So, the heater in my 55 gallon African cichlid tank just failed epically. It cooked all but two (a synodontis catfish and a red zebra) of my nine fish. At least I had them for a good amount of time; the oldest one in there was about five years old. Looks like I'll have to go home for the weekend and restock the tank (after I get a reliable heater). Luckily I have two fish set aside in an isolation tank, because I had trouble with them fighting in the big tank. But damn, does this ever suck.
Or: Why Fish Make Bad Pets
I am deeply sorry for your loss. :'(
Don't make fun of African Cichlids. They're awesome fish to watch.
They're downright mean to each other. One of mine is missing most of his tail right now.
Quote from: Hi no Seijin on February 09, 2009, 06:26:19 PM
Or: Why Fish Make Bad Pets
They are good pets for the most part. I've been keeping fish for a long time, and this is the first time something
this bad has happened. At least they weren't saltwater fish. *shudders*
Quote from: Pyrgusfinn on February 09, 2009, 06:32:41 PM
I am deeply sorry for your loss. :'(
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Quote from: Gamefreak on February 09, 2009, 06:33:24 PM
Don't make fun of African Cichlids. They're awesome fish to watch.
They're downright mean to each other. One of mine is missing most of his tail right now.
I love them. Even if there were no survivors, I don't think I would make the switch to anything else.
Yeah, if they were salt water fish, that'd really be some financial damage.
Man, that sucks, DW... Have you any idea how it malfunctioned?
I've been reading around and a common cause of heater malfunction is the bimetalic strip getting worn out. When it gets too cool it coils up and completes a circuit. With the temperature fluctuations associated with Spring and Fall, that strip wears from expanding and contracting too much. So when it wears the heater is either stuck in the "on" or "off" position.
Ah, the expanding/contracting jazz... How long has it been used?
Not long. Maybe two years.
Geez... Sorry, man. Hope the next one you use is more reliable.
Yeah, it worked pretty well... until this happened.
If anyone is interested, this is what my aquarium used to look like (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32_9MY31OFo). I think I posted this video on here before, but that was a while ago.
Why did you come into my house and film my Cichlid tank?
Seriously, my tank looks almost like that.
Although I added a bubble wall in the back of my tank. Closest thing they have to a toy when they try to swim against it.
That's cool. I wish I hadn't used the colored gravel though. Too artificial looking.
That stinks! I'm so sorry. D:
Reminds me of in 8th grade science, we made a terrarium/aquarium (plant was on a separate layer on the top, and the fish lived off it from a string leading from the plant down into the aquarium).
And since I wasn't able to feed it over the weekend and I couldn't take it home, the fish died and the smell was nasty! (shudders)
Oooh, sorry, man. Reminds me of the fish I used to have. One died of unknown causes, and the other jumped out of the fishbowl, landed on the floor, and died. We believe it to be suicide. Hmmmmm.....
Quote from: Gamefreak on February 09, 2009, 06:33:24 PM
Don't make fun of African Cichlids. They're awesome fish to watch.
They're downright mean to each other. One of mine is missing most of his tail right now.
I had African Cichlids a long time ago. One of them actually at the eye out of another cichlid after they battled. It was nasty. They then proceeded to pick at the dead body.
Awesome fish, indeed.
That's the one thing I don't like about them; something about the whole picking apart dead bodies creeps me out. One day I went down to check on them and they were all fine. Then I came back an hour or two later and then BAM! all of a sudden a dead fish with no eyes popped out from under the filter return.
That's really scary. One of my cichlids was hyper as hell. It'd just swim around the rim of the fishtank all day at like 50 miles per hour.
Then we came home and it was on the floor, asphyxiated.
It popped out from the spped and died. :P
At least half my Cichlids have had their tails chewed off at one point or another.
Good thing they grow back.
And one of mine looked like he was mugged or something. He had cuts all over the side of his body, all of his fins had been chewed.
He recovered, but he's antisocial now.
The cobalt blue cichlid that you saw in the video recently overthrew the big yellow lab and took control of the tank. That was pretty bad. I had to put the yellow lab in a breeder basket so he could wouldn't get killed.
So apparently it's a fish eat fish world?
They don't eat each other, they just fight. Mostly they are just little skirmishes, but sometimes they get pretty intense.
Okay, fish kill fish....
I remember when I was like, 5 or 6 years old, and my parents got us fish. I loved em, but I was really confused when my mom put them in a tank.
"Mom, if that one's called a Japanese Fighting Fish, shouldn't we keep it away from the others?"
...yeah, that didn't turn out so well the next morning. :-* :(
Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss.
Do fish make good pets? I keep asking my parents if they'd let me buy some, but they say "You already have plenty of pets". I have a dog, and, well, there's always Otis... sea monkeys, and that's about it. I mean, my little sister had a fish that passed away last year, and my parents just got my little brother an anole (which is like a small gecko-chameleon thing (That you have to feed a whole bunch of crickets to all the time. :-*) but it's kinda cool otherwise. Changed from green to brown for camoflouge.) a few months ago, but I've been asking for fish for quite some time now. They seem like cool pets, but my parents say they're boring. :'(
Quote from: Darth Wyndisis on February 12, 2009, 03:38:16 PM
The cobalt blue cichlid that you saw in the video recently overthrew the big yellow lab and took control of the tank. That was pretty bad. I had to put the yellow lab in a breeder basket so he could wouldn't get killed.
Quite the opposite in my tank. My cobalt blue Cichlid used to be the head fish, but we have this copper colored one (Brown with a shade of orange on his head and fins) who just took over.
So, I went to a couple pet stores and got a bunch of new fish: four johannies (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=760) (three females one male) a bumblebee cichlid (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=845), and two red zebra cichlids (http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=1729) (one is female, the other too small to tell).
Oh, snap! Taxonomy fail. The so called male johanni was actually an electric blue johanni (melanochromis cyaneorhabdos), which is a separate species from what I thought it was (melanochromis johanni)