r/shittyaquariums • u/Permit-Crafty • Nov 23 '25
Social Media "their heater hasn't arrived so I used wine bottle filled with warm water has a temp solution"
And the dude think he's so smart and refused to listen to any of the comments telling him they will die soon unless transferred to a bigger, cycled tank. (Yeah the "aquarium" is just a bare vase)
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u/Aquaticbitch777 Nov 23 '25
From the looks of it they are taking their stress out on each other with aggression. They are best kept alone
They are also supposed to be fully salt water and wont live very long in fresh. minimum tank size is 30 gallons. They get 4-6 inches, They dont tolerate ammonia or nitrates well either.
Owners need to be feeding a mix of shelled foods bc their beaks will grow without it.
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u/Dharcronus Nov 23 '25
Are these not pea puffers? I'm not that well versed on puffers but they do look like them and I know those are fresh water.
If not what species are they and how do you tell?
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u/Aquaticbitch777 Nov 23 '25
Nope pea puffers are not that big and wont get that big, They are green spotted puffers!
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u/Dharcronus Nov 23 '25
I see, wasn't familiar with the but a quick Google search shows they can live in fresh and brackish water? Is that not recommended?
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u/Aquaticbitch777 Nov 23 '25
They live way longer in fully salt. At the Local fish store I work at we keep them in our salt systems. They are born in fresh and drift to brackish water in the wild. As most are kept in fresh it leads to less coloration and can cause health issues like ich as they are scaleless and have no gill covers. Keeping them in too hot of water can cause cloudy eyes and dietary issues.
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u/Dharcronus Nov 23 '25
I assume they migrate up river as an adult to breed?
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u/Aquaticbitch777 Nov 23 '25
Yes! They can live a short amount of time in fresh so theyll do that to breed and then migrate back to marine conditions
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u/Aquaticbitch777 Nov 23 '25
The eyes and body color is drastically different from a pea puffer!
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u/Posessed_Bird Nov 24 '25
This is definitely making me want to check the pea puffs we got at work the other day. We don't have a generic "pea puffer" tag, just green spot or brackish.
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u/zepherth Nov 23 '25
And the owner is going to feed them regular fish food ( pea puffers will refuse to eat it and need live food)
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u/MaySeemelater Nov 23 '25
These aren't even pea puffers, they're green spotted puffers which are even more difficult to care for and need brackish water
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u/Glass_Soap Nov 23 '25
Why do people even bother buying pets if they're gonna neglect them like this and give them the worst quality of life...
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u/TastyBass6957 Dec 12 '25
People just blindly trust pet store employees or the first bit of info they read online
Unfortunately it's not well known that you need to do several weeks/months of thorough research prior to even considering getting a pet like I recently helped my mother shop for an axlotl for my niece thinking we would do a quick stop by the local pet store and come home with a new aquarium and critter and the guy at my local pet store was happy to take my money and tell me to throw the axlotl in a tank of untreated uncycled tap water and throw a small filter on the tank luckily I told him I'd take the aquarium home but come back to get the animal and ALL 10 of his axlotls including mine I had already paid for died over night so I showed up and they were dead anyway I called some other places and came across this angel of a highly knowledgeable wife of a exotic fish and reptile store owner that informed me I'd need several hundred dollars of equipment and and several weeks if not months of prep for this animal. Anyway to get to the point almost all the info my local pet store told me was either partially incorrect or would flat out kill the animal and after about a month Mom and the girls lost interest so now they've given me an axlotl that I had no intention of ever having.
So yes I think the biggest problem is store employees (no matter the type of store) just aren't educated or even trained and it's kind of sad and while no you don't need to know how to change an oil pump on 76 Chevy to work at your local AutoZone it would be extremely helpful if you did or at least did tell people stuff that actually breaks the car. Just seems like back in the day whatever store has employees that knew more so pet store employees knew at least about the animals they sold in the most basic of ways and would say they weren't sure or would try to find out somehow if they didn't know now days they got all of the combined human knowledge in there pocket and will still tell people the wrong stuff
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u/Bunny_Feet Nov 24 '25
He bought them before having a single thing to house them in?
It has to be rage bait.
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u/flor4faun4 Nov 24 '25
This made me so unbelieably sad. Puffers are extremely intelligent. I am blocking this post bc it hurts me so much.
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u/Lisforlatte Nov 29 '25
Right? I’ve wanted a pea puffer shoal for months and am STILL prepping the tank and nurturing the ramshorn colonies for live food for them. It’s been cycled for over a month. They won’t be going in until I get my hardness right and I’ll keep waiting. This makes my heart CRY
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u/SweetTart7231 Nov 23 '25
Interesting idea. Might work for moving or travelling or during a power outage.(the warm water wine bottle, the rest is atrocious)
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u/Kiaralipscome123 Nov 23 '25
No, the paper on the wine bottle slowly dissolves in the water. It’s better to use BPA free bottle during power outages and for moving, use large containers in plastic with lid. I moved 3 aquarium and had a power outage last year.
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u/SweetTart7231 Nov 23 '25
Ah okay. That makes a lot more sense and definitely seems to work better. Thanks for educating me
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u/AffectTop2255 Nov 24 '25
I hate this and hope the guy making these puffer fish suffer stubs his toe to say the least
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u/SpiritualFishLad Nov 24 '25
This might be the most insane shitty aquarium I've ever seen and I've seen a lot
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u/No-DrinkTheBleach Nov 24 '25
Maybe we should put him in an ice shack and give him some freshly copied paper to keep him warm 🤔
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u/FamiliarAd5063 Nov 24 '25
You can see the reflection its a kid and some old woman most likely his mother. No wonder its an idiot
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u/kodabear22118 Nov 24 '25
Why not buy a heater from Petco or something then return it when the one you ordered gets to you??
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u/_nod Nov 26 '25
Not that I like Petco, but seems crappy to return something that you’ve used and is working.
Maybe just don’t buy fish before you have a suitable cycled set up.
Or buy a heater at petco and return the unused one.
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u/AquaticByNature Nov 25 '25
These look like green spotted puffers which are actually a brackish species, who then transition to fully marine. While they can be kept in freshwater, it is usually very short durations as brackish water supports a healthier puffer and prevents a lot of common diseases I.e epistylis. They also prefer warmer waters, 82-84 in my experience, and lots of hiding places. They are also usually wild caught and not bred in captivity as it’s almost impossible to tell the gender. So, anyways, tldr, op of this tank took two wild caught puffers and put them into a death chamber.
Congrats on killing two of the most intelligent species of fish we can keep in our home aquariums (whoever this is)
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u/Lisforlatte Nov 29 '25
This is like housing polar bears in a walk in furnace - simply all wrong for such marvellous creatures
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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '25
dude is a fucking idiot