I lucked into two fish tanks, a 10-gallon and a 25-gallon, and I’d like to fill them with things. The larger one has a small hole in it, and can’t hold water. I was thinking fish in the smaller one, and a snake, lizard or turtle in the larger. I’ve heard good things about rainbow fish, and there’s neon tetras aplenty at my local pet store. If I can fit two or more species in there, that’d be cool.
For the other tank, I’m leaning towards a corn snake, but a turtle sounds nice too. My problem is finding a good place to get one.
Unfortunately, my pet experience is mostly dog and cat oriented, and I’m feeling out of my depth. So I’m interested in your aquarium experiences. Anyone got fish or reptiles? Care to share?
Snakes are awesome (but they’re kind of temperature sensitive). They’re more interactive than turtles, IME, as long as you’re fine with feeding them whatever they eat. Some people really can’t just drop the live mice or crickets into the tank to be eaten.
Fish- meh. I don’t do fish as pets myself; I prefer something you can hold. I hope you’ll get freshwater, not tropical, though. (I think tetras are fresh.) For one, again IME, saltwaters can be *really* delicate and can die easily. For another, there’s no real way of knowing whether they’re legally obtained.
Forgive me if I was Captain Obvious-y about any of this. Hope it helps!
Try a reptile sanctuary. You can probably find a poor widdle ball python that needs a home. Heck,if you’re within driving distance of SW Missouri, I can hook you up with a place that has abandoned ball pythons out the wazoo.
Just be sure that you don’t accidentally get a Burmese python instead; unless you have a spare room that can be converted into a snake enclosure.
Having worked at a reptile zoo, I can tell you it happens more often than you’d think.
Best advice: Do not buy fish from any of the major pet chains. They will die no matter what you do, sometimes in extraordinarily grotesque ways. Research a pet shop that is locally kown in your area for the quality of their fish. You will pay about 1000% more per fish, but it’s worth it. Also, do not leave the cover of your aquarium off. It is not an urban legend that fish jump out of tanks and die.
Instead of fish I recommend an African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis). They are hardy, and weird looking and by far the most interactive aquarium pet you can get. You can buy a complete diet in pellet form for them, but they will also eat almost anything (no really, anything they can fit in their mouth) so I used to hand feed mine red worms as a treat. The only downside is that they are really sensitive to vibrations so it’s best not to use a filter, which means you have to be on top of the water changing.
I rescued mine (named Mia) from my old lab and she was the best pet for almost three years, until the stress of a cross country move did her in.
Here’s some things I learned after having a fish tank…
Do a little research on how compatible different types of fish are. I never had a problem, but some breeds just won’t get along with others. Also related: try to ensure that they’re all about the same size. Large ones will eat smaller ones.
Definitely wait until the interior of the tank is covered (or mostly covered) in algae before buying a pleco. For a 10 gallon tank you’ll only need one and if you get small fish, then get the smallest one you can find. They’ll to a very thorough job. To the point they’ll also be cleaning the pebbles. (They will eat regular fish food, too. At least mine did.) You don’t have to have a pleco, but that’s one less thing you’ll need to clean.
Which leads to the cleaning. Not an easy task and one that will possibly become tiresome. If you’re not already familiar with the process, talk to the reputable fish store owner/employee or other fish owners about what’s involved and such. At the least you might get an idea about where you’ll end up putting the tank to make it easier to do. And also keep in mind that the more decorations in the tank, the more work it can be to clean
And no matter how quiet they say they are, power pumps are still pretty noisy.
And one last thing that I had heard about: Buy a sheet of thin cork to place under the tank itself. I’d read about how this was suggested because the surface you choose to place the tank may be uneven and cause stress on the tank and lead to possible leaks.
Still, fish are very relaxing to watch
Please don’t put a turtle in a tank (unless the tank is the size of a lake). A tank is not a suitable habitat for them–please do some research!
Whatever kind of pet you get, adopt or rescue, don’t buy. There are always animals of all types needing good homes. Call shelters and ask; if they don’t have any of the kind of animal you want, they can probably direct you to a rescue group.
Karen was right about the turtles, so they’re out. I’m going for a corn snake. There aren’t too many reptile rescue groups around me, and the ones that are here seem to be tilted towards large snakes like full-grown pythons and boa constrictors. Normally, I’m all for getting animals from shelters, certainly all of our cats and dogs were acquired from shelters or owners who couldn’t care for them. However, the danger of being a newb snake owner with a 10-foot python and poor upper body strength outweighs the evil of buying a snake from a dealer. I dream of being a python owner someday, but it will have to wait till I’m out of the apartment and slightly more experienced at snake owning.
I’m going to start with tropical freshwater fish, and I expect it will take me about a month to get everything together and have the tank ready for fish. If I hustled I could have them in two weeks, but meh, whatever. The snake will be a bit harder; it might be January before I have that.