Learning to be an Aquarist

My girlfriend had a bad day and purchased a goldfish to cheer moods. Not only did it cheer moods, I became fascinated and wanted to buy an aquarium and take care of many freshwater fish.

One weekend we made a trip to PetSmart to find a simple aquarium. We were overwhelmed with many choices of aquariums, filters, plants, decorations, food, and fish. We went into the store having no knowledge about maintaining an aquarium and needed assistance. We had questions that pried answers from the PetSmart staff. Overall my reaction to the PetSmart staff was that they didn’t care, or they pretended to know what they were talking about. If these answers were not pried, we would have dead fish right now. Shouldn’t the employee be asking us what we are looking for?

The outcome after an hour was purchasing an Eclipse Hex 5 gallon fish tank (see review), gravel, fake plants, water conditioner, water test kit, fish net, and a book on fresh water fish. Wait… Where are the fish? With our many questions we learned that you cannot simply buy an aquarium and fish at the same time. We let our 5 gallon aquarium sit for 4 days and let the water mature before buying a fish. I wanted to do cycle the tank using an older method with a hardy fish. I have learned from experienced aquarists that patience is the key. If you are over excited and indulge too quickly you can overstock your aquarium that hasn’t yet cycled. If this happens your fish will suffer and die from ammonia poisoning.

Since then we bought another fish for the 5 gallon tank. We put the Tequila Sunrise Guppy in the tank with our existing Fantail guppy who’s name is Fanny. Fanny has enjoyed his alone time for 3 months solid without any fish. Once we introduced our new Guppy to the tank, Fanny harassed the new fish for several days.

To make a long story short, we only had the Tequila Sunrise Guppy for several months. He became unhealthy very quickly and my best guess is from fin nipping from Fanny. After days of suffering we decided to give him a faster death by putting him in the freezer.

The goldfish bought at the very beginning is named “Sonny”, who remained in a glass vase for the time being until we purchased an upgraded 2.5 gallon tank. Sonny has grown tremendously and enjoys his new tank. Note: It’s not the best idea to mix freshwater fish with goldfish. Goldfish produce more ammonia than regular freshwater fish.