1: I hate carp. they have single handed destroyed my reclaiming of a fortress.
d-o-restrict any land adjacent to carp infested water tiles. I'm playing on a map with something like 50 of them, and the only fish related deaths I've had recently are from building over the lake.
2: Is there a way to unforbid all the items on the level? I have a lot of stuff in there and its a pain in the butt manuelly claiming everything.
Two possibilities. First, d-b-...claim? (well, whatever the key is) every tile by starting at opposite corners of the map and shift scrolling across for every z level. The second option is to use the z-stocks screen, by un-forbidding every generic item type in every section. Not sure which is faster.
3: Why are all my dwarves going insame? Litterally with in 1 year, 7 dwarves out of about 30 went insane and killed everyone. What the heck is going on?!
Tantrum spirals I assume, which are caused by a few initial deaths. A couple of ways to try and prevent this... First, assign a strong dwarf as sheriff / captain of the guard etc. to kill anyone that gets out of line before they spread more misery.
If you're lucky a few of them will survive the beating, and assuming you have jails, they'll be kept out of the way without pissing off their friends. The combination of having virtual slaves binging them their meals and then being released will even make them ecstatic, at least in my experience.
Most important, however, is to keep them busy. If they're idle, they socialize, and if they socialize, they make way too many friends for their own good, and losing one or two of will drive them nuts.
Also, royal dining rooms. Quite possibly the most broken happy thought ever.