My Tanks Exacerbate My Anxiety

[laritheloud]

This forum isn't my therapist. Thought I'd get that out there up-front before I unload.

But how do you cope if your aquariums are a constant source of anxiety? How can you teach someone like me to relax, stop micro-analyzing every bump and scuff on a fish for hours, and breathe? There's always something for me: how a fish is acting, whether a fish is pooping 'right,' whether a fish is completely free of scrapes or marks, whether it just 'looks happy.' Whether fish are totally compatible or if I'm taking on way too much risk.

Now my husband is worried that I took on too much and grew too fast in this hobby, and I'm trying to self-examine whether he's right or if there's another approach I should try to calm myself down and have a healthier approach to my tanks. I got some cat-safe houseplants that I hope will stay alive for me, and I hope just watering them once a week will be a nice predictable task that I don't have to worry much about.

Thanks for listening. 

Edited February 19, 2022 by laritheloud

[JettsPapa]

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying your tanks more, and I'll leave it there.  As you said, this forum isn't your therapist, and I'm not qualified to give advice anyway.

[laritheloud]

On 2/19/2022 at 10:12 AM, JettsPapa said:

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying your tanks more, and I'll leave it there.  As you said, this forum isn't your therapist, and I'm not qualified to give advice anyway.

Thank you. I might just end up getting rid of this in shame, anyway. 

[Guppysnail]

I totally empathize. I used  to always just do maintenance and keep fish only for glaring injuries or stress would I worry. About 5 years ago i retired and started surfing the web. For almost a year I was psycho analyzing every tiny thing freaking out. One day I stopped and had a serious conversation with myself (yes I do that I feel it healthy). I asked myself why I never had all the crazy issues before but now every day I fear each fish is on the verge of death. The internet was what changed. You hear so many hundreds and hundreds of bad hints and sick fish etc etc infinity. What you do not hear are the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of fish that folks get and are happy and healthy and live full lives with only food and maintenance. How many thousands of beginners just put fish in tanks and never had issues. 
I chose (it was a hard choice and had to be reinforced to myself constantly). To stop thinking about it and return to just doing maintenance feeding and enjoying my fish and not worrying or doing anything else unless I saw blaring signs…death, pineconing, open sores.  I’m happier and again no longer worry. The overwhelmed feeling went away. I still have not had any major illnesses or deaths outside of pregnancy complications or one off injuries just like in many years past. I find in every aspect of this hobby other than maintenance less is best. The less I interfere the more the expert…Mother Nature…can do her job affectively. I hope that help. Big hugs from your forum friends who totally EMPATHIZES. 🤗 

Add…maybe back down to your one stunningly beautiful 55

Edited February 19, 2022 by Guppysnail

[lefty o]

you can definately get inside your head if you constantly analize the minutia going on inside an aquarium. kick back, relax and just watch the fish from 10' away for a week. you can get in deep and look for things wrong on the day you do tank cleaning.

[Guppysnail]

I should also mention…my pharmacist friend has had tanks for years and does not even test 😳 just weekly water change. She has a few 10-12 year old fish. My niece does not test is horrible at remembering water changes kept a betta 2.5 years and is going on 3 with neons. Not calling them out just saying   INTERNET=fear and stress

[JettsPapa]

On 2/19/2022 at 9:13 AM, laritheloud said:

Thank you. I might just end up getting rid of this in shame, anyway. 

There's no reason for shame.

[lefty o]

On 2/19/2022 at 9:23 AM, Guppysnail said:

I should also mention…my pharmacist friend has had tanks for years and does not even test 😳 just weekly water change. She has a few 10-12 year old fish. My niece does not test is horrible at remembering water changes kept a betta 2.5 years and is going on 3 with neons. Not calling them out just saying   INTERNET=fear and stress

im right there with that person. i test once every decade or so. i agree reading/watching on the internet can cause a lot of oh boy, does my fish have that, or whats wrong. most things that go wrong with fish will be very clear and visible to a person quickly without watching them under a microscope. if you look hard enough for something wrong, you are going to find it, real or not. best for a person to just step away from the tank for a few days. feed them, and walk away. 99.999% of the time the fish are going to be just fine. you just have to allow yourself to be okay with that.

[Guppysnail]

On 2/19/2022 at 11:02 AM, lefty o said:

im right there with that person. i test once every decade or so. i agree reading/watching on the internet can cause a lot of oh boy, does my fish have that, or whats wrong. most things that go wrong with fish will be very clear and visible to a person quickly without watching them under a microscope. if you look hard enough for something wrong, you are going to find it, real or not. best for a person to just step away from the tank for a few days. feed them, and walk away. 99.999% of the time the fish are going to be just fine. you just have to allow yourself to be okay with that.

I’m with you. Unless I see a major issue reset a tank try to settle in a new tank or do a major 🤦‍♀️ Type thing I never test for anything but nitrate and that’s because my source tap has 20-25 nitrate. No amount of plants can use that much in addition to heavy stock feeding. 
I love how you worded it 😍ORD

 

On 2/19/2022 at 11:02 AM, lefty o said:

allow yourself to be okay with that.

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Firstly, no shame in what you're feeling. From what I can see in your forum posts you are an excellent fish keeper and I hope you realiize that. Sometimes when we get to this level we have to examine what needs to change, could be us, could be what we are doing. This is why we have emotions- they are designed to tell us that something is either wrong or right. 

Generally speaking I'd have to say I've seen a lot of very enthusiastic keepers here some have been doing it for years but a lot very new to the hobby- they go very quickly from 1 tank to well too many. What is too many? Too many is when you feel overwhelmed and the hobby is no longer fun and/or stress reliever. Sometimes we have to consider downsizing or simplilfying what we do with our tanks everyday. I've gone from 1 tank to 6 tanks in under 2 years. I realize for ME this is pushing my limit but it is doable. So I have to stop. I've even got a back up plan to consolidate if I needed to do so and still keep my fish. 

I do a morning roll call. I count certain fish that are usually up front and center. Check. I look at the ones that usually hide but I can see (usually 3 of now 10 CPDs, 10-12 Oto Vittatus, 2-3 Oto Cocama). It's a QUICK visual inspection. Check. Every tank gets an eyeball on their filters to make sure they are functioning. Check. You'll catch anything that is SUPER obvious but otherwise that is all. I have other morning maintenance I do (mostly having to do with making sure old bottom feeder food is cleaned up and new food put in, and some small water changes). This takes me 30-45 minutes every day. But herein lies the difference- I really enjoy doing this. It creates no stress or anxiety for me- it actually helps me start my day a bit more confident that things are OK. I used to have NO motivation in the morning- now I have positive reasons to move. 

What's right for you? I don't know. But you do have to examine what will make things better for you and help bring the anxiety level down. 

[laritheloud]

Thank you everyone for your empathy and understanding. 

Logically-- and when I remove my feelings from the equation -- my fish are doing very, very well. I had one barb death that brought my number from 10 to 9, but I think it was shipping stress, as there was no sign of problems on her and none of the other fish are expressing issues at all. They're vigorous eaters and love their veggies along with my sweet pleco my son named Lava. 🙂 

My husband likes to joke with me that I'm flipping out too much over small stuff on the fish (like a scuffed scale that I have to double check is ONLY a scuffed scale and nothing more about 10 times in a day) and that when we look at their overall activity, they are fine. It's absolutely true, and not in a funny hahaha way. I do a headcount every day twice a day and check for anyone missing or floating, and it's rarely happened -- except with my pseudomugils who are thriving as well as they can with their genetics. When I just sit back and watch the fish potter around the tank, it's so nice and I find them to be utterly sweet and delightful.

I do get anxious over adding any fish to my tanks or moving fish from one tank to another. I'm worried I'm shaking up the equilibrium and get a little consumed by it, even when it's just an easy little moving-from-quarantine-to-display. What I should remind myself is that it's small stuff, the quarantine is big enough to house almost any single species of fish I own for the long term, and in the worst case I can move everything around and reestablish peace.

@xXInkedPhoenixXI admit I moved fast. I went from one tank to five pretty rapidly. I'm stopping here, one because I don't have room for more with young kids and their stuff all over the house, and two because I think this is about where I want to stay with tank maintenance for now. I also reallllly don't want to go through the tank cycling circus again. My last tank took over 8 weeks to cycle, and thought it did a number on making me feel impatient, I'm glad I waited because wow is that tank rock solid now. 9 Barbs and a juvenile bristlenose in quarantine and not a dent in the parameters; even nitrates are below 10 after 5 days. Insane. I'm thrilled with that.

EDIT to add: And I 100% agree with folks that say 'step away from the internet.' That's exactly why I mostly quit Facebook. It was very bad for my health!

Edited February 19, 2022 by laritheloud

[Tanked]

I berate myself constantly because after decades, I still don't know as much about this hobby as most of the people here!

This is in part because there are so many variables, and in part because  I don't need to know.  I don't keep rare finicky plants or delicate expensive fish.  Some of us dive deep and try to micromanage every aspect of aquarium life. This is fine as long as you enjoy it.  I keep aquariums because if I need to, I can walk away for a few days or a week and no harm is done.  

What I need to know is: Living things are adaptable to a certain degree, sometimes get sick, and will eventuually die no matter how caring we are.  In exchange for an environment well within their comfort zone I get to visit their world.  Almost all of my fish live well into their expected lifespans and sometimes longer with basic maintenance.  The learning curve for plants is a lot steeper than expected, but if the results were as boringly stable as my water parameters, the enjoyment would be gone.  @lefty oprobably said it best: "If you look hard enough for something wrong, you are going to find it, real or not. best for a person to just step away from the tank for a few days. feed them, and walk away. 99.999% of the time the fish are going to be just fine. you just have to allow yourself to be okay with that."

[jwcarlson]

I'm not saying this is what's going on with you, but I'll simply say that sometimes a hobby or hobbies are what I consider a space where I can better control what is going on compared to life or work where business conditions and plant performance had me worried the company wasn't going to make it long-term... so I bailed there and went somewhere rock solid.  And am realizing that I do better with a little chaos and firefighting at work (I'm an electrical engineer).  So it sounds dumb, but I "miss" the chaos of a plant that only runs 50-60% of the time compared to a plant running at like 90-93%.

It's also an environment in which, in most cases, my level of care directly correlates to the health of the individuals.  Where as our family seems to be fighting various ailments every couple of days (three kids in school and my wife is a teacher who has contact with the entire school district every few days).  We don't have infants anymore, so as tiring as infants are... maybe there's some part of my brain wanting that responsibility and care load to some level?

It's OK to take a step back if it's affecting family or work or more "real life" stuff.  Over obsessing can be exhausting, but it can also be a driver for much learning and enjoyment.  Maybe it's not just a scuffed scale next time and you head off some plague.  Eventually you settle in.  With bees I used to bother them non-stop.  Always convinced I could be of some service.  I learned a lot that way and now I can tell a whole heck of a lot from my bees just by watching, listening, and just feeling the temperature of the brood nest by putting my hand over the top of it and feeling the heat.  There is some point on a curve that is the intersection of a bunch of other curves: experience, time, knowledge, equipment, etc etc.  I always say this with bees and work... just find me someone who legitimately cares and we will be OK.  The rest of it follows because a caring person is driven to make it better, to seek and share knowledge, and to put forth the effort to enrich whatever they have in their sights.  

Edited February 20, 2022 by jwcarlson

[Torrey]

On 2/19/2022 at 8:01 AM, laritheloud said:

This forum isn't my therapist. Thought I'd get that out there up-front before I unload.

But how do you cope if your aquariums are a constant source of anxiety? How can you teach someone like me to relax, stop micro-analyzing every bump and scuff on a fish for hours, and breathe? There's always something for me: how a fish is acting, whether a fish is pooping 'right,' whether a fish is completely free of scrapes or marks, whether it just 'looks happy.' Whether fish are totally compatible or if I'm taking on way too much risk.

Now my husband is worried that I took on too much and grew too fast in this hobby, and I'm trying to self-examine whether he's right or if there's another approach I should try to calm myself down and have a healthier approach to my tanks. I got some cat-safe houseplants that I hope will stay alive for me, and I hope just watering them once a week will be a nice predictable task that I don't have to worry much about.

Thanks for listening. 

1. I am impressed that you felt safe enough to post this. I am glad you didn't remove it, not only because there is nothing to be ashamed of, but because we as a culture really need to re-normalize these discussions. 

2. With everything going on in the world around us, I suspect that if we had the opportunity to all join up once each month, we would notice a trend jwcarlson referenced above: the people (at any given moment) who are most focused/ hyperfocused on their tanks and livestock are utilizing the tank(s) to offset something they don't perceive having control over elsewhere. 

3. I agree with what has already been said: your posts indicate that you are a good fish parent, and you are also a good *parent*

The internet offers us a thousand things each day to elevate our blood pressure. Who needs to go to the gym, when we can get a full aerobic workout cruising the headlines🤷‍♂️

All joking aside, you are not the only person who is feeling anxiety in things that they developed to be stress relievers. I will share the same thing I share with most of my clients:

Whatever you choose to focus your energy on, is going to be what grows to fulfill your expectation. 

If we have grown up with fewer opportunities than we had obstacles, our obstacle detection muscles have grown very strong with lots of use and focused attention. It will be natural for them to continue to find obstacles faster than your other muscles will find opportunities. 

This natural occurrence will continue with out any energy expenditure on your end.

However, if you want to start finding more opportunities, there are some muscles that will need to be intentionally used, so that they get stronger.

The easiest way to take the first step to use the opportunity muscle, is to ask *every time* an obstacle is noticed (or stress is noticed, or hyperfocusing on a scuffed scale): "what opportunity am I missing?"

At first, it is not going to feel very comfortable. It might feel itchy and too tight. Yet, the more you ask the question, the faster and easier it gets to identify where opportunities are hiding, and it will get easier to identify what brings you joy in keeping fish, and what sucks the joy out.

At that point, it gets much easier to work in harmony with the tanks you have, and to be able to make honest appraisals for what is working today, what needs to be let go, and what you need more of.

I think all of us go through stages of where we need more tanks, and other times we need fewer tanks. The struggle seems to lie in the narrative we tell ourselves:

"I grew too fast and now I am overwhelmed with fears about what might go wrong" feels a heckuva lot different than "I was having so much fun building new habitats and exploring different fish! Right now I am not feeling as much joy in the maintenance and prevention activities, I wonder if downsizing will help?"

Then, try downsizing. If it doesn't help, sit with the tanks and the fish, and check in with what the tanks do, what they need, what you need, and what you want. I don't think there's a one size fits all. I feel like society provides lots of opportunities to avoid sitting with nothing but our thoughts, and therefore most of us miss the opportunity to build up the muscles to find opportunities to just sit with our tanks, and with our thoughts.

Maybe that's the missing opportunity, the road less traveled, so to speak. 

[If none of this resonates, feel free to view it like a water change: it wasn't needed by you, and if you pour it on the rose bushes they can use it more]

[Jennifer V]

I'm not necessarily as articulate as some others who have commented, but I am a perpetual cheerleader and worrier too. (I don't call myself a worrying Nerm, or Werm, for nothing.) Fear and anxiety are inherent protection mechanisms. There is safety in worry because you're telling yourself in some way that if you worry, you'll avoid disaster because you'll see it coming. So when you're feeling anxiety and fear related to your tanks, it's because you care as a steward of the fish world you've created and that's not a bad thing. 

I understand your feelings of wondering if you've hit a tipping point. I've reached that place quite a few times in areas of my life because I tend to be very passionate about what I do, no matter what it is. So I dive in until I hit a stress level that tells me I need to step back for a minute and maybe take a day or two off. It always helps. So does talking about how I feel. And that's why this forum is such a beautiful space. You can always come here and find kindred spirits willing to tell you in some way that you're awesome and everything will be ok. 

So long story longer, you've got this! And we're all here for you when you feel like you don't. 

[laritheloud]

Thank you again, everyone, for listening and for your heartfelt advice and support. You're right -- @Torrey, you absolutely did resonate with me when you spoke of control. I have clinical OCD with an eating disorder/exercise compulsion. I will always be in recovery or in remission; this is a lifelong battle for me. Life in general is absolutely bonkers and out of control and it feels like it keeps getting worse -- especially for this second-generation Ukrainian American in our current climate -- so I shift my focus to places where I can have control and hyperfocus to my and my focus's detriment. This includes my eating disorder and exercise compulsion, two things which are relatively 'easy' to fall back on and feel in control when everything else fails.

On the bright side, perhaps counterintuitively, I've added to my plate by researching and purchasing some cat-safe houseplants to care for, and now I'm the proud parent of some prayer plants, a hoya wayettii and a few Ukrainian hybrid cultivars of African Violet that I'll be sharing with my family. My tanks are healthy. My quarantined fish are about to clear quarantine and I'm just about ready to think about looking at more fish -- more thicklipped gouramis since several of my 'females' turned into males, maybe some African Butterfly Cichlids -- and all is pretty stable. I have my ups and I have my downs.

With love, keep NERMing. ❤️ 

Edited March 4, 2022 by laritheloud

[Patrick_G]

@laritheloud, you are an awesome fish keeper! Your fish are clearly healthy and they look it. Your advice on things in your area of expertise is great. I’m sure I’m not the only forum member who bookmarks your posts on Gourami care and identification. Your fish and I are thankful 😀

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@laritheloudalways take care of yourself first, family second, fish et. al. 3rd. I think there’s someone on this forum who will benefit from your post. I always end my posts with have fun because this should be fun. When it’s not then this level of self examination is needed. Stay nermy and we all appreciate you here and want you healthy and happy.

[Torrey]

On 3/3/2022 at 6:23 PM, laritheloud said:

Thank you again, everyone, for listening and for your heartfelt advice and support. You're right -- @Torrey, you absolutely did resonate with me when you spoke of control. I have clinical OCD with an eating disorder/exercise compulsion. I will always be in recovery or in remission; this is a lifelong battle for me. Life in general is absolutely bonkers and out of control and it feels like it keeps getting worse -- especially for this second-generation Ukrainian American in our current climate -- so I shift my focus to places where I can have control and hyperfocus to my and my focus's detriment. This includes my eating disorder and exercise compulsion, two things which are relatively 'easy' to fall back on and feel in control when everything else fails.

On the bright side, perhaps counterintuitively, I've added to my plate by researching and purchasing some cat-safe houseplants to care for, and now I'm the proud parent of some prayer plants, a hoya wayettii and a few Ukrainian hybrid cultivars of African Violet that I'll be sharing with my family. My tanks are healthy. My quarantined fish are about to clear quarantine and I'm just about ready to think about looking at more fish -- more thicklipped gouramis since several of my 'females' turned into males, maybe some African Butterfly Cichlids -- and all is pretty stable. I have my ups and I have my downs.

With love, keep NERMing. ❤️ 

Balance is a difficult thing in the best of times, and I don't think right now qualifies as 'the best of times'. I'm glad you trusted our nerm family to share where you were struggling. I used to dance professionally... right up until my body said "no" to 8 hours of classical ballet a day. Compulsions, especially compulsions that get rewarded by society, are really difficult to recognize as unhealthy. Feel free to tag me any time, or DM if that's easier/more comfortable. Community and chosen family have helped me survive a lot of rough times, paying it forward is what builds healthy communities.

I am glad fishkeeping has been able to return to a middle path/ help you relax kind of hobby! Hopefully, anyone lurking who might think they aren't a "good enough nerm" because sometimes they get overwhelmed will read this and realize that they are an "enough" nerm, and give themselves a little grace. @laritheloud, thanks for letting us walk alongside on your journey.

[Brandon p]

I think a lot of us get way into if things are perfect. Water fish plants. Some times less is more and I do have some tanks that have mutt angelfish, cories fish that well easy. When I stop havinging fun with the details I’m going to keep what the worse pet store can’t kill