What Made You Want A Freshwater Aquarium?

[d9hp]

Welcome to AA

[bumblebean]

Hi
I really wasn't into aquariums because I was too busy making mistakes with my pond! Five years ago I rented a backhoe thinking that a small hole/pond in the backyard would be peaceful. My intoxicated neighbor jumped onboard before I woke up and now I have a 68,500 gallon pond that only a millionaire could afford to filter and which is exposed to every known fish predator in the Northwest I have invented my own filtration using plants that can kill a human within minutes and materials that would probably make most people shake their heads. To ensure my water quality despite my experiments, I have stocked the pond with less than 10 koi and perhaps 10 goldfish
I was suckered into this aquarium when I met a lionhead I could not walk away from at Wal-Mart. Frankly, I am very much like Swimminglessons. I am learning as fast as I can but in truth, making mistakes equally rapidly as well
I came here to find someone who could explain the moodiness I see in my lionheads and find that I have found another place in which to learn.
Thanks
Karen

[samimnot]

I had space on a desk in my room, and plants didn't look right there, so I figured "FISH!". Stereotypical goldfish. Just two. In a goldfish bowl. From a petshop that is now closed, but took very poor care of its animals when it was open.

A friend bought me some more goldfish, and there wasn't enough room in the small fishbowl.

So I purchased my first tank. 25 gallons. Lots of room, red gravel, red/orange plants, and my first filter.

When that worked out well, I purchased some tetras (who promptly jumped out of the tank and died) & guppies (whom the cats promptly devoured).

I then bought a 2 gallon tank, and in it resides my average veil tail pet store mutt betta, whom I adore.

I'm trying a saltwater tank now, but I'll always keep my first tanks freshwater, and I'll always have goldfish.

[DJRoss]

It all started when I entered a calkwalk at the local elementary school fair. I was in the sixth grade and had no idea what a cakewalk was, but I had a ticket, so I tried it out. Imagine my disappointment when I was told to walk around a chalk outline of a sectioned snake with numbers to some music. I felt foolish. Of course the fact that when the music stopped I was the proud winner of a killer lemon chiffon cake certainly alleviated some of the embarrassment.

In any case, since I had won the cake, I felt lucky and wanted to try something else. So I put my last fifty cents down for two tickets and blew them both on trying to throw pingpong balls into glass jars filled with prizes or just empty. Well the two tickets got me six balls, and I was able to get four of them into the glass jars. Two were empty, but two had goldfish in them. So here I was on a hot summer day, walking home with two goldfish and a lemon chiffon cake. Not a bad day for a 12 year old kid.

When I got home, my mom saw the anticipation on my and my little sisters face concerning our new pets, and it led directly to the pet store where we bought a nice bowl,some gravel and our first cannister of Tetra flakes.

As all you Aquaria enthusiasts know, a fishbowl doesn't stay a fish bowl. Well inside of two weeks we were up to a 10 gallon tank with several goldfish, fancies some tetras and guppies. This ended up in my room since I was the most enthusiastic about the whole thing. My older brother began tinkering with the set up and a week later he told me to follow him down the street to a neighbors house.

My brother detailed yards during the summer and this neighbor was a customer of his. I walked into this mans house and my jaws just dropped. There were no fewer than 10 tanks in this mans home. The granddaddy was a freshwater tank that cover the entire wall of his living room from the waist to a foot below the ceiling. There wasn't a fish under a footlong in that tank, including a mean looking Oscar. This man really loved what he was doing, and said that we were welcome any time to ask questions, run ideas by him or just come a relax with the fish. I wouldn't be surprised if the tank were in excess of 500 gallons. It was enormous. He had a spiraling glassworks with tetras in it that stood about six feet from the floor. He also had a twin hexagonal set up with two small glass channels that connected them so the fish could swim back and forth to whichever tank the wish to be in. Both tanks had varying environments. There were only two types of fish in this tank, and I cannot remember what they were, but one of them I believe were tigerbarbs.

In any case, I went home with a new respect for the hobby I was about to embark on, and my brother,bit between his teeth, decided to get involved. Out 10 gallon was replaced with a 20 gallon and our freshwater setup consisted of some Angels, cichlids, placasos, kuhlieel, freshwater shrimp, tetras, barbs, and so on. We went overboard in our zeal to get involved. After much trial and error and a few backyard funerals on my little sisters behave, we began to come into our own.

Our ten gallon still was home to guppies, tetras and a couple of goldfish. Our 20 gallon was now home to two Angels(marble and a "tiger?"), zebras, Tigerbarbs, two crabs a shrimp, Kuhlieel and a pair of Gouramis. Our house was small, and our bedroom did not have that much room for large setups, but we made the most of what we had.

My brother brought home a 50 gallon setup and I was excited when he said that he was going to set up a microreef. The saltwater plantlife, fish including seahorses was amazing. I fell asleep for several years to the light and bubbling sounds emanating from our tanks.

When we moved, we felt it best to give the fish away. Our neighbor got most of them. I visited him a few years later when we were in town just to reminisce. To my surprise, our marble angel was in his megatank holding his own. It had gotten huge with the extra space.

My ninth grade year was the last time I had ever had a tank in my home. Now many years later, I suggested to my wife last month about maybe getting a tank, and she liked the idea. So much so that she found out that a colleague at the hospital where she works had a 40 gallon setup that she wanted to get rid of at no cost.

Now I am stoked. I have already decided to create a Malawi Cichlid setup with no more than three pairs. I can already see a 125 gallon setup in my living room and this 40 gallon tank lulling my wife and I to sleep in our bedroom. Of course my two older sons will need at least a 20 gallon tank for their fish, and a small five gallon tank in the kitchen will be nice for a few tetras to keep us company over dinner. I don't think my wife realized what she did when she reawakened the love of waterlife in me.

Yes, it all started on a hot summers day. The day I brought home a Lemon Chiffon cake and two goldfish. Funny thing is I don't even eat cake anymore.

[Electrobes]

Yo all, my life with fish started this-a-way:

Basically my attention span is quite limited. Its pretty much a nasty add that all of my friends know about. But anyway I go through hobbies like a comet through space. Every now and then a hobby would keep me interested longer than others, but of course it would eventually be forgotten because of a newer hobby. Eventually I decided on fish since I could have a dog in my apartment/dorm on campus. I started with a 10 gallon freshwater with two bubble goldfish and a dojo. The dojo was BY FAR the best fish I had ever had. It would come up to be petted, do tricks for food, the thing was awesome. Well due to the little knowledge I had, the filter I had was just not enough to maintain the poopage the goldfish were dishing, and me overfeeding them did not help. Dojo died, and I was so pissed off that I took the goldfish back. My fiance made fun of me saying I grounded them. I then got some barbs, but got bored with them and later got a spotted puffer. I upgraded him to a 29 gallon, but the TRUE spirit of freshwater love was when I wanted to have live plants. When I had to come to summer school this summer I had to leave my hard work of my lighting for the 29 gallon and have nothing. I found my 10 gallon I left here and thought what the ****, why not? Well it paid off, now I have a fully planted tank with all the goodies, and it forced me to actually use a nice digital camera my dad got me for christmas. Can't wait to show everyone! Muwahaha... and next will be the 29 gallon

[Doraemon]

Hi! Thought this would be a great place for my first post.

I am a complete newbie. I recently bought a house with my boyfriend, instated a 2 tank max rule and set up a 10g on my kitchen bar. It was my boyfriend's idea to set up that tank. He's been doing this for quite a few years. I talked him into letting me set up this one. We decided on a planted tank and bought a package of plants online along with one betta from a lfs.

Most of the original plants wilted and died. I was able to salvage a bit of everything and bought some more at a lfs. I have since upgraded the light twice. Started out with a light that was way too small for the tank. Then bought one that fit but later found out that it was under powered for my plants. I did't realize that all my plants need intense lights! We ended up with a 72W compact fluorescent.

So here I am almost 4 weeks after setting up my first tank....and already thinking of breaking the 2 tank rule...

[Sum22]

When I was a kid my brother had a tank with some glowlites and a few glass catfish. I thought the glass cat rocked, which is why we got them in the first place. I never really thought about it til after I graduated from college, and got a better paying job. I decided that I wanted to get a fish tank for my own pleasure, and not something that would be destroyed by a younger bro that didn't know what he was doing.

I went to wal-mart and purchased a 10g set-up with plans of adding some glass cats and neon tetra (I prefered the neons to the glow-lites). I couldn't find any glass cats in my town, so I bought 3 neon tetras. They lived fine in the tank for about 3 weeks. I decided to get 2 more, but after reading here about bad fish at walmart, I went to a LFS and got 2 more. Unfortunantly, the neons got NTD from the LFS tetras and all died within a week. I didn't know they had neon tetra until I went to the LFS and noticed all their neons were dead. When i asked he said it was NTD.

So, 3 weeks into my adventure I was a little upset because I had a tank with no fish. My friend saw some zebra danios she liked and suggested I get a couple of them along with some white clouds. I decided I liked the zebras because of their activity level, and came to love the white clouds because they are very colorful.

I then purchased 1 more of each, zebra and white cloud along with a betta. At that point I had 3 zebras and 3 white clouds and Fred (Betta). One day my friend stopped in a fish store to find glass cats and brought me home 3 of those.

I happy to say that all my fish are doing well, even the one with the fungus. If things continue to go well I plan on getting a much larger tank after I move. I am thinking something over the 70g mark, but we'll see when I get there

We used to have fish when I was a youngster. My grandfather always kept a 10 gallon tank of guppies and neons. His tank was always meticulously clean and well cared for.

We kept the fifish tankor a few years, until I was old enough and big enough to nearly tip the thing over onto myself. That was the end of that. My parents got rid of it.

Here I am at 22 with a few pets [5 ferrets, 1 cockatiel], and a new fishfish tank, of course, am not as good as my grandfather, but my tank is meticulously clean and well cared for, but I dont think my efforts are working as well as his. But I refuse to give up.

I bought the fishtafish tank couple reasons. In defiance of not being able to have a dog, and because they're peaceful.

Now that I am in college [Almost done actually], in a small apartment, and stressed out completely due to the material and time in which I have to study it, I feel that a fish tank was the best thing to have. Did that run on sentence make any sense? Anyway, I spend countless hours staring at my fish. I watch them more then I watch television. It calms me down, relaxes my mind, they are tranquil, and I forget about the "abandoned" person I embalmed that day.

I love my fish tank, I hope to get a bigger one. If I can ever get this one established. Since I am new to this, I do have a lot of questions, repetative, and I apologize for getting on anyone's nerves.

Spell check went nuts. repetativerepetativeing

That is suppose to say: repetitive

[fishfreek]

edited for ya