One thing you could do differently?

Question

Before you started your aquarium, what is one thing you wish you had known?

I'm just curious to see what everyone wishes they had known or had known to do differently with thier aquariums.

Answer 1

I get to happily say nothing, my parents have plenty of mistakes under their belt as a kid setting up their first aquarium, and now they no how to set up a tank have taught me everything I know, and all my tanks are running smoothly!=))

Answer 2

I wish that I have known that there are so many people that get fish (and other animals) with out knowing how to take care of them until it is too late for the animal.

Answer 3

I wish I had known what the nitrogen-cycle is and that it is important to change water every week or two, not just top off the tanks.

Answer 4

I wish I would have realized how much I would enjoy the hobby and how addicting it is to add 'just one more fish' lol.  If I would have known this, I wouldn't have even bothered with a 26 gallon, that I didn't even have for that long and would have just started with a large tank, 75 or 90 gallon.  I now have a 75 gallon, a 26 gallon, and thinking about getting another.

Answer 5

i wish i had known about the nitrogen cycle. that way all my fish would have survived.

also i wish i did a whole lot more research because that way i would've have known what fish can go together and what fish don't.

Answer 6

I wish I'd known to buy a bigger tank.

Answer 7

I wish I would have known that you had to do water changes and how much work it would take. I thought that you just put the fish in and take the chlorine out and your fish will live for a long time!

Answer 8

I wish I had known how addicting it can get lol. I also wish I had known to do plenty of research on everything before I had gotten my first tank.

Answer 9

that six guppies (and their offspring) can keep breeding for 10 years and turn into 200 guppies over time.

Answer 10

do NOT use the live plants!! i serously wasted 4o$ on live plants only to have to throw em out due tot he fact they had a billion snail eggs on them. it sucked. i wouldve treated them ith something before putting in the tank. now i have 4o$ worth of lve plants in the trash and a ank still over-run by snails!!

Answer 11

I wish I'd known about the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle a tank before I got my first bunch of fish and fish tank instead of finding out about it after.  I would have done a fishless cycle and saved my fish and myself a lot of grief.  After all this time, I still feel bad about those first fish!

Answer 12

nothing really, I read all I could and used to keep them as a kid and a teenager, so I knew quite a bit. Some have died,  but I just take that as part of owning a tank. I have angelfish and they can be very fast swimmers, one of them died because it shot accross the tank and injured its eye... it got infected and died within 2 days ;( the other one was a mystery, it just stopped eating and slowly faded away. Not sure I could have prevented either.

Answer 13

i wish i wouldnt have grown up in the sticks with no internet to do any sort of research..... i just bought a tank and put fish in and thought it would be fine. after $30 on just fish that had died i said s***w it and just filled the tank up with lake water and put some baby bullheads in it. they actually survived quite a few months until i dumped em back in