Does Keeping fish have any health benefits?

[TwoTankAmin]

I started with tank #1 in my bedroom. At my peak I had 9 but now its only 2 x 75, 30B, 2 x 29, 20L and a 5.5. The I am down to 2 from 3 in the bathroom. Anywhere I look, I see fish

Perhaps my favorite bedroom tank was a 20L at the foot of my bed. For some time it held a small group of threadfin rainbows and a few paleatus cory.. The males display by flapping their finds. When you get to wake up to a group of males actively displaying it is almost like watching underwater butterflies. I always got up with a smile on my face. Here is a vid that lets you see what I saw, it is not my vid.

 

[wasme]

I started with tank #1 in my bedroom. At my peak I had 9 but now its only 2 x 75, 30B, 2 x 29, 20L and a 5.5. The I am down to 2 from 3 in the bathroom. Anywhere I look, I see fish

Perhaps my favorite bedroom tank was a 20L at the foot of my bed. For some time it held a small group of threadfin rainbows and a few paleatus cory.. The males display by flapping their finds. When you get to wake up to a group of males actively displaying it is almost like watching underwater butterflies. I always got up with a smile on my face. Here is a vid that lets you see what I saw, it is not my vid.

Don't get me wrong, having an aquarium in the bedroom was lovely....my error was to put a group of Bronze Cories in it. I knew they had a tendency of going into aquarobics and aquabatics at night but I totally underestimated exactly how much activity they would express. For some reason, the Bronze are complete lunatics compared to other variants of Cory. My current Cories....Rabauti in the 53 and Panda in the 29...are as quiet as church mice compared to the Bronze. Bronze are just scatty cats.

 

[Pinkey]

In addition to the calming effects of watching fish there are the intellectual benefits of learning all there is to learn about fish and biology and ecosystems and the nitrogen cycle and geography and so on and so forth. My life is enriched by the knowledge I've acquired over the years. Also, if you spend your time on your tanks it will keep you off the streets at night and if you keep upgrading your setups you won't have money for drugs.

 

[fishorama]

We had bedroom tanks in our early fish days in a small apt., but neither of us find the noise or messiness something we need to do now. I need my sleeping area to be a sanctuary, not a place to make lists of chores...oops, that's kind of what I have now, but without fish guilt.

I like your learning many new things, Pinkey. Geography, biology, medicine, water chemistry, math, genetics, horticulture, etc. keep my head expanding (see Huey Lewis "I Want A New Drug", & Lene Lovich "New Toy", some of you may remember them, & now we can add music to our fish learning list). Ours can be an ever-inclusive hobby, a doorway to new sciences with some low level anthropologic pet fun too, lol. Who doesn't love to see our fish beg us for food or dance in fresh new water? Nibble our arm hair? Whee! (or Ouch!) Some are even up for some human contact or even games in limited ways.

wasme, I have bronze corys but not in our bedroom. If I'm up in the night I do sometimes hear them going to the surface. & if they're very splashy, I may have to look for escapees once in a while. But I have plants that help them judge where the water surface is. I've never had to rescue a jumper (fingers crossed). My females are so fat I'm not sure they can do much more than barely gulp air at the surface. I did have a fry survive once. He's now almost adult male size & not shy at all.

 

[wasme]

wasme, I have bronze corys but not in our bedroom. If I'm up in the night I do sometimes hear them going to the surface. & if they're very splashy, I may have to look for escapees once in a while. But I have plants that help them judge where the water surface is. I've never had to rescue a jumper (fingers crossed). My females are so fat I'm not sure they can do much more than barely gulp air at the surface. I did have a fry survive once. He's now almost adult male size & not shy at all.

I have never had a fish try to leave the aquarium without being in a net. I can leave the hood off both aquariums and they are unattended for 30-40 minutes or more when I am in the kitchen servicing the filters and no-one has ever tried to escape or done so by accident. They all stay in the lower part of the aquarium patiently til I get back to them.

I know there have been cases of fish escaping but so far, I have not experienced it in my aquariums.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have had a few fish jump. My furst tank sits behind my desk. I had several yoyo loached in it. I had pit ine of my H.O.T. Magnums onn the tank using the Mircon cartridge to polish the water. The filter was hung on the front of the tank and that meant the lid was partly opened and resting atop the filter.

I hear a sound which was clearly a fish leaving the water and a yoyo plopped onto the floor right next to me. Of course I returned it to the tank and i=was apparently fine. I had a small SAE in Q which managed to leap out of the tank in the small space where the Aquaclear output was. That one I found n the carpet crispy. I also learned that swordtails are not happy being parked in a bucket, Had one leap out onto the floor.

Finally. SAE do not like buckets. I had parked a few in a 5 gal. Home Depot bucket and it was barely 1/2 full. Suddenly I see SAEs popping up above the rim and falling back into the bucket. So I added some floating plants which didn't help. Then I rested the lid on top of the bucket and was serenaded by the sound of leaping SAEs hitting the lid.

These are not exactly the relaxing parts of keeping fish......

 

[wasme]

Finally. SAE do not like buckets. I had parked a few in a 5 gal. Home Depot bucket and it was barely 1/2 full. Suddenly I see SAEs popping up above the rim and falling back into the bucket. So I added some floating plants which didn't help. Then I rested the lid on top of the bucket and was serenaded by the sound of leaping SAEs hitting the lid.

These are not exactly the relaxing parts of keeping fish......

That has a brilliant cartoon visual....whilst sat at the desk, the sound of live popcorn from the bucket beside you.....

 

[jake72]

Yea I will agree SAE do not liked being confined; once they get larger. I hope to put a school of 5 in my 10 footer - lots of swimming room

 

[fishorama]

I'd put giant danios, roseline & rainbow sharks on the "jumpy" list. I also had tiny 1 inch furcata loaches jump out. Mystery snails didn't jump so much as crawl to the top & drop over the edge. They sounded like ping pong balls hitting the wood floor & I could almost always rescue them. Those last 2 species were in a rimless 40g long...no rimless tanks for me ever again (well, never say never).

The roseline jumped when we were out of town & they had a pet sitter/neighbor feeding. She just picked it up & put it back, it was fine. The rainbow shark jumped the day before a friend was coming to adopt him. It was our last bedroom tank. All I can say is I'm glad neither of us stepped on him. With the danios, we thought our CA cichlids were eating them as they gradually disappeared. When we moved there were several danio "jerky strips" under their tank stand (sniffle).

We've had SAE a few times but never a jumper escapee. But I could see it as a possibility, big rainbowfish too. I think many of the "torpedo shaped" fish can get up to high speed swimming. Back & forth a few times & Whee! They're flying!! That's why I think most of those fish need at LEAST a 4ft tank. & why I think plants help. It's not just so they can judge where the surface is but also floating plants may slow down their speed so they don't end up on the floor.

I also leave the water level a couple inches below the rim for a while with new possible jumpers...determined fish will find a way out from even a tiny opening. We do the best we can, but bad stuff can happen.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have kept the redlines for a number of years now, I got my first ones on Aquabid for over $20 each when the had first started showing up for sale. That had to be before 2006. Since then I have always had some. At one point I got them imported in numbers- I think i split a box of 50 where I took 35. They were about $2.75 each at over 2 inches TL. I grew then for 5 months before selling most of them. But I kept about 9 for myself.

I was down to 4 of them over the past few months and have begun replacing them with 6 I got online at 2 inches.

In all that time and all those fish, (because I split a 3nd box as well), I have never had redlines show any propendity for jumping. But all my tanks have lids and most leave very little way for fish to leap out.