When I was little my parents kept a 55g
FW tank that housed various incompatible mixes of fish and other things. We'd have angelfish and crayfish, and various large, darty fin nippers in with long-finned fish..things like that. You'd think that might have deterred me, but at 6 years old I always seemed to miss all the fish deaths. The only thing I helped with was sucking on the siphon end to get the water flowing so it would go in the bucket (yummy). My parents eventually decided to close up shop.
In between somewhere here I went to Antigua in the Caribbean and went snorkeling off of the uninhabited Bird Island, swimming with fish far bigger than I was and through some small patches of reef, where I had the pleasant experience of running straight into a floating fish head. (Again, yummy! You can clearly see where my love of saltwater came from
)
So about four and a half years ago I kept noticing the old 55g show tank we had just sitting in the garage and I decided to spend my birthday money setting it up. We hauled the double-paned glass tank and its stand upstairs to my room and I set about doing research. That's right, research! And I made a little binder full of fish profiles and information about different kinds of heaters, filters, etc. that I still have today. We slapped a Penguin Biowheel on there, a heater, filled it with water and set up some decorations (driftwood, rocks, etc.) and started putting fish in.
For a while, things were good.
Then about a year later I made the mistake of thinking my parents would research the matter if I agreed to buy them a quaker parrot (originally I was just going to get some finches, but my Mom kept going to bigger and bigger birds). After all, I had researched it to the last tiny detail and figured they were as prepared as I was.
WRONG.
Anyway, after the bird had been placed in a more suitable home with an experienced birdkeeper, I ventured to my Mom that we should buy another 55g show tank for her office downstairs. We set that one up and started running it, and moved the 5 baby angelfish from my tank upstairs to that one. We added some Bolivian rams, clown loaches, etc. A few months later we got a 20g "high" tank, and I occasionally thought about saltwater but was deterred by the massive cost and the scary things written in articles about how I would have to check every single parameter every two seconds or everything would die instantly. All I ever really wanted was a lionfish, but everything I had read recommended a 55g tank at a minimum for the smaller species, and my parents pointed out that I was going to college in a few years. Suitably detered, I focused on my
FW tanks. We also acquired a few bettas, but apparently they disliked our conditions and found it fit to die after about two years each. I also got my paradise fish who is now with me at college.
Did I ever originally want a reef tank? Nope. But my mother did after she adopted a clownfish and a snail from my aunt and set up a little 20G for them. So I dutifully did the research this time (I knew she wouldn't) and eventually arrived here while hunting around for information. =) So now that rather sparse reef is finally set-up my mother is threatening to sell off all the corals and go
FOWLR because of algae and because she "didn't know it would involve so much money and work," but I'm kind of hoping she'll give it a chance. I'm not exactly a saltwater fanatic yet because high costs + college student budget = uh.. But even if my parents' tank doesn't work out as a reef tank in the end, I'll probably set up one on my own someday using all the great tips I learned here.
And maybe someday I'll actually get a lionfish too.
/End. =P
