This kid needs a wake up call .....

Sounds full of good decisions.

Probably swims after he eats, smokes at gas pumps and doesn't head caution on the McDonald's coffee cup either. He's that cool.

 

THIS!!!!! I thought the same thing. I haven't replied back.. After that pilot part I gave up. Sad though. How is it even physically possible to fit all those fish in there? I'm gonna go all ninja and steal his tank one night. Hell it's a 38gal I can put it under my arm and run!!

 

Lolz

 

When I first moved to the Bay Area, I was introduced to the friend of a relative whose son had a SW tank. When I go look at it, he has a juvi emporer, a yellow tang and about 10 other fish... in a 29 gallon.

I try to tell them that not only is the tank overstocked, it's critically overstocked and most those fish will die. They respond with "we really trust the guy at the fish store and he said it was OK."

 

I bought my first 55g from a LFS where i used to live, I was about to load up the tank in my truck and the guy who owned the store was trying to push some fish on me. I never darkened that guys doorway again.

 

It's comical that we find the need to draw a line and tear others down for crossing it when in reality, NONE of these animals belong in captivity.

That said, I agree that buying fish based on the size you're thinking about upgrading to is bad practice. I've been planning on upgrading to a 300 for about four years now, but there's still a 30 sitting in my living room.

 

Such a cop out. I'll help you carry home your soapbox though. Mike does have a good point, its easy to forget most of us have done some stupid things in the past before we knew better, but as the OP said, if 50 people give you solid advice and you ignore it, theres got to be something wrong. Most of these people know better and are just looking for one person to 'give them permission'

That how I almost put an Achilles tang in my 125g. Can it work? Sure I've seen tons of threads with people and their 10 year old Achilles in a 4ft 110g, I just won't.

 

I'm not privy to the conversations between the OP and this unfortunate and misguided yutz. From what I've seen though, he doesn't sound like a particularly sympathetic figure.

I'd like to make a point for those folks out there in the same position as him who are perhaps a bit nicer and a little easier to feel some sympathy for.

We all want to do what we know we shouldn't in this hobby. Rules exist because they provide good guidance on avoiding problems.

Lets be honest however, even the rules aren't perfect. "You need 125 gallons for a powder blue tang" is a meaningless rule if you think it through (as are so many similar rules). If I cut it to 120, do I have a 100% chance of problems? Will I have no problems at 130? Since the answer to this question is obvious, we have to guess someone somewhere compiled (or guessed) good rules of thumb that give you a better than not chance of success. If we err in favor of minimizing failure, the rules look silly (clowns usually stay within a few feet of their anemone iirc - so the best rule is to have a tank 6 feet in each direction with an anemone in the middle). If we err in favor of more permissive stocking, we get more dead or unhappy fish. We don't know what list corresponds to what preferences.

This guy the OP is talking about is a twit. Perhaps though if we were less inclined to enforce guidelines like they were speed limits, we'd get more buy in.

Its a lot easier to swallow someone telling me there is an increased chance of stress or mortality in a tang if its in a tank that is too small and to identify signs of stress to look out for than to be told you can't do it or you're an evil fish killer.

I long ago gave up keeping tangs in too small tanks. I can't enjoy my tank when the tang is running circles around the front glass. If someone had explained to me what the signs of stress were much sooner, I may have put a few fewer fish through the trouble.

 

All I have to add is, this is why it's important to embrace and welcome new hobbyist. There will always be the bad apple, the defensive newbie that is going to do it their way simply because someone said it was an ill advised way to proceed.

All you can do is again welcome new hobbyist and give them a place to express themselves without fear of negativity, if they listen all the better. Trust me no one knows better than I how easy it's is to be negative rather then..........encouraging.

 

Exactly!

It takes a long time to learn to listen to an answer, but it takes even longer to learn how to answer a question that has no good answer in a constructive manner.