*What are your best tips for ensuring new fish do well in your home? And don't forget to watch part 1 of this story when I visited 3 fish stores in 1 day: **ruclips.net/video/C4nzwmSsaxA/видео.html*
I acclimate them, especially bettas since where I’m from they come in small tanks with no heater, and I usually spend extra time acclimating them to my tank. I also try not to change to much stuff around and if I can hold off doing a water change for at least a week so the fish has some time to get used to the tank
I always put any new fish in a quarantine tank for 2 weeks before adding them to their actual tank. That's where they are treated with antibiotics, parasite formula and aquarium salt. 30% water changes every other day. I try to use very high quality water like rodi with added minerals and prepare it hrs before adding it to the tank. Then I use the water from the home tank when doing water changes in the quarantine tank as part of acclimation. It's worked very well for me especially when dealing when importing them.
Correct. The store was very irresponsible in failing to disclose this essential requirement for the fish's most basic need. I'd be horrified and feel sad and angry if this happened to me. I'm so sorry for your loss, Irene...
I don’t buy wild fish period anymore unless it’s to try to breed captive breed varieties of it. I honestly think that’s the only reason wild fish collection should be a thing. Yes it cuts the fish species in the hobby to about a 3rd but they are so much more stable in aquariums if their captive breed.
Agreed. With the pet hobby, wild-caught is the cheapest you can go, but I highly suggest going captive-bred or captive-raised. It'll save you time, money, and hardship in the long-run.
That intro was SLICK! Super appreciative of your dedication. I’d be happy to literally just listen to your perspective, advice, and stories in a cell phone video one-take, but the slick production takes everything to the next level. ✨⭐️
Oh my goodness, isn't TF such an awesome editor? I'm so thrilled to have him on the team. You're going to love the next video he edited, which is on aquascaping. 🌲
Thanks for addressing the emotions of the hobby. After my puffer died, I felt terrible and neglected his oto tankmate. He was always pretty self-sufficient, living off the algae in the tank. I turned off the light because I couldn't bare to see the tank without my puffer, and my oto died when the algae died off. I felt guilty and sad and of course had to clean up another fishy body. It's more emotional than I think a lot of non-hobbyists suppose.
I know this is years later, but you make a good point. A lot of us tank owners have accidentally killed fish or have been in circumstances in which the tank didn’t get the attention it deserved/could have had It’s important to forgive yourself and keep moving forward within the hobby while also keeping your past failures in mind. A lot of people don’t realize this has an emotional toll until they have plants/fish themselves. Rest in peace to your puffer! He’s swimming in the great ocean/pond in the sky now. ❤
I almost never buy wild caught fish anymore. Besides the kind of problems you had, I have found they can also carry disease and parasites that don't bother them in the wild, but make them ill due to the stress of shipping and transport from the store to home. I'll also add that if a store is changing water parameters in order to meet the demands of a particular fish, it is absolutely their responsibility to let the customer know before selling the fish. Thanks for another great video. :)
I must say I think you are letting that LFS off the hook. They sold you fish that needed to be kept in very specific water parameters, different to what you the customer were likely to have and just didn't bother to tell you. I don't understand why they did not mention it immediately when you showed an interest in buying them.
yeah i heavily disagree with wild catching , if i was sold wild caught without warning then found out id be furious, that's a detail that should be on the tank or the price card or something, its not just a case of informing about conditions but also about letting people be able to make choices based on their ethical limits.
@amberharvey4566 ive never had this happen with fish before but I did have it happen with a snake. I was sold a similar but different species to what I thought i was getting. I was also not informed it was wild caught. I am still furious.
I had this problem with Oto’s. I bought a group, and only one survived… Bought another group, and again only one survived… Got super frustrated and blamed myself for all the deaths (even though I did everything possible to keep them alive) Finally thought I’d try one last time, and luckily all of them survived! Had them for several months now, and they’re all thriving. Now I’m just hoping they’ll breed as a couple of the females have eggs. Sometimes wild caught are just tricky, but when you succeed it’s the best feeling!
for fish shops, I think it should be part of their responsibility to “acclimate” the fish to local water parameters. (i think) *most* of the fish that are available in sg are wild caught, but our water has relatively low chlorine, and the pH is maintained around 7. besides that, it’s always good to ask where your fish are sourced from, and how long they’ve been in the store for. i keep wild apistos, and while they usually require a low pH of 5-6+, the store changes 30-50% of the water on a weekly basis, and tops up with tap water, which means that over time, the fish will get used to their surrounding parameters. what irene went through is a lesson learnt, but i feel such practices should definitely be implemented more, and this is something for hobbyists to take note of.
a lot of fish generally have a wide range of parameters they’re ok with, so I don’t find it necessary that fish stores have to match what it is in the wild. even altum angels, known for requiring ridiculously low pH, can be fully acclimated. all it takes is time. (these are my two cents, as someone who’s studied aquaculture and worked in fish stores)
I think that maybe this LFS believes that you should keep the pH as close as possible to their original habitat or maybe in the past they haven't had good luck converting certain species to a different pH. I'm sure they have their reasons because it takes a lot of extra work (as I found out) to make your tap water meet a certain pH.
Ideally the LFS would convert to more local water parameters. But most stores are probably trying to sell them faster than acclimating would happen. Either way they should definitely be notifying the customer that they’ve been changing the water parameters. I don’t know that most, myself included, test water in the bag prior to starting our acclimation process. Sorry to hear you had such an unfortunate experience Irene, it’s never fun to lose fish.
Those cory’s should have never been sold to the public without knowledge of the ph conditions actually those fish should have been bred a generation or two up before being sold. Instead you get the experience of losing fish I’m just glad that you found out that it wasn’t your fault.
Uhm, if not sold to the public, whom were you planning to breed them for a generation or two? But I agree that the store should have told about the low ph the Corydora’s was kept in. Which actually is tapwater here in Denmark.
Came here to say the exact same thing. Can't believe they weren't telling people that they were using a buffering agent. Did they even offer a refund or store credit either? It's their responsibility to be informing customers as much as possible.
This was perfect timing! I’m like you and hate bugging people (also in customer service). I’m going to ask more questions to figure out what would be most successful with a betta in a 20 long. Thanks Irene for sharing!
I recommend checking around fish forums as well. It's always better to ask someone with experience than asking employees that might've never kept Bettas or Betta communities before. It's the safest way to go. After you find out the wide variety of fish you can house with your Betta, then and only then should you ask your LPS or LFS.
I always tested the water in the bag from the fish store after I got home. It was just a fun thing I did because usually I found that my water quality was significantly better than theirs. But it’s definitely a practice that could prevent a lot of issues. You can’t always depend on the employee to know all of the info especially from petco or petsmart. I also always quarantine and research. Losing fish is always a hard thing.
3 года назад+1
This is a great idea, definitely going to do this from now on!
Depending on how far you travel to pick up your fish or traffic conditions, would the water quality slightly or even drastically decrease since the fish is stressed out and swimming around in a bag with no filter? Not trying to nitpick, I’m wondering to determine if I should try that for future instances
@@crelson.cabuco good to know! I think I’ll start testing the store waters as well! I always assumed it wouldn’t read accurately. The next time (which probably won’t be for awhile as my tank reached its bio load) I get a fish, I’ll want to test the store water it comes in. It’ll be good to determine aquarium stores that have good or poor water quality!
Thank you so much for sharing this story. Nothing hurts (the heart and the pocketbook) like investing your love and $ in a school of long-awaited fish, trying to do the right thing by going to a LFS, then losing them all within days due to unknown or uncontrollable causes. I had a very similar situation with rummynose tetras a while back from an LFS (several batches) into an established quarantine tank - started doing a death spiral within hours. I did better in this case finding wild caught but I also started testing the LFS water in the bag to look for major discrepancies before acclimating (hit or miss). BTW, looks like you are SO close to 100k subscribers!! Congrats in advance ❤️🐟❤️
5:48 this is why I always ask for the water to be tested when I get fish from the store. Because some stores do the extra work to take care of what fish need. Agreed that writing the water parameters on the tank would be helpful!
I feel ya, girl. I'm always the quiet guy who's done the research and knows "everything about this species". As of now, the only fish I'd ever bought at my LFS was a young Betta - no issues since she was tank-raised. But now that I've watched your video (and we live relatively close by), I now know to ASK QUESTIONS. It's not like the employees are annoyed - that's why they're there. Just ask what you need to ask (no matter how long it takes) and then decide whether they're the fish for you ;)
Any chance you will be working with Panda Cories? Starting a breeding project with a group of them. They have been in the hobby long enough that they have adapted to non wild parameters.
I am so glad I saw your video! I also struggled greatly with pygmy corydoras. I got them from a very nice local fish store and they were the first fish I added to my new tank. I started with 12 and now I am down to 7. Absolutely heartbreaking experience! As I previously lived in an area with pH~7 it didn't even cross my mind to check pH before I added corydoras to my new, well cycled aquarium. Two died in the first few days, which made me panic and run to the fish store to get a complete water test (at home I was only testing for the nitrogen cycle). I discovered that my pH is similar to yours - 7.8-8.0. Gradually over 2.5 months I was able to stabilize pH at 7 using Seachem neutral regulator, driftwood and catapa leaves. But my pH stressed corydoras developed some skin infection and started flashing. Praziquantel didn't seem to help. Combination meds with malachite green and methylene blue helped temporarily - flashing came back. In the fish store I got advised to try medication with formaldehyde and malachite green. As scaleless fish are sensitive to some meds I was quite worried about using it. But so far a week after treatment the pygmies seem to be doing fine and aren't flashing anymore. So hopefully the problem is finally fixed.
Thanks for posting your experience. Sorry about the loss of Cories, but I'm glad you got a good batch. Love the sound & still shots you use to enhance your video!
I had some issues with my first pygmy cories as well, but at the end of the day you learn and now I'm happy that they're doing so well. I love cories so much!
this video is sooo comforting because pygmy corys were also MY horrible couldn't-keep-anything-alive experience!!! i had 4 pygmys i'd bought as my very first fish when i started the hobby at the beginning of 2022. for some reason, these og corys were indestructible, but THREE SEPARATE TIMES i tried to add an additional 4 to their school, and every time, the same thing happened. the newbies would slowly and inexplicably die. it made me so sad because the ogs kept surviving, and i felt like a horrible keeper because even though they were alive they never seemed happy. i almost went so far as to give my og corys to my lfs to give up on the species all together. flash to this summer, after several months learning about the hobby and getting better and better, i moved my og pygmys into a much better suited 40g community tank as a last ditch effort to make them happy. the change was instant! they were zipping around, cleaning and sifting, not as skittish. even better, i've successfully added to their school to a total of 12 healthy happy pygmys! :D it was so discouraging at first, but now that i've had those bad experiences, seeing them thrive is SO rewarding. i'm happy i didn't give up on them. they're my favorite fish to watch in the community tank!
I had the same issue with some wild caught corys too. Made me cry. I think it’s kind of unethical to not mention they are wild caught and their water parameters were changed.
I feel that stores have an obligation to disclose up-front if the fish are wild-caught. They seem to need a lot of special water conditions, medications, and foods, and it could really ruin someone's hobby dealing with a sudden mass loss like that. Also, people may have ethical reasons for only buying tank-bred. My LFS thankfully labels all it's wild-caught fish.
Doesn't sound like a store I would go to. Everybody makes some mistakes but informing customers of unique water conditions is a key topic for fish stores. They didn't meet expectations. Sorry you had to go through it. Thanks for sharing.
I've been shopping there for years with no issues, so I'm hoping it was just a one-off bad experience. If I decide to shop there again, I'll try to see if there's a way to gently give them the feedback.
Thanks for sharing the details of your REAL WORLD experiences and tips on how to deal with them. I actually think sharing your tough experiences helps to encourage others to keep trying and growing.
I wish companies would stop selling wild caught fish. Not only are they SUPER sensitive, but it’s literally ripping people out of their money! The fish will die and than that person will most likely go back and buy a new one(s) and than the same thing happens, again, and again, and again, you get my point? It’s almost like theft!
@@krazymuncher2288 yeah ok……. And? If they haven’t died easily, and you know their wild caught you would know how to introduce them properly. I just made this comment explaining why I think kid caught fish a kinda wrong
You’re not supposed to put wild caught fish in an inappropriate tank. They need specific parameters, pH, TDS, KH, GH. If you can’t provide for them just.. don’t get them. Only about 10% of available hobby fish are WC. most are aquacultured. Look into cardinal tetras providing livelihoods for the people of Barcelos, which is indirectly saving the environment there. They can be extremely beneficial. Not to mention the healthy genes they bring in
@@indostomus that’s not what I’m trying to say in this comment. Besides what if you don’t know their wild caught. If one dies, we’ll you’d probably suspect something was wrong with the fish. I only made this comment to try and explain why wild caught fish are bad. I wasn’t looking for an education, this is just my 100% opinion
Thank you for telling me about your experience. It's very sad when you lose a fish (or 10) and it starts to undermine your confidence.... And clown coaches freaked me out too when I first got them! 😋
Tank Raised, Aquacultured, and Maricultural species will always be preferable to wild caught or wild captured species. Doesn't matter if it freshwater fish, marine fish, or marine coral. Sometimes wild caught is the only or best option, because we struggle to breed them; Amano shrimp is a good example. But, an animal raised in tank conditions will have a far less ecological ramification on it's native habitat; and will for the vast majority of cases, better adapt and thrive in your tank conditions
Providing wild caught fish helps some areas in the Amazon (cardinal tetras for example). It is always my preference to get wild caught when available. I have noticed a few instances of long term health problems in farm raised fish and I suspect it is from many generations of inbreeding.
A long time ago I had the same thing happen with a fancy guppy. My tank had a hard ph and the pet store kept it in a soft ph tank. Poor thing lasted three days then seemed to inexplicably rolled over and die. I had been keeping fish for quite some time yet the ph level of the tank failed to occur to me.
Yeah, hard lesson learned, for sure. Hopefully this video can help make people aware that pH differences can be a problem with new fish and to ask more questions when you're at the store. 😬
i love watching your videos as you go in depth into what goes wrong and how you get around those issues. most other channels will say do this, do that but when things inevitably go wrong for us, we dont know what to do. your videos reassure me that even people doing it for a living have issues and its okay.
Pygmy cories are my favourite and I want to stock a tank with them but this is my fear too. I'd be heartbroken just to lose one. Thanks for this video - aside from asking about how long they've had their cories and where they're sourced from, I will definitely be having long discussions with my local fish stores about their parameters and the care they're used to. I'm glad your cories are doing well now!
I recently got a 10” dragon goby that I assume is wild caught because they usually are but so far he’s doing good but I’m still anxious because wild caught fish are so finicky.
I had a very similar experience with neon tetras I got at petco. I bought 27 of them and literally only five of them made it!! At it’s worst I was losing one fish every few hours and my water parameters were perfect. Luckily I was able to return them for a refund, which is why I got them there in the first place. I waited for the last five neons to die and when they didn’t, I decided to try cardinals this time and got 10 at my lfs and fully expected the same thing to happen but they ALL survived!! I still count them several times a day because I’m so traumatized by all the neon deaths 😓
Fish death is soul crushing. My daughter "surprised" me with a half dozen big box store fish to put in one of my tanks to cheer me up (my old betta died a few weeks earlier and I let the tank go. I think it's part of fish loss grief). Within a week everyone of those fish died. Two came in with a weird fungus on them. I had her take those back. I thought the others looked healthy, but one-by-one, they died. It's psychologically difficult when you're trying so hard to help them survive and everything fails. I waited awhile before putting more fish in that tank (ran some meds to hopefully kill any parasites). It took another couple of months before I went to my LFS and bought more fish. All the fish survived just fine and are doing great. Fishkeeping is a hobby full of failures and successes. We weep internally when we fail, but we do learn so much from our mistakes. These experiences make us better fishkeepers and help us to rejoice in our successes! It keeps us humble and compassionate towards others on the same path. I could see your frustration and grief over losing those fish, Irene. Know that we have all been there.
I bought 7 rummy nose tetras from a big box store, they were really, really tiny. they all ended up dying off 1 by 1. Then they got more, so I tried again. All but 3 of them died. I then got 10 more from a fish store in Dallas that were wild caught - out of the 13 total, 1 died. Then I got 4 more recently from a reputable store in Houston and right now all 16 are thriving. I'm so glad I didn't give up on trying to keep rummy nose. I love them, and they are also in the tank with my pygmy corys, which are one of my favorite fish as well! I totally feel you on how it feels when you have fish die off like that, in my case I don't know what was the problem, perhaps it was a similar issue as yours, or maybe just too stressful for the ones I bought since they were so small and I think I picked them up the day they came in at the local big box.
Hey Girl Talks Fish thank you so much you got me through a lot of hard work when I thought I was doing the right thing I wasn’t and I started watching and learning from your videos so thank you so much 🙏🏽
I actually just had a similar experience with a dwarf gourami I bought a few days ago. I put it in my tank after acclimating and it was fine for like four hours, then all of a sudden it started swimming at the top of the tank on it's side and upside down and then died. I really didn't understand... I'm wondering now if it was a ph problem
There can be many reasons why something goes wrong. For example, I've been keeping Bettas for over a decade and although most of my girls live at least 4 years, I've had times when it doesn't happen that way. I've checked parameters, nothing wrong. I examined the fish themselves...nothing wrong that I could see. Could've been parasites, stress, depression, a weakened immune system...anything. I've also had that happen with a Paradise Gourami. He was the healthiest and most active at my local Petco but only a few weeks later, he ended up with camallanus. The camallanus have spread throughout his body and even bursted out the side of his stomach a few days ago. He has small "tumors" all over his body which I believe are clusters of camallanus...even under his right eye. He's still alive, eating and responsive, but his existence must be miserable. What I'm getting at here is that anything can happen to a fish that looks perfectly healthy. No matter what the case, I always suggest quarantining first (my first mistake) or keeping them alone in a species tank.
This is a great video, you make a really great point about asking at least a few minimal questions. I have my first tank that will have fish cycling right now and I have unique water parameters - very soft water, high ph, high kh, so it probably makes sense to ask about parameters at the store. I'm lucky to live within reasonable driving distance of Aquarium Co op & will likely be getting my fish there. Pygmy Cory's are on my list among a couple other fish, so really happy to have watched this particular video. Thank you!
I had a similar experience with my local fish store. I purchased a ton of green neon tetras from them (over 60 dollars worth), and every single fish died. I have white could minnows in that tank now and they are doing just fabulous, and I never had problems with fish before or since.
Wow! I just noticed you are almost at 100k. I've been with your channel for some time. I think you had around 1.5k when I subscribed. Which was by the old name. Congrats!!
Hehe, I wonder how many people remember my old name. They're probably a little confused when I refer to my family as Mr. Gamer, Gamer Boy, and Gamer Girl. 😂 Thanks for being such a long-time follower; it's always good to see you in the comments!
I always ask my LFS employee what PH, Temp, and hardness they are keeping the fish at before I buy them - I learned after I found out my LFS used RO water…not good to find out after the fact….kind of defeats the point of an LFS….
Thank you for sharing this Irene! I’ve tried Pygmy cories twice now first with a group of 10 who died in a cycled quarantine tank less than 48 hours later and then I added another group of 10 to my cycled 20 long with guppies and I think I only have 3 left :( Now I know it’s gotta be the pH because my NoCo tap water is way higher than 6.4
oh my gosh, i am so sorry! that’s awful! that’s the worst part about fishkeeping, mistakes can have such terrible consequences. if you don’t mind me asking, what happened?
@@boogrlovr My guess is I filled the tank too quickly and the temperature change shocked her :( I noticed she was panting on the top of the tank, that evening she died.
Good luck with your breeding project! I have 17 of these little lovely pygmy cories (seriously by far my favorite fish) in a 20 gallon and today I saw them spawning! Such an amazing process to see! I have collected 13 of the eggs and put them in a breeding box inside the main tank, as I also have clown killis, who I fear will eat the eggs :') I probably didn't get all of the eggs, because I don't want to mess around too much in my planted jungle, so we'll see how it goes!
Pigmy corys are the best of the best! even my wife was really unimpressed by their lack of colors but a week after watching them she totally fell in love with them, and after you watch them some time they become as beautiful as any fish you want to compare them to because they steal your heart.
Is no one going to talk about how underrated her channel is. You have very good quality videos. I just subscribed, I think you deserve more subscribers
Hi, is your planted tank ph 7.6-8? I have a 75 gal cichlid tank at the school I work at, and I am converting it to a planted community tank, the little Shellies and other small cichlids are fine with the plants, but the aragonite substrate keeps my ph at 7.6-8! I was going to change it out for some sand, but after seeing you fave high ph, I’m not sure if I need to tear it all down.
Hi, I set up a new tank about a month ago. It is a 9 gallon Fluval flex and I have about 7 plants in it. I am ready to get some fish and shrimp to add now and I have a question about quarantining. I want to get about 5 or 6 White Cloud Mountain minnows and 2 or 3 amano shrimp. My question is if I need to make a separate tank to quarantine them all together or if I can just put them in the flex and treat with medications (aquarium co op trio)?
Wow! I never thought much about the fish I bought being wild caught. I assumed they were all captive bred. I had a huge die off several months ago when I bought some Neon Tetras for my 29 gallon, and I ended up losing almost 20 of my original fish including 2 Panda Cories, so I assumed it was a disease...(foolish me, I don't quarantine my new purchases) The tank had been running for well over a year and it's planted....so I went back to the place where I got the Neons and they told me to bring in a water sample. My pH had plummeted for some reason and my ammonia was high! I had stopped using test strips because I had heard they weren't very accurate, but now I use them again because they're good as an early warning system. I managed to fix the problems and now I have restocked with some beautiful Cardinal Tetras, Beckford's Pencilfish and just yesterday I got 2 Oto cats because I was getting an algae growth problem. It's always heartbreaking to lose fish....especially when they're such little cuties....but it teaches us to pay more attention to our water quality. I wasn't doing weekly water changes either...I was doing it once a month when I would clean the filter. Fish keeping is a never ending learning experience.
Pymgy Cory for me is hit or miss. I remember i bought first batch from the same fish store, they all survive and the next batch from the same tank did not. Also, some of them will just get pale and die after after a few months. I love them but after keeping them for a year, they do not really come out often which i wish i can look at them. I tried dither cory (they are still in my tank), it seems to help but they are extreme shy even in my heavily plant tank. For how much i love them but i will not recommend ppl to get them for start as a hobby
I have a 5 gallon tank and got my betta fish about a month or 2 ago and last week he was missing from his tank. I had no clue where he was? But me and my mom were looking and found him dried up and died on the floor, my tank had a lid on but it had some holes in the back for wires. Some how he managed to jump out?! R.i.P Jayden
I also have bought wild caught fish. I was able to save some, except for threadfin rainbowfish. They seem to be the hardest. Similar thing, they drop one by one, theyre having a hard time adopting. Got me broken hearted. Till now I skip on Threadfins.
I started off with 9 and they were pretty shy, but then I happened to find 4 more and they have totally blossomed since. Still a little wary of me, but if I move slowly, they'll happily graze in front of me. :)
Omg same. So I got rosy Barbs and I got three. Ten gallon tank, stuff like that. Anyway, two of them died. I had one left. I got two more rosy barbs. The one that was in the original batch ate one of them. Then the other one from the batch ate the last one, I had the fish eater for awhile then it got sick and died. I did a %75 water change and now I have a betta paradise male. His name is Dakota. He’s so cute.
I am glad you have a successful group of Pygmy cories! I ordered 9 online and received an extra one. Sadly, I had multiple deaths during shipping and minutes after they arrived. I do have six left which have been living happily for months. I love them, they are so cute!
Sorry about your first batch of those little guys. I'm glad you were able to find them from a better source this time. Sounds like they really care about the fish and there customers. When you give the meds to your new fish do you do them all at once or in a certain order? I purchased some platys yesterday and I have already lost one. Ones looking stressed now so I decided to started with the maracyn first.
Sad to hear what happened to the Cories, but at least you turned it around with the next batch! I recently got two albino bristlenose plecos. I acclimated them for an hour but after maybe 3 hours one had died. The other one remained healthy and strong, and is now the tank's most dedicated cleaner fish.
Irene, this was a great video. I too, love Pygmy corys and finally got some. They are so charming even as you mentioned that they are not very colorful. But it seems like the longer I watch fish, the more subtleties I see, and it’s not all about the color. When I got several Pygmy corys I lost some too and it was devastating. Thanks for the great video and the “need to ask questions” when buying fish. I now have a new place to buy fish! ❤️
I recently bought a small 1.5gal aquarium. With two platy . Orange n yellow. But all the time the orange me is chasing and nibbling the yellow one. I don’t what to do?😢
Thank you for posting this, I've had a similar experience recently and it really put me off keeping corys! I feel a bit better knowing it's just something that can happen and it not my fault for being less experienced. Loosing fish you were supposed to be looking after is heartbreaking xx
I'm sorry for your loss. Losing fish always sucks. The store should have refunded your purchase or given you credit because they didn't mark it. As for fish that are sensitive to parameters like gh, kh, ph... You can actually acclimate them to your water slowly over time. If they're very sensitive, you can use hardscape elements to alter parameters eg limestone, driftwood, etc. If they breed in your water, and the fry survive... Congratulations! You have successfully adapted them to your water. Future generations will only become more hardy.
In NH I can't find any P-Smart, or P-Co that stocks ANY Cory's. I've been told they didn't do well. We have soft water but the PH is around 7. Also, you can't get Rasboras , such as Chili. (or any other Rasbora's) They won't even try to order them. Seems to be an industry wide issue and they don't seem interested enough to get the problem resolved.
My only experience with wild caught fish was with a pair of wild angelfish. They were both a little sickly when I received them and one of them didn't respond to any of my medications and died. That was a bit of a bummer. The other one is still doing great months later though.
When I get a group of new fish- I ALWAYS have ay least one die. It's heartbreaking and I would feel sad - but its frustrating. When I bought 5 kuhli loaches, 1 died. When I bought 6 corydoras FIVE eventually died. I do everything I'm supposed to . Acclimated them and all.
6.4 pH ! Wow. I have had my Habrosus Cory's for close to a year now and they are doing great. My pH hovers between 7.4-7.6. Our tapwater here comes out at a pH of closer to 8 so I always make sure to lower it. Good luck with your breeding attempts. Mine have not spawned but I really have not worked at getting them to.
Cory Dora’s are also actually self poisoning fish. Sounds crazy, but it is a defence mechanism they use in the wild under stressful conditions. It’s possible this is what happened to yours since they died shortly after being transferred. It can end up killing them usually when transported in captivity. I believe the wild caught fish tend to produce more of this hormone. It’s still a not fully researched topic. But something similar happened to KG tropicals and her betta sorority Cory’s.
i think that it could be a possibility but o think that the ph was what killed them also when people ship corydoras they put them in a bucket and then shake/kick the bucket so that they release the poison and then they put them in whatever they ship them in because the poison takes a while for them to get the poison back
This was a great and informative video. You covered many of the most important issues to check before buying your fish. Water parameters can differ greatly from your tap to the fish store. PH sensitive fish can be a hard lesson to learn for a lot of people in the hobby. More hardy species that can tolerate changes in PH levels are definitely a plus. I learned my lesson, I will never chase PH parameters again. Great video!
So sorry. That's rough. I had a bad batch of neon tetras that kept going belly up one right after the other and the store ended up having an issue where they quarantined all their tetras and stopped selling them after I got my brood. Only one survivor and I felt bad for him...but he finally succumbed a few weeks later as well. I'm going back to bettas...lol!
Don't beat yourself up too much over this. I don't truck with wild caught fish nowadays. You can maybe get away with it if you have soft water, but if your water is on the hard side (or at a higher pH), they won't last long term. It's also not worth chasing pH. Learned the hard way with otocinclus.
oh no, I just picked up 8 pygmy corys yesterday and my pH is high like yours, will keep an eye out, might buffer if they start dying. ty for the info. I cannot find kuhli loaches here though, been waiting all summer to buy some
I had a similar issue with wild caught pygmy corydoras. I first bought a group of 6 and right away I could tell 1 had parasites. After trying to treat them, all died except for 2. 2 months later that I bought 8 more wild caught pygmy corydoras to go with the 2 survivors. These were from a different shipment from the same fish store. Once again only 3 survived. They slowly died over about a 2-4 week span. My quarantine tank was cycled for about 6 months but also has a pH of about 8.0. Thankfully I spoke to my LFS and they refunded me for 8 of them and I returned the remaining 5. I wanted to keep them so bad but I felt like they were just going to continue to die if I kept them
I think all fish keepers have had similar experience buying fish. I know I have. It’s hard to find a good source. I’ve actually been buying them online and have had pretty good luck. The fish I buy online are from Florida which is where I live. Water is hard so the fish are raised in similar conditions to my water.
The store in my area runs a row of tanks in reverse osmosis water. Usually for fish that prefer low PH. I can understand why its upsetting cause they are about $5 each pigmy cory
Love this video! I appreciate you sharing your experience. I just got salt and pepper corys a week ago and I love them so much. Probably a staple fish for going forward. I think framing as asking questions to “advocate” for yourself and for the fish is a great way to approach asking care questions from sellers in the future! Own that space 🙂
Such timing! I just picked up 6 pygmy corys last week - thankfully they (and my Honey Gourami)seem to be doing well in the QT tank...phew! I appreciate you posting this video, I have seen some of the same behavior as you noted and I'm glad to know that mine are acting normally and if I see one sleeping on his side, that he's probably still ok - love your videos! Thank you!!!!
*What are your best tips for ensuring new fish do well in your home? And don't forget to watch part 1 of this story when I visited 3 fish stores in 1 day: **ruclips.net/video/C4nzwmSsaxA/видео.html*
I am getting a betta fish for my first fish is it going to be hard to take care of for a begginer fish keeper? Great video to
I acclimate them, especially bettas since where I’m from they come in small tanks with no heater, and I usually spend extra time acclimating them to my tank. I also try not to change to much stuff around and if I can hold off doing a water change for at least a week so the fish has some time to get used to the tank
@@xXdutchieeeXx thankyou I have done a lot of research and it has not told me if there easy to keep so thankyou
@@IdontknowwhattonamethisChanel np
I always put any new fish in a quarantine tank for 2 weeks before adding them to their actual tank. That's where they are treated with antibiotics, parasite formula and aquarium salt. 30% water changes every other day. I try to use very high quality water like rodi with added minerals and prepare it hrs before adding it to the tank. Then I use the water from the home tank when doing water changes in the quarantine tank as part of acclimation. It's worked very well for me especially when dealing when importing them.
That store should definitely tell their customers if there's special considerations
Correct. The store was very irresponsible in failing to disclose this essential requirement for the fish's most basic need. I'd be horrified and feel sad and angry if this happened to me. I'm so sorry for your loss, Irene...
@@ceemohw-qn3km yeah . . . . personally I would have some words with someone over that. And want a refund.
I don’t buy wild fish period anymore unless it’s to try to breed captive breed varieties of it. I honestly think that’s the only reason wild fish collection should be a thing. Yes it cuts the fish species in the hobby to about a 3rd but they are so much more stable in aquariums if their captive breed.
Agreed. With the pet hobby, wild-caught is the cheapest you can go, but I highly suggest going captive-bred or captive-raised. It'll save you time, money, and hardship in the long-run.
Agreed
@@rat_dragon yeah with reptiles wild caught is frowned upon because of potential parasites and pressure on wild stock but with fish it is not
That intro was SLICK! Super appreciative of your dedication. I’d be happy to literally just listen to your perspective, advice, and stories in a cell phone video one-take, but the slick production takes everything to the next level. ✨⭐️
Oh my goodness, isn't TF such an awesome editor? I'm so thrilled to have him on the team. You're going to love the next video he edited, which is on aquascaping. 🌲
Thanks for addressing the emotions of the hobby. After my puffer died, I felt terrible and neglected his oto tankmate. He was always pretty self-sufficient, living off the algae in the tank. I turned off the light because I couldn't bare to see the tank without my puffer, and my oto died when the algae died off. I felt guilty and sad and of course had to clean up another fishy body. It's more emotional than I think a lot of non-hobbyists suppose.
I know this is years later, but you make a good point.
A lot of us tank owners have accidentally killed fish or have been in circumstances in which the tank didn’t get the attention it deserved/could have had
It’s important to forgive yourself and keep moving forward within the hobby while also keeping your past failures in mind. A lot of people don’t realize this has an emotional toll until they have plants/fish themselves.
Rest in peace to your puffer! He’s swimming in the great ocean/pond in the sky now. ❤
I almost never buy wild caught fish anymore. Besides the kind of problems you had, I have found they can also carry disease and parasites that don't bother them in the wild, but make them ill due to the stress of shipping and transport from the store to home. I'll also add that if a store is changing water parameters in order to meet the demands of a particular fish, it is absolutely their responsibility to let the customer know before selling the fish. Thanks for another great video. :)
Definitely one of the cutest fish in the hobby. Sorry to hear what happened but at least this can be a good lesson for the rest of us.
How can this be a lesson for all of us if you mean that this could be a reason why someone fish died after getting it. They yeah really useful 🤨
@@BioLights24 it could be a lesson so that more people know not to make the same mistakes and better care for the fish
I must say I think you are letting that LFS off the hook. They sold you fish that needed to be kept in very specific water parameters, different to what you the customer were likely to have and just didn't bother to tell you. I don't understand why they did not mention it immediately when you showed an interest in buying them.
Mayhaps the person who bagged the fishes wasn't aware.
@@jeffalbillar7625 that's on the store
@@nemo7542who for sure
yeah i heavily disagree with wild catching , if i was sold wild caught without warning then found out id be furious, that's a detail that should be on the tank or the price card or something, its not just a case of informing about conditions but also about letting people be able to make choices based on their ethical limits.
@amberharvey4566 ive never had this happen with fish before but I did have it happen with a snake. I was sold a similar but different species to what I thought i was getting. I was also not informed it was wild caught. I am still furious.
I had this problem with Oto’s.
I bought a group, and only one survived… Bought another group, and again only one survived… Got super frustrated and blamed myself for all the deaths (even though I did everything possible to keep them alive)
Finally thought I’d try one last time, and luckily all of them survived! Had them for several
months now, and they’re all thriving.
Now I’m just hoping they’ll breed as a couple of the females have eggs.
Sometimes wild caught are just tricky, but when you succeed it’s the best feeling!
for fish shops, I think it should be part of their responsibility to “acclimate” the fish to local water parameters. (i think) *most* of the fish that are available in sg are wild caught, but our water has relatively low chlorine, and the pH is maintained around 7. besides that, it’s always good to ask where your fish are sourced from, and how long they’ve been in the store for. i keep wild apistos, and while they usually require a low pH of 5-6+, the store changes 30-50% of the water on a weekly basis, and tops up with tap water, which means that over time, the fish will get used to their surrounding parameters. what irene went through is a lesson learnt, but i feel such practices should definitely be implemented more, and this is something for hobbyists to take note of.
a lot of fish generally have a wide range of parameters they’re ok with, so I don’t find it necessary that fish stores have to match what it is in the wild. even altum angels, known for requiring ridiculously low pH, can be fully acclimated. all it takes is time. (these are my two cents, as someone who’s studied aquaculture and worked in fish stores)
I think that maybe this LFS believes that you should keep the pH as close as possible to their original habitat or maybe in the past they haven't had good luck converting certain species to a different pH. I'm sure they have their reasons because it takes a lot of extra work (as I found out) to make your tap water meet a certain pH.
Ideally the LFS would convert to more local water parameters. But most stores are probably trying to sell them faster than acclimating would happen. Either way they should definitely be notifying the customer that they’ve been changing the water parameters. I don’t know that most, myself included, test water in the bag prior to starting our acclimation process.
Sorry to hear you had such an unfortunate experience Irene, it’s never fun to lose fish.
Those cory’s should have never been sold to the public without knowledge of the ph conditions actually those fish should have been bred a generation or two up before being sold. Instead you get the experience of losing fish I’m just glad that you found out that it wasn’t your fault.
Uhm, if not sold to the public, whom were you planning to breed them for a generation or two?
But I agree that the store should have told about the low ph the Corydora’s was kept in. Which actually is tapwater here in Denmark.
Came here to say the exact same thing. Can't believe they weren't telling people that they were using a buffering agent. Did they even offer a refund or store credit either? It's their responsibility to be informing customers as much as possible.
This was perfect timing! I’m like you and hate bugging people (also in customer service). I’m going to ask more questions to figure out what would be most successful with a betta in a 20 long. Thanks Irene for sharing!
I recommend checking around fish forums as well. It's always better to ask someone with experience than asking employees that might've never kept Bettas or Betta communities before. It's the safest way to go. After you find out the wide variety of fish you can house with your Betta, then and only then should you ask your LPS or LFS.
@@rat_dragon q
I always tested the water in the bag from the fish store after I got home. It was just a fun thing I did because usually I found that my water quality was significantly better than theirs. But it’s definitely a practice that could prevent a lot of issues. You can’t always depend on the employee to know all of the info especially from petco or petsmart.
I also always quarantine and research. Losing fish is always a hard thing.
This is a great idea, definitely going to do this from now on!
Depending on how far you travel to pick up your fish or traffic conditions, would the water quality slightly or even drastically decrease since the fish is stressed out and swimming around in a bag with no filter? Not trying to nitpick, I’m wondering to determine if I should try that for future instances
@@thepiggiediaries2605 ammonia levels would be slightly higher. PH, hardness, nitrate, nitrite most likely wouldn’t be different.
@@crelson.cabuco good to know! I think I’ll start testing the store waters as well! I always assumed it wouldn’t read accurately. The next time (which probably won’t be for awhile as my tank reached its bio load) I get a fish, I’ll want to test the store water it comes in. It’ll be good to determine aquarium stores that have good or poor water quality!
What a great tip!
Thank you so much for sharing this story. Nothing hurts (the heart and the pocketbook) like investing your love and $ in a school of long-awaited fish, trying to do the right thing by going to a LFS, then losing them all within days due to unknown or uncontrollable causes. I had a very similar situation with rummynose tetras a while back from an LFS (several batches) into an established quarantine tank - started doing a death spiral within hours. I did better in this case finding wild caught but I also started testing the LFS water in the bag to look for major discrepancies before acclimating (hit or miss). BTW, looks like you are SO close to 100k subscribers!! Congrats in advance ❤️🐟❤️
Thank you for sharing this experience. Losing fish in quarantine is heartbreaking!
5:48 this is why I always ask for the water to be tested when I get fish from the store. Because some stores do the extra work to take care of what fish need.
Agreed that writing the water parameters on the tank would be helpful!
I feel ya, girl. I'm always the quiet guy who's done the research and knows "everything about this species". As of now, the only fish I'd ever bought at my LFS was a young Betta - no issues since she was tank-raised. But now that I've watched your video (and we live relatively close by), I now know to ASK QUESTIONS. It's not like the employees are annoyed - that's why they're there. Just ask what you need to ask (no matter how long it takes) and then decide whether they're the fish for you ;)
Any chance you will be working with Panda Cories? Starting a breeding project with a group of them. They have been in the hobby long enough that they have adapted to non wild parameters.
I just put 5 panda cories in my tank love them!! so fun to watch!
@@zachofalltrades1111 yes they are active little guys.
@@johnwood738 yeah they definitely are!
@@zachofalltrades1111 mine are keeping me entertained,doing the glass dance all day.
I am so glad I saw your video! I also struggled greatly with pygmy corydoras. I got them from a very nice local fish store and they were the first fish I added to my new tank. I started with 12 and now I am down to 7. Absolutely heartbreaking experience! As I previously lived in an area with pH~7 it didn't even cross my mind to check pH before I added corydoras to my new, well cycled aquarium. Two died in the first few days, which made me panic and run to the fish store to get a complete water test (at home I was only testing for the nitrogen cycle). I discovered that my pH is similar to yours - 7.8-8.0. Gradually over 2.5 months I was able to stabilize pH at 7 using Seachem neutral regulator, driftwood and catapa leaves. But my pH stressed corydoras developed some skin infection and started flashing. Praziquantel didn't seem to help. Combination meds with malachite green and methylene blue helped temporarily - flashing came back. In the fish store I got advised to try medication with formaldehyde and malachite green. As scaleless fish are sensitive to some meds I was quite worried about using it. But so far a week after treatment the pygmies seem to be doing fine and aren't flashing anymore. So hopefully the problem is finally fixed.
Thanks for posting your experience. Sorry about the loss of Cories, but I'm glad you got a good batch. Love the sound & still shots you use to enhance your video!
Oh my goodness, isn't TF such an awesome editor? You're not going to believe how good the next video he edited is (shh, it's on aquascaping). 👀
I had some issues with my first pygmy cories as well, but at the end of the day you learn and now I'm happy that they're doing so well. I love cories so much!
this video is sooo comforting because pygmy corys were also MY horrible couldn't-keep-anything-alive experience!!!
i had 4 pygmys i'd bought as my very first fish when i started the hobby at the beginning of 2022. for some reason, these og corys were indestructible, but THREE SEPARATE TIMES i tried to add an additional 4 to their school, and every time, the same thing happened. the newbies would slowly and inexplicably die. it made me so sad because the ogs kept surviving, and i felt like a horrible keeper because even though they were alive they never seemed happy. i almost went so far as to give my og corys to my lfs to give up on the species all together.
flash to this summer, after several months learning about the hobby and getting better and better, i moved my og pygmys into a much better suited 40g community tank as a last ditch effort to make them happy. the change was instant! they were zipping around, cleaning and sifting, not as skittish. even better, i've successfully added to their school to a total of 12 healthy happy pygmys! :D
it was so discouraging at first, but now that i've had those bad experiences, seeing them thrive is SO rewarding. i'm happy i didn't give up on them. they're my favorite fish to watch in the community tank!
I had the same issue with some wild caught corys too. Made me cry. I think it’s kind of unethical to not mention they are wild caught and their water parameters were changed.
I feel that stores have an obligation to disclose up-front if the fish are wild-caught. They seem to need a lot of special water conditions, medications, and foods, and it could really ruin someone's hobby dealing with a sudden mass loss like that. Also, people may have ethical reasons for only buying tank-bred. My LFS thankfully labels all it's wild-caught fish.
Doesn't sound like a store I would go to. Everybody makes some mistakes but informing customers of unique water conditions is a key topic for fish stores. They didn't meet expectations. Sorry you had to go through it. Thanks for sharing.
I've been shopping there for years with no issues, so I'm hoping it was just a one-off bad experience. If I decide to shop there again, I'll try to see if there's a way to gently give them the feedback.
I may have had a similar experience. I had a 50% success rate with my Pygmy corys. And I felt so sad too because they do capture your heart.
I also had a very similar experience 💔
Thanks for sharing the details of your REAL WORLD experiences and tips on how to deal with them. I actually think sharing your tough experiences helps to encourage others to keep trying and growing.
I wish companies would stop selling wild caught fish. Not only are they SUPER sensitive, but it’s literally ripping people out of their money! The fish will die and than that person will most likely go back and buy a new one(s) and than the same thing happens, again, and again, and again, you get my point? It’s almost like theft!
Well some fish, such as my dream fishes, clown rasbora and pearl headstanders are rarely ever bred so most of them come from the wild.
@@krazymuncher2288 yeah ok……. And? If they haven’t died easily, and you know their wild caught you would know how to introduce them properly. I just made this comment explaining why I think kid caught fish a kinda wrong
You’re not supposed to put wild caught fish in an inappropriate tank. They need specific parameters, pH, TDS, KH, GH. If you can’t provide for them just.. don’t get them. Only about 10% of available hobby fish are WC. most are aquacultured. Look into cardinal tetras providing livelihoods for the people of Barcelos, which is indirectly saving the environment there. They can be extremely beneficial. Not to mention the healthy genes they bring in
@@indostomus that’s not what I’m trying to say in this comment. Besides what if you don’t know their wild caught. If one dies, we’ll you’d probably suspect something was wrong with the fish. I only made this comment to try and explain why wild caught fish are bad. I wasn’t looking for an education, this is just my 100% opinion
Thank you for telling me about your experience. It's very sad when you lose a fish (or 10) and it starts to undermine your confidence.... And clown coaches freaked me out too when I first got them! 😋
Congrats on 100k!🎉🎉🎉
I just love how you said "YAY!!!! Bubble tea time!!!!!"
Tank Raised, Aquacultured, and Maricultural species will always be preferable to wild caught or wild captured species.
Doesn't matter if it freshwater fish, marine fish, or marine coral.
Sometimes wild caught is the only or best option, because we struggle to breed them; Amano shrimp is a good example.
But, an animal raised in tank conditions will have a far less ecological ramification on it's native habitat; and will for the vast majority of cases, better adapt and thrive in your tank conditions
Providing wild caught fish helps some areas in the Amazon (cardinal tetras for example). It is always my preference to get wild caught when available. I have noticed a few instances of long term health problems in farm raised fish and I suspect it is from many generations of inbreeding.
And your suggestions for speaking up, to find out important info about the fish you're buying!!! Great advice. I really enjoy all of your videos.
A long time ago I had the same thing happen with a fancy guppy. My tank had a hard ph and the pet store kept it in a soft ph tank. Poor thing lasted three days then seemed to inexplicably rolled over and die. I had been keeping fish for quite some time yet the ph level of the tank failed to occur to me.
Yeah, hard lesson learned, for sure. Hopefully this video can help make people aware that pH differences can be a problem with new fish and to ask more questions when you're at the store. 😬
i love watching your videos as you go in depth into what goes wrong and how you get around those issues. most other channels will say do this, do that but when things inevitably go wrong for us, we dont know what to do. your videos reassure me that even people doing it for a living have issues and its okay.
same goes with the live plants, finally getting most of mine to thrive
I got some wild caught pygmy cories and they are doing amazing, even breeding at 7.4 ph... maybe the acclimation was too fast?
Pygmy cories are my favourite and I want to stock a tank with them but this is my fear too. I'd be heartbroken just to lose one. Thanks for this video - aside from asking about how long they've had their cories and where they're sourced from, I will definitely be having long discussions with my local fish stores about their parameters and the care they're used to. I'm glad your cories are doing well now!
I recently got a 10” dragon goby that I assume is wild caught because they usually are but so far he’s doing good but I’m still anxious because wild caught fish are so finicky.
I had a very similar experience with neon tetras I got at petco. I bought 27 of them and literally only five of them made it!! At it’s worst I was losing one fish every few hours and my water parameters were perfect. Luckily I was able to return them for a refund, which is why I got them there in the first place.
I waited for the last five neons to die and when they didn’t, I decided to try cardinals this time and got 10 at my lfs and fully expected the same thing to happen but they ALL survived!! I still count them several times a day because I’m so traumatized by all the neon deaths 😓
100K!!!!!!!!! Lets gooo!! Congratulations!
Fish death is soul crushing. My daughter "surprised" me with a half dozen big box store fish to put in one of my tanks to cheer me up (my old betta died a few weeks earlier and I let the tank go. I think it's part of fish loss grief). Within a week everyone of those fish died. Two came in with a weird fungus on them. I had her take those back. I thought the others looked healthy, but one-by-one, they died. It's psychologically difficult when you're trying so hard to help them survive and everything fails.
I waited awhile before putting more fish in that tank (ran some meds to hopefully kill any parasites). It took another couple of months before I went to my LFS and bought more fish. All the fish survived just fine and are doing great. Fishkeeping is a hobby full of failures and successes. We weep internally when we fail, but we do learn so much from our mistakes. These experiences make us better fishkeepers and help us to rejoice in our successes! It keeps us humble and compassionate towards others on the same path.
I could see your frustration and grief over losing those fish, Irene. Know that we have all been there.
I bought 7 rummy nose tetras from a big box store, they were really, really tiny. they all ended up dying off 1 by 1. Then they got more, so I tried again. All but 3 of them died. I then got 10 more from a fish store in Dallas that were wild caught - out of the 13 total, 1 died. Then I got 4 more recently from a reputable store in Houston and right now all 16 are thriving. I'm so glad I didn't give up on trying to keep rummy nose. I love them, and they are also in the tank with my pygmy corys, which are one of my favorite fish as well!
I totally feel you on how it feels when you have fish die off like that, in my case I don't know what was the problem, perhaps it was a similar issue as yours, or maybe just too stressful for the ones I bought since they were so small and I think I picked them up the day they came in at the local big box.
Hey Girl Talks Fish thank you so much you got me through a lot of hard work when I thought I was doing the right thing I wasn’t and I started watching and learning from your videos so thank you so much 🙏🏽
I actually just had a similar experience with a dwarf gourami I bought a few days ago. I put it in my tank after acclimating and it was fine for like four hours, then all of a sudden it started swimming at the top of the tank on it's side and upside down and then died. I really didn't understand... I'm wondering now if it was a ph problem
There can be many reasons why something goes wrong. For example, I've been keeping Bettas for over a decade and although most of my girls live at least 4 years, I've had times when it doesn't happen that way. I've checked parameters, nothing wrong. I examined the fish themselves...nothing wrong that I could see. Could've been parasites, stress, depression, a weakened immune system...anything. I've also had that happen with a Paradise Gourami. He was the healthiest and most active at my local Petco but only a few weeks later, he ended up with camallanus. The camallanus have spread throughout his body and even bursted out the side of his stomach a few days ago. He has small "tumors" all over his body which I believe are clusters of camallanus...even under his right eye. He's still alive, eating and responsive, but his existence must be miserable.
What I'm getting at here is that anything can happen to a fish that looks perfectly healthy. No matter what the case, I always suggest quarantining first (my first mistake) or keeping them alone in a species tank.
This is a great video, you make a really great point about asking at least a few minimal questions. I have my first tank that will have fish cycling right now and I have unique water parameters - very soft water, high ph, high kh, so it probably makes sense to ask about parameters at the store. I'm lucky to live within reasonable driving distance of Aquarium Co op & will likely be getting my fish there. Pygmy Cory's are on my list among a couple other fish, so really happy to have watched this particular video. Thank you!
We never know which fish are wild caught. I've heard that kuhli loaches are nearly always wild caught. >.
I had a similar experience with my local fish store. I purchased a ton of green neon tetras from them (over 60 dollars worth), and every single fish died. I have white could minnows in that tank now and they are doing just fabulous, and I never had problems with fish before or since.
Thanks again Irene! I LOL'd at "Unicron" haha.
Wow! I just noticed you are almost at 100k. I've been with your channel for some time. I think you had around 1.5k when I subscribed. Which was by the old name. Congrats!!
Hehe, I wonder how many people remember my old name. They're probably a little confused when I refer to my family as Mr. Gamer, Gamer Boy, and Gamer Girl. 😂 Thanks for being such a long-time follower; it's always good to see you in the comments!
Wowwww congrats on 100K! Been following since your channel was much smaller, probably less than 10K. Cheers to you!
Congratulations 100 thousand subscribers✨✨✨
Thoroughly enjoy your honesty and relatability!
I always ask my LFS employee what PH, Temp, and hardness they are keeping the fish at before I buy them - I learned after I found out my LFS used RO water…not good to find out after the fact….kind of defeats the point of an LFS….
Thank you for sharing more than just your successes, a lot of people can learn from content like this.
I had exactly the same thing happen to me! It was so heartbreaking because I fell in love with these tiny fish with such huge personalities.
Thank you for sharing this Irene! I’ve tried Pygmy cories twice now first with a group of 10 who died in a cycled quarantine tank less than 48 hours later and then I added another group of 10 to my cycled 20 long with guppies and I think I only have 3 left :( Now I know it’s gotta be the pH because my NoCo tap water is way higher than 6.4
Ugh, I feel your pain Irene! I just accidentally killed my Betta after a water change. I feel sooo bad, and I'm really hesitant to get another fish :(
oh my gosh, i am so sorry! that’s awful! that’s the worst part about fishkeeping, mistakes can have such terrible consequences. if you don’t mind me asking, what happened?
@@boogrlovr My guess is I filled the tank too quickly and the temperature change shocked her :( I noticed she was panting on the top of the tank, that evening she died.
@@PositiveShiftNutrition ah, i see. poor girl ): i’m sorry for your loss!
Good luck with your breeding project! I have 17 of these little lovely pygmy cories (seriously by far my favorite fish) in a 20 gallon and today I saw them spawning! Such an amazing process to see! I have collected 13 of the eggs and put them in a breeding box inside the main tank, as I also have clown killis, who I fear will eat the eggs :') I probably didn't get all of the eggs, because I don't want to mess around too much in my planted jungle, so we'll see how it goes!
Pigmy corys are the best of the best! even my wife was really unimpressed by their lack of colors but a week after watching them she totally fell in love with them, and after you watch them some time they become as beautiful as any fish you want to compare them to because they steal your heart.
Is no one going to talk about how underrated her channel is. You have very good quality videos. I just subscribed, I think you deserve more subscribers
Hi, is your planted tank ph 7.6-8? I have a 75 gal cichlid tank at the school I work at, and I am converting it to a planted community tank, the little Shellies and other small cichlids are fine with the plants, but the aragonite substrate keeps my ph at 7.6-8! I was going to change it out for some sand, but after seeing you fave high ph, I’m not sure if I need to tear it all down.
"And they're called pygmy coridoors" too cute.
Hi, I set up a new tank about a month ago. It is a 9 gallon Fluval flex and I have about 7 plants in it. I am ready to get some fish and shrimp to add now and I have a question about quarantining. I want to get about 5 or 6 White Cloud Mountain minnows and 2 or 3 amano shrimp. My question is if I need to make a separate tank to quarantine them all together or if I can just put them in the flex and treat with medications (aquarium co op trio)?
Wow! I never thought much about the fish I bought being wild caught. I assumed they were all captive bred. I had a huge die off several months ago when I bought some Neon Tetras for my 29 gallon, and I ended up losing almost 20 of my original fish including 2 Panda Cories, so I assumed it was a disease...(foolish me, I don't quarantine my new purchases) The tank had been running for well over a year and it's planted....so I went back to the place where I got the Neons and they told me to bring in a water sample. My pH had plummeted for some reason and my ammonia was high! I had stopped using test strips because I had heard they weren't very accurate, but now I use them again because they're good as an early warning system. I managed to fix the problems and now I have restocked with some beautiful Cardinal Tetras, Beckford's Pencilfish and just yesterday I got 2 Oto cats because I was getting an algae growth problem. It's always heartbreaking to lose fish....especially when they're such little cuties....but it teaches us to pay more attention to our water quality. I wasn't doing weekly water changes either...I was doing it once a month when I would clean the filter. Fish keeping is a never ending learning experience.
Pymgy Cory for me is hit or miss. I remember i bought first batch from the same fish store, they all survive and the next batch from the same tank did not. Also, some of them will just get pale and die after after a few months. I love them but after keeping them for a year, they do not really come out often which i wish i can look at them. I tried dither cory (they are still in my tank), it seems to help but they are extreme shy even in my heavily plant tank. For how much i love them but i will not recommend ppl to get them for start as a hobby
Thank you for sharing your harrowing experiences and the things you learned from them with the rest of us! I find them very very helpful.
I have a 5 gallon tank and got my betta fish about a month or 2 ago and last week he was missing from his tank. I had no clue where he was? But me and my mom were looking and found him dried up and died on the floor, my tank had a lid on but it had some holes in the back for wires. Some how he managed to jump out?! R.i.P Jayden
I also have bought wild caught fish. I was able to save some, except for threadfin rainbowfish. They seem to be the hardest. Similar thing, they drop one by one, theyre having a hard time adopting. Got me broken hearted. Till now I skip on Threadfins.
This really convinced me to get a decent school of Pygmy corys for my 20g betta tank. I hope he’s okay with roommates!
I started off with 9 and they were pretty shy, but then I happened to find 4 more and they have totally blossomed since. Still a little wary of me, but if I move slowly, they'll happily graze in front of me. :)
Omg same.
So I got rosy Barbs and I got three. Ten gallon tank, stuff like that.
Anyway, two of them died. I had one left. I got two more rosy barbs. The one that was in the original batch ate one of them. Then the other one from the batch ate the last one, I had the fish eater for awhile then it got sick and died. I did a %75 water change and now I have a betta paradise male. His name is Dakota. He’s so cute.
I am glad you have a successful group of Pygmy cories!
I ordered 9 online and received an extra one. Sadly, I had multiple deaths during shipping and minutes after they arrived. I do have six left which have been living happily for months. I love them, they are so cute!
Great vid. What are the nice group of schooling fish at 3:13 in your tank? They school really well and look nice.
Sorry about your first batch of those little guys. I'm glad you were able to find them from a better source this time. Sounds like they really care about the fish and there customers. When you give the meds to your new fish do you do them all at once or in a certain order? I purchased some platys yesterday and I have already lost one. Ones looking stressed now so I decided to started with the maracyn first.
Sad to hear what happened to the Cories, but at least you turned it around with the next batch!
I recently got two albino bristlenose plecos. I acclimated them for an hour but after maybe 3 hours one had died. The other one remained healthy and strong, and is now the tank's most dedicated cleaner fish.
Irene, this was a great video. I too, love Pygmy corys and finally got some. They are so charming even as you mentioned that they are not very colorful. But it seems like the longer I watch fish, the more subtleties I see, and it’s not all about the color. When I got several Pygmy corys I lost some too and it was devastating. Thanks for the great video and the “need to ask questions” when buying fish. I now have a new place to buy fish! ❤️
I learned that I can use a plastic tote for a quarantine tank 🙏
I recently bought a small 1.5gal aquarium. With two platy . Orange n yellow. But all the time the orange me is chasing and nibbling the yellow one. I don’t what to do?😢
Thank you for posting this, I've had a similar experience recently and it really put me off keeping corys! I feel a bit better knowing it's just something that can happen and it not my fault for being less experienced. Loosing fish you were supposed to be looking after is heartbreaking xx
Lol your kid is adorable, legendary fish keeper in the making! 👊
I'm sorry for your loss. Losing fish always sucks. The store should have refunded your purchase or given you credit because they didn't mark it.
As for fish that are sensitive to parameters like gh, kh, ph... You can actually acclimate them to your water slowly over time. If they're very sensitive, you can use hardscape elements to alter parameters eg limestone, driftwood, etc. If they breed in your water, and the fry survive... Congratulations! You have successfully adapted them to your water. Future generations will only become more hardy.
In NH I can't find any P-Smart, or P-Co that stocks ANY Cory's. I've been told they didn't do well. We have soft water but the PH is around 7.
Also, you can't get Rasboras , such as Chili. (or any other Rasbora's) They won't even try to order them. Seems to be an industry wide issue and they don't seem interested enough to get the problem resolved.
My only experience with wild caught fish was with a pair of wild angelfish. They were both a little sickly when I received them and one of them didn't respond to any of my medications and died. That was a bit of a bummer. The other one is still doing great months later though.
When I get a group of new fish- I ALWAYS have ay least one die. It's heartbreaking and I would feel sad - but its frustrating. When I bought 5 kuhli loaches, 1 died. When I bought 6 corydoras FIVE eventually died. I do everything I'm supposed to . Acclimated them and all.
6.4 pH ! Wow. I have had my Habrosus Cory's for close to a year now and they are doing great. My pH hovers between 7.4-7.6. Our tapwater here comes out at a pH of closer to 8 so I always make sure to lower it. Good luck with your breeding attempts. Mine have not spawned but I really have not worked at getting them to.
Cory Dora’s are also actually self poisoning fish. Sounds crazy, but it is a defence mechanism they use in the wild under stressful conditions. It’s possible this is what happened to yours since they died shortly after being transferred.
It can end up killing them usually when transported in captivity. I believe the wild caught fish tend to produce more of this hormone. It’s still a not fully researched topic. But something similar happened to KG tropicals and her betta sorority Cory’s.
i think that it could be a possibility but o think that the ph was what killed them also when people ship corydoras they put them in a bucket and then shake/kick the bucket so that they release the poison and then they put them in whatever they ship them in because the poison takes a while for them to get the poison back
This was a great and informative video. You covered many of the most important issues to check before buying your fish. Water parameters can differ greatly from your tap to the fish store. PH sensitive fish can be a hard lesson to learn for a lot of people in the hobby. More hardy species that can tolerate changes in PH levels are definitely a plus. I learned my lesson, I will never chase PH parameters again. Great video!
Holy smokes! rollercoaster of emotions... I feel ya. Glad you stuck with it though. Good on ya.
So sorry. That's rough. I had a bad batch of neon tetras that kept going belly up one right after the other and the store ended up having an issue where they quarantined all their tetras and stopped selling them after I got my brood. Only one survivor and I felt bad for him...but he finally succumbed a few weeks later as well. I'm going back to bettas...lol!
your videos are awesome irene keep it up................. and congrats on 100k subs!!!!!!!!!! :)
Glad to be back after a while and see you still rocking!!! Great video!! Love it🐠🐠🐠
Don't beat yourself up too much over this. I don't truck with wild caught fish nowadays. You can maybe get away with it if you have soft water, but if your water is on the hard side (or at a higher pH), they won't last long term. It's also not worth chasing pH. Learned the hard way with otocinclus.
oh no, I just picked up 8 pygmy corys yesterday and my pH is high like yours, will keep an eye out, might buffer if they start dying. ty for the info. I cannot find kuhli loaches here though, been waiting all summer to buy some
I had a similar issue with wild caught pygmy corydoras. I first bought a group of 6 and right away I could tell 1 had parasites. After trying to treat them, all died except for 2. 2 months later that I bought 8 more wild caught pygmy corydoras to go with the 2 survivors. These were from a different shipment from the same fish store. Once again only 3 survived. They slowly died over about a 2-4 week span. My quarantine tank was cycled for about 6 months but also has a pH of about 8.0. Thankfully I spoke to my LFS and they refunded me for 8 of them and I returned the remaining 5. I wanted to keep them so bad but I felt like they were just going to continue to die if I kept them
Well that certainly was quite an up and down stress fest with the cories.
Congrats on 100k!
I think all fish keepers have had similar experience buying fish. I know I have. It’s hard to find a good source. I’ve actually been buying them online and have had pretty good luck. The fish I buy online are from Florida which is where I live. Water is hard so the fish are raised in similar conditions to my water.
They're the CUTEST. I have like 9 of them. I didn't know about these issues, and they're good to know.
The store in my area runs a row of tanks in reverse osmosis water. Usually for fish that prefer low PH. I can understand why its upsetting cause they are about $5 each pigmy cory
Love this video! I appreciate you sharing your experience. I just got salt and pepper corys a week ago and I love them so much. Probably a staple fish for going forward.
I think framing as asking questions to “advocate” for yourself and for the fish is a great way to approach asking care questions from sellers in the future! Own that space 🙂
Such timing! I just picked up 6 pygmy corys last week - thankfully they (and my Honey Gourami)seem to be doing well in the QT tank...phew! I appreciate you posting this video, I have seen some of the same behavior as you noted and I'm glad to know that mine are acting normally and if I see one sleeping on his side, that he's probably still ok - love your videos! Thank you!!!!