DON'T DO THIS

I started keeping aquarium fish in the early 1950s just about the time my age reached double digits, so maybe being young is at least a partial excuse for all the mistakes I made. My first aquarium was a 15 gallon one with a stainless steel frame, slate bottom, black putty sealer, angle iron stand and stainless steel light/hood with no glass between the aquarium water and bulb socket. As was the practice of the day, the substrate was white sand, and the filter was a plastic box hung inside the aquarium. Inside the filter were charcol, fiberglass (we called it angel hair.), and a bubbler to circulate the water through the plastic box. The vibrating type air pump was under the aquarium.

My first mistake was buying what ever fish looked good to me. Some, of course, were not compatible. The second mistake was not to waste aquarium space. I bought as many fish as I figured the aquarium would hold, and the fish store was happy to sell them. In those days, the store put the fish in a folded paper box of the kind sometimes used today for takeout Oriental food. And one more thing: the tank was brand new (who ever heard of cycling an aquarium?) when I put in the first purchase of fish.

I didn't want the poor fish to starve, so I fed them any time they looked hungry, which was most of the time for about a week.

In a couple of weeks, the aquarium shop was selling me a variety of the latest medications to cure dropsy, white spots, shimmies, fin rot, and death in general. I also bought a heater, which was basically a thermostat and electrical coil in a glass test tube. My aquarium made so much money for the fish shop that I was reduced to buying a few guppies from the dime store in downtown Dallas. Anybody with a lick of sense would have gotten out of the hobby by now. But I persisted.

When I finally stopped paying so much attention to the aquarium, the guppies did not to thrive but at least survived for the most part. Only after years of similar experiences did I come up with these DON'Ts for aquarists:

*Don't over crowd
*Don't mix incompatible species
*Don't over feed
*Don't over medicate; in fact if you're not real sure what you're doing, don't medicate at all.
*With a few exceptions, don't believe everything they tell you at the aquarium shop.

If you think all those mistakes are pretty bad, wait until you hear about some of my early aquarium maintenance techniques.

I can relate to that John. I mainly keep puffers now and when I think back to how I used to keep fish I wonder how anything lived for more than a day. I had bought a puffer back then and when it died I was like blaming the fish! Little did I know how much I wasn't doing and the poor fish must have suffered through his short life in my tank. I'm now so particular about my tanks, in fact, I have a regular routine that I do every day, it's almost like having a job.
Thank goodness we learn from our mistakes!

I'm glad you liked the story of my little aquarium adventure; more of it is scattered around this website. We're all learning no matter how many years we've been doing this aquarium thing.

at the same time there are few mistakes too.u should not do that....
1.keep same tye of fishes in ur aqua i.e u can keep angels and black ghost knife or clown loaches with discus..
2.don't change the water rapidly.it can affects the health of fishes..
3.give food twice per day...not give more than that..
4.u should separate the sick fish in a separate aqua so that to prevent diseases to other fishes..

Thanks. That's some good advice.

lol johnarthur, that's about what happened to me about 7 months ago.

i've still got a LOT to learn.

All of us do if we realise it. That's why this thing is fun.

obviously we know when we make mistakes..

Good to hear that I'm not the only one who has learned about how to properly care for tropical fish the hard way