Things you wish you had known when you started...

[Reaperpilot2014]

The purpose of this thread is to not only answer the subject question, but share what you have learned so that others may learn from and avoid your mistakes. Granted many of these potential topics may be found in other threads. My goal is to get as many of them as possible into one place where new puffer owners can browse through them. Feel free to copy and paste from other threads as long as you give credit to the poster. Please keep posts focused and educational.

I'll start with what I consider to be the most common, and important problems in fishkeeping. After about 30 goldfish and betta bowls, I am still haunted by the first fish tank I ever owned.

At the time I was completely unaware of the need to cycle a tank, and so lost many fish without any apparent explanation. Now I know how to properly cycle a tank, and that I need an ammonia source to do so. (Did that once too). With our puffers' extreme sensitivity to ammonia and nitrites, understanding how to cycle a tank is vital to being successful. There's a very helpful article in the library about fishless cycling, which I am a huge supporter of. library/water-filtration/fishless-cycling/

[Reaperpilot2014]

I will also add that while there are many so-called "instant cycling" products out there, there is really no such thing. Most of them are just dead bottled bacteria. Some of them may aid in, or speed up the cycling process, but this can just as easily be done with established filter media or substrate.

[xrayjeeper83]

I was in the same boat as you with not knowing about cycling.

One of my first tanks was my ex FIL's salt tank, that now knowing what I know is set up ALL wrong but at the time I thought it would be easy. WRONG, I lost so much money in fish cause I had NO clue and really neither did he.

[quote="Reaperpilot2014"]T Please keep posts focused and educational.
you hit the pipe, you know we cant do that around here LOL

[Reaperpilot2014]

Lol, yeah, especially with you and me. We can try though. I'd like this to be a great resource. A culmination of all the knowledge spread throughout the puffer forum.

[xrayjeeper83]

TPF is already a great resource LOL

[Srkoe]

I wish I had known keeping puffers was an addiction!

[Reaperpilot2014]

+1.
I now have 6 occupied puffer tanks.

[Srkoe]

I have 8...lol! The peas started it all!

These things I knew ahead of time, but I feel they are important to new puffer owners.

Use Prime as your declorinator...awesome stuff!
Do weekly water changes
And buy liquid test kits! Not dip sticks!

One thing I wish I had known about sooner was the Python...or water changing devices of the like. Would have saved A LOT of stress on my back! I now curse buckets!

[sevenyearnight]

I don't really have nightmarish anecdotes to share, but I've made pretty common mistakes when I first kept fish on my own as an adult, like keeping bettas in gallon bowls, keeping cories as singletons or pairs, because it's what was suggested by you know who. But when I moved out at 18, I was going to school full time and working part time at PetSmart. I knew their training on fish was surlaW, it's only geared toward sales. This is before the internet was established like it is today, but I remember reading a lot of books. I'm fairly nerdy, and moderately paranoid, so I wanted to make sure I was doing everything right, I didn't want blood on my hands due to my ignorance.
However, I took a long break from the aquaria hobby, and I did make the mistake of thinking what I researched 10 years ago would still be accurate today. Specifically, I thought GSP's were a low end brackish fish that would be fine in 10-20 gallons, that died krill is a good food option (Eek lockjaw!) because that's what I was told in 1998ish, and I made the mistake of not doing further research before getting Balki. I thought if 10 gallons is ok, then I'll get a 29 gallon, thinking would be ample space. But I very quickly after that found TPF, and luckily learned the correct information.

[Reaperpilot2014]

+1, especially to liquid test kits. Test strips are surlaW.

[RTR]

Back in the dark ages when I started keeping fish, water changes were unfashionable. It took a long time to get rid of that failed theory - and it still pops in this so-called "modern" and enlightened age - think of certain flavors of so-called "natural' tanks.

[Pufferpunk]

I ran the fish dept of a large pet shop, after working in a very small one for 2 years. Then I moved on to several smaller ones. Not once, in those 6 years, did I hear anything about cycling... No one knew back then--we always used fish.

[J-P]

ditto and ditto...

I knew it was expensive to set up a SW tank... but never fathomed $100+ for a 5 gal.. $$$$

Also, get your plumbing and tank positioning correct from the get go. Re-doing it after is not a fun task.

[RTR]

+1 to PP & J-P's comments, but I have never worked in a pet store.

Only a tiny portion of hobbyists back then paid any attention to cycling SW tanks. The only techniques available for cycling SW fishlessly were highly technical and required laborious lab work with good balances and obviously access to a variety of chemicals. That technique I believe was Aussie originally. Interestingly, the nitrite oxidizers were established first, then the ammonia oxidizers. Laborious, but it did work. I used that technique back in the 1960s, at work. Most folks used less expensive SW/BW fish for cycling SW - without partials.

FW tanks were cycled with potentially sacrificed fish, period, just as PP noted.

[sevenyearnight]

I forgotten that I had another GSP with Balki, because again 10+ years ago, I was under the mistaken impression that they needed a buddy. His buddy was a real surlaW, meanest 1.5" ever. He was rehomed shortly as a LFS store pet.