Lucky Fishkeeping

[Aubrey]

After seeing all of the illnesses and parasites that are brought up on the forum daily I've determined that I must just be a lucky fishkeeper.  I would like to be able to help these people with their fish, but I have next to no experience in that area. I would only be able to recite what the internet says and not be able to speak from experience.

I have only encountered dropsy 3 times with 3 different bettas and was only successful treating once. Other than that I have had a bacterial infection, I think, outbreak in a shrimp colony. I think 4 instances of illness over 4 years is pretty lucky. *knocks on wood* 

I say I'm lucky because I am not a religious water changer/tester. My maintenance routine is not really a routine. I would say perhaps I'm ignorant to a lot of potential issues and signs, but I just don't lose many fish or shrimp and they seem healthy.

Is anyone else just as lucky?

 

[FrozenFins]

I wish i was, the past month or so, I have dealt with fin rot, pop eye, and ich. I was able to treat the finrot and the ich but unfortuanltey not the pop eye. I look at these postiviley though, if I successfully treat I can tell other people how to treat it, and I'm now more experianced with that disease. 

 

[Lemon]

26 minutes ago, Aubrey said:

After seeing all of the illnesses and parasites that are brought up on the forum daily I've determined that I must just be a lucky fishkeeper.  I would like to be able to help these people with their fish, but I have next to no experience in that area. I would only be able to recite what the internet says and not be able to speak from experience.

I have only encountered dropsy 3 times with 3 different bettas and was only successful treating once. Other than that I have had a bacterial infection, I think, outbreak in a shrimp colony. I think 4 instances of illness over 4 years is pretty lucky. *knocks on wood* 

I say I'm lucky because I am not a religious water changer/tester. My maintenance routine is not really a routine. I would say perhaps I'm ignorant to a lot of potential issues and signs, but I just don't lose many fish or shrimp and they seem healthy.

Is anyone else just as lucky?

 

i also haven't really dealt with disease except for with 8 yr old betta i got from one of my sisters friends

[Daniel]

I sure I am about to jinx it by saying it but I think I last medicated a fish in the 1970s.

My fish deaths are mostly 'accidental'. I killed a fish last week by leaving it outside in a bucket in freezing weather (without realizing he was in the bucket). I have fish jump out of aquariums occasionally.  I had a nice swordtail female jump out of the pond she was in and died on the lawn this summer.

In the 1990s I had a heater failure that killed a dozen Heckel discus, and a house fire in 2013 that killed everything in the big aquarium.

No fin rot, ich, velvet, red splotches, fungus, popeye, etc. since the 1970s.

I also don't try and get rid of planaria, detritus worms, hydra, etc. algae or mulm as these are signs of a healthy ecosystem.

I know my discus have external parasites because occasionally they will scratch themselves on a piece of driftwood (I think it is called flashing now), but I haven't seen them do that in several months. That is not the sort of thing I would treat for as it doesn't seem to hurt the fish and goes away on it own eventually.

I am far more dangerous to my fish than any disease apparently.

 

[H.K.Luterman]

My main tanks are very stable, and I've never had any issues with them (I don't really ever have to do water changes much). It's when I bring something home from the store that I encounter problems, but that's kept to my quarantine bin. It's almost always Ich, though once some guppies I ordered online came in with a bacterial infection that I cleared up pretty easily. I really don't buy new fish often though, so most of the time its very same ol' same ol' round here. X3