Hi there. I am a beginner fish hobbyist and I can say I enjoy it quite well for as frustrating as it can be.

Over the past 6-8 months I have gone through plenty of fish, whether it was due to water problems or fish problems.

I started my tank out with a clown knife, 2 blue gouramis, and 2 pink kissing gourami and a pleco. 2 months later a pink and blue gourami ended up dying. They were the smaller of the group and got bullied. Then the pleco died and made the water all nasty. He decided to hide when he died so I didn't find him till a couple days later. :-(

I then invested into a clown loach to feed off the bottom. That was a big mistake and instead he decided to chill on top of the thermometer. I then bought a crawdad, thinking he would pick up the loach's slack. The crawdad ended up devouring the loach and hurting the pink gourami.

My mistake on not putting Melafix into the tank and the pink gourami ended up dying. So I decided to buy two blackfin sharks and a dwarf gourami. Even Bigger Mistake!

The same day I bought my sharks, my knife decided he was hungry and tried eating one. Poor guy was miserable. He had got the dorsal fin of the shark hooked through his mouth and did everything he could to get the shark out. He even realized he ate the wrong fish. So b/f helped grab the knife out of the water while I cut the dorsal fin of the shark to pull the shark out of my knifes mouth. Poor knife has not been the same and cant close his mouth. When I saw the shark in the knifes mouth, I figured I'd let him go ahead and eat the shark since he was hungry. It wasn't until couple hours later I kept hearing a noise from the fish tank. I went to go look and saw the knife was jumping, knocking water out of the tank, and kept knocking the lid off. I'm such a bad parent!

So I then decided to try some other kind of fish since now apparently we are limited on what we can have in the tank. I bought three silver dollars and they were pretty decent sizes. Bought them on the 22nd, left for work at 9 pm on the 27th and at 7 am on the 28th, I had two silver dollars dead, one was stuck in a decoration, and the third one was gasping for air. Turned the light on in the tank and the water is cloudy!

So finally got the water cleared up in a matter of 12 hours and the fish are back to acting like their normal selves. My knife and blue gourami are pretty hardy fish and I do not know what I would do if something happened to them.

posting pictures in my gallery...don't have one of my dwarf gourami. he hides all the time

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1 Clown Knife
1 Blue Gourami
1 Dwarf Gourami
1 Pleco

RIP:
2 Pink Gourami
1 Blue Gourami
3 Silver Dollars
1 Clown Loach
1 Pleco
2 Blackfin Sharks
1 Catfish

Welcome To Cool And Helpfull Forum!!!! ^_^

Well First Off Before You Buy You're Fish, You Need To Look Up Information About Them On The Web, Books, etc.......

After That, Make Sure You have All Of The Needed Materials For Your Tank.
Make Sure That All Of The Fish You Buy, Get Along With Each Other O.k.

Hope This Helps, And If You Have Any More Questions, You Can Always Ask TheAquaExpert!!!!!

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Watch, Ask, Learn!!!!!
~TheAquaExpert~

Another mistake listed then I will welcome you properly....Melafix, Pimafix, and Bettafix all contain ingredients that cannot be used on some fish, including gouramis, bettas, perch and any other Labyrinth organ fish. It destroys the organ that is at the top of their heads that allows them to breathe free air at the surface of the tank. It may not happen the first or second time you use it but it has a cumulative effect and will eventually kill these fish.

I do want to welcome you and tell you that it is precisely for members like you that I started to post on forums. The newcomers who need to have a little help to get started in a hobby that I love are the people who make the forums really interesting. You have the questions that stretch our knowledge and make us really dig sometimes for the answers. Some of you can really make us THINK.

Thank you for joining us and making our forum a better place.

Rose

I have a 30 gallon tank with a carbon filtration system. Plan on adding air line in tank for effects, not sure if it'll really help fish. I did let the tank run for 2 weeks to let the tank cycle even though I never thought it would. Seemed forever that the tank was cloudy.

Decided the three fish I have in the tank, plus the pleco is enough and just going to have to deal with it.

Good news, I bought some rosy for my knife and he can eat, even with his mouth messed up!

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1 Clown Knife
1 Blue Gourami
1 Dwarf Gourami
1 Pleco

RIP:
2 Pink Gourami
1 Blue Gourami
3 Silver Dollars
1 Clown Loach
1 Pleco
2 Blackfin Sharks
1 Catfish

Welcome to the site! What Elliott mentioned before is very valuable; research is one of the most important aspects of aquarium-keeping. But luckily u have joined this forum, where u can get quick and helpful answers to your questions and how to fix any problems u come across in the fish-keeping hobby!

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I'm so sorry I haven't been on the forum in so long! Don't worry, I haven't forgotten this lovely website! I moved to a different county back in May 2011 and started high school in a totally different school district. So I'm still adjusting and studying hard, and don't presently have any aquariums. But once I do, I'll be right back on this forum!

aboard!