What Made You Want A Freshwater Aquarium?

[jeni_shirlaw]

I guess cos i live a couple hours away from some wicked coral reefs off the coast of malaysia, so i could just visit them instead of cramming some of the natural environment into a tank :P

[krap101]

what made me want em was just being a spoiled lil kid and cry when i dun get sumtin that i wanted and i wanted fish cuz lil kids want everything so i got my 5 gallon fish starter set and sum sharks and a pleco then my fish started 2 die 1 by 1 until i had nun left and like i thought they were like hiding wahhhhhh i miss sharky and finns and tails!!! wahhhhh

[ChileRelleno]

At various times growing up my family had aquariums and when my wife wanted to get one I quickly agreed and she purchased our first tank, a 35 gal hex. Later when she was having fun with that one she exspressed a interest in a larger tank, being that I had recently shelled out over $4,000 on new custom skydiving gear I couldn't say no now could I?
MTS had set in!

Edited to add: My wife has set me straight...
First tank she got was 5.5 gal which she overstocked with messy fastgrowing goldfish which led to the 35 gal.
Typical male memory I guess...

[pcbarr]

oops

[pcbarr]

oops

[lex]

My parents always had a fish tank. Thier fist was a 15gal hex with three or four angels in it. I remember feeding them when Mom wasn't looking... of course I fed them too much and got in trouble a couple times when I was little. hehe.

Later, I think after I had killed the angels, (oh well) we got three goldfish who lived in a 10gal aquarium. Dad put me in charge of water changes and top offs. (Which I hated at the time, and couldn't wait for these new fish to die) To my despair they lived for a good 8 years I think, then finally kicked the bucket.

Once I got out of the house and married I realized I don't dislike fish as much as I thought and have two tanks of my own. Someday I will have a reef, but that's a long way off yet. Happily enough, my husband fully supports my fish keeping hobby as long as he doesn't have to do any of the maintanace.

[noteworthy]

Fish are very peaceful and fun just to watch.

Only now if I could get my cats to get along with my fish

One of my cats will sit for hours and watch the fish and turn his head.. side to side. heh.. Another likes to jump up top and stick their paw where the opening is on the filter

I'll have to make something to block off that space

[Endgame319]

I hate to admit it, but it was the finding nemo movie

[shawmutt]

I hate to admit it, but it was the finding nemo movie

Hey, at least you didn't run out, buy a 5 gallon aquarium and some sea salt and throw a clown fish in!

[tommiejr]

Now here is a fish story you won't belive!

I got into tanks many years ago to learn one thing. How to CATCH more fish! Yes that is right, how to catch more fish. I was big into competition crappie fishing. I wanted to learn as much about crappie as I could. I decided to set up the biggest fish tank I could find (a 55gal) and put 4 wild crappie in it. Bought a few books on rasing fish and figured out how to keep them alive. I never tried to actually catch "my" fish, rather I would just sit and watch them for hours trying to learn as much about them as I could. I would feed them live minnows from the [acronym:a401457d78="Local Fish Store"]lfs[/acronym:a401457d78] and watch how they took their prey. Learnded quit a bit. This all came to an end when a friend of mine who was also a local game warden came over. He informed me that keeping live game fish was illegal in NC. So my crappie went back to the wild where they came from.

I soon started missing my fish. I decided to set up a real tank. Started out going straight for the SA chiclids. Closest thing to what I had before. It was not to long, maybe a few years, that I had five 55 [acronym:a401457d78="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:a401457d78] going. 4 SA chiclids and 1 african.

That was almost 20 years ago. I no longer do any competetion fishing, but I still love watching my fish. I now have 1 fresh tank with a few bigger chiclids and a 2000 [acronym:a401457d78="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:a401457d78] koi pond that we are expanding right now to include a creek and secondary pond of about 1000 [acronym:a401457d78="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:a401457d78].

Maybe one of these days I will try salt but for now, the water I have is enough work on it owns.

Tommie in NC