tanks; but for the last couple of years I only keep Dario species and never lost a specimen because it jumped out of a tank. But I would not keep most species in the trade in open tanks. So for now, I continue taking the risk and enjoy the pleasure of open tanks.

 

55g collapsed at 10 pm.

lost in total over the years 40 lemon tetras, all die as soon as being added, a few survive and no causalities thereafter.

Had an angelfish die which made me sad.

Before I was a real hobbyist I had a goldie in a bowl, and my little sister grabbed it out and put it in a toy purse.

 

My best memory was when I got my first ever american cichlid, a green texas. It was beautiful.

My second-best memory was when I made my first hybrids, crossing a convict cichlid with an ellioti/maculipinnis cichlid. That was definitely fun.

My third was when I raised a convict cichlid from when it was a tiny fry. It took like two months to become a big girl already.

My worst memory was when I listened to people on a forum and did not have a lid on my aquarium. My favourite clownfish ever jumped. Ever since then I am always extra careful when heeding advice. And also be careful when giving out advice.

 

Worst is when I was 10 and keeping a betta in a small Lee's Betta Keeper with nothing else in it aside from water. No heater, no filter, nothing. Poor thing lived 4? 5? years

Fav memory? Every day now I get to see my fish live in a healthy natural environment. Feels much better

 

When I was a kid I was at a church fair and I won that "toss a ping-pong ball into a bowl and win a goldfish" game. So, the little goldfish was in a little bowl in my room (we didn't know any better). One day I came home and he had jumped out of the bowl and was dried, literally stuck, to the carpet. I freaked out, grabbed him and put him back in the bowl. After a moment he started swimming around...Jesus fish.

 

When I was a kid I was at a church fair and I won that "toss a ping-pong ball into a bowl and win a goldfish" game. So, the little goldfish was in a little bowl in my room (we didn't know any better). One day I came home and he had jumped out of the bowl and was dried, literally stuck, to the carpet. I freaked out, grabbed him and put him back in the bowl. After a moment he started swimming around...Jesus fish.

Lucky

 

Worst - coming home and finding my divider buckled and one of my bettas had killed the other. Not fun.

Best - the other day I sat down in front of my betta’s tank and put my hands on the sides of my face like I was flaring, and he flared back and started wiggling his little body like he was ready to fight (or mate…) it was hilarious