A Ton of Fish

I had a woman call today with concerns about her fish.

You see, she'd had a couple die off within the past few days, and she was worried that the water in her tank was too cold and that was why her fish had died.

From what I could gather, her water was in the normal temperature range. As even if it's heated, fish tank water still feels cold. Even in the store that's true.
So the fact that her water felt cold to the touch....wasn't concerning.

But she didn't seem to think that there was anything else that could possibly be the cause.

So I went through other things, asking her how new the tank was and how many fish she had in the tank currently.

As sometimes the newness of the tank or how many fish were added at a time, or how many fish were in it total.

Her response was that she had 12 fish in the tank.

O.o So I double checked the size to make sure I'd heard correctly.
I had.
She had 12 fish in a 10 gallon tank.
About twice as many fish as you should have in a tank that size.
As usually a ten gallon should only have 5-6 fish in it to keep them happy.
To have more than that...usually requires more maintenance in a tank. More water changes or switching out the filter cartridges more often, that sort of thing. As the more fish in a tank, the more of a mess they make.

Considering that her tank was hardly more than a week old.
And already had 12 fish in it....

It's no surprise that a couple of them are dying off. :(

If there isn't enough space for the fish, the weakest will die off in order to make the environment more suitable for the remaining fish and give them enough space they need to do well.

I told her that usually one should only have 5-6 fish in a tank.
And her response was.
"I got as many fish as were on the box!"

O.o Apparently, there were 12 fish pictured on the box of the tank that she bought, and so she thought that she could have 12 fish in a 10 gallon tank without any issues.

I told her simply. "The box lies."

It's an issue we've had on occasion with customers, in that they think they can put a ton of fish into a fish tank simply because the picture on the box shows a lot of fish in the tank.

But simply put.
It's not true.
It's just a marketing thing. To play with your sense of abundance or whatever, to make you think you can have more than you actually can have.

No, it's best to not overcrowd your fish tanks. :S
And having 12 fish in a 10 gallon tank...is definitely overcrowding it.

So I told her to keep an eye on her fish and that she'll probably need to do water changes a little more often if she wanted to keep that many fish.
Hopefully it all turns out well for her and no more of her fish die. :S

-Sarnic Dirchi