What Made You Want A Freshwater Aquarium?

[ares]

I love fish. They are so peaceful and calming to watch. In all actuality I would love to have a saltwater tank, but I lack the time as well as the money that a saltwater tank would require. College is a very busy place. I did want to have fish though, (Other than my betta) so I decided to go with a 10 gallon freshwater tank. Eventually I would love to get a large reef tank running, but I don't think that I'll be able to do that for a few more years still. At least not until after college.

[mn0270100]

I started fishkeeping at age 16 (1985). I bought my first tank after I started workin' for a living. I started with a 10g. Being very new, and inexperienced in keeping fish, the whole tank got ich and died. But I was determined for no other reason than I liked the sound of the bubbling water in my bedroom at night! I broke the tank down, cleaned everything and started over, learning from my mistakes as I went.

A couple of years later I added a 29g while keeping the 10g up and running.

Some time after that my (then girlfriend / now wife) wanted me to set up a fishbowl for her 2 year old son. (Against my better judgement) I did. They loved the bowl, but wanted an aquarium. I took the bowl home as a rescue attempt (my only real unsavory long-term experience with fishkeeping) and set up another 10g for the Girlfriend and her son. At this point I was maintaining my 29g, 10g, the goldfish bowl – and a "remote" 10g (at the girlfriend’s place).

By now I was finishing college and moving out on my own. I moved into a SMALL apartment with a roommate, and (initially) did not set up any tanks. I (very quickly) got bored and missed my fish. I spoke to my roommate and (again) set up a 10g in a small corner of the apartment.

By now it is now 1993 (8 years later). One wedding (mine), two moves, and the purchase of a "fixer-upper" house finally caused me to give up the tanks.

We fixed up and sold the "fixer-upper" and in 1999 had a custom home built. Still no room for tanks. We built a 2 bedroom home, with the plan that we would be adding 2 more bedrooms in the basement, but the basement was unfinished, and I wanted my tank(s) down there. As we approached Christmas, my (now) 13 year old stepson had a large Science Fair project coming up, so we took care of both by buying him a new 10g tank, setting it up, and doing his Science Project on the Nitrogen Cycle. (He finished 2 nd). Needless to say while helping him out with his tank, I got that "itch" again.

Well, the basement is just about finished (well, enough to set up a tank again). I dug out an old 30g tank that belonged to my sister from my parents house. I just finished building a "rough" stand for it and am starting to pick up items I need to get it up and running. I have been researching fish, fish tanks, equipment, etc (since I have had a nine year hiatus from the hobby some things have changed / improved), and have decided on setting up a Shell Dwelling Cichlid tank.

Regards,
David

[Grant R]

I didn't really have any real reason or background for wanting fish. I suppose my main attraction was that an aquarium could be and should be for life. They are also very therapeutic and calming to watch. Also, possibilities with fish keeping are endless, in all area's.

My aim / goal now is to build my current tank with tropical fish up as much as possible, adding features & gaining knowledge on all aspects as I go.

The end goal being to have a massive saltwater aquarium, with lots of different, beautiful fish.

[Toomanyfish]

I didn't really want a tank in particular. I was just a kid, maybe 6 or 7 and my best friend and I had gone to the local pond and caught some small bluegills. Brought them home in a bucket and my dad took pity on them and me and went out and bought me a 10g. One of the old steel framed jobs with the corner filter with floss and carbon. No hood, lights or heater (of course). This was set up on my desk next to the window. Some gravel for the bottom and a couple of plants and it was all set. To show you how ignorant I was of fishkeeping, I used to strip the tank down once a week! The fish and plants went into bowls (my mom didn't like that part too much), then I would scoop out 2/3 of the water with another bowl, then take the whole thing into the bathroom and rinse the gravel and glass (I knew enough not to use soap), changed the filter floss and carbon and replace all the water. I also knew enough to get the temp matched and to use the water conditioner too. Even though this was pretty drastic, I never had an algae problem, and I never lost a fish either. In fact, the bluegills grew so large, I would have to replace them every couple of months or so. I would turn the large ones back loose in the pond and catch me a new batch......
Nowadays, you wouldn't find me doing something so drastic unless I had a horrible problem. And unfortunately, I don't keep native fish anymore either. It seems everytime I have a new tank, it ends up being used for something else.
So now these many years later I'm up to 6 tanks at the moment, 3 salt, 3 fresh. I do plan on another tank, a fresh for some fish that will soon outgrow the tanks they are in. I'd also like to do another salt tank.....or 2....

[NetBloke]

I seem to always have fish. When I was young we had a tank of goldfish. They all lived to a ripe old age and just basically swam around a medium size tank. Nothing too exciting.

When I started high school my friend and I got into Freshwater Tropical Fish. I had a couple of community tanks in my bedroom, and then got into breeding some cichlids. As i breed a "batch" I would have to find an aquarium that I could offload them on so I had room for more fish.

When I started traveling the world my fish took a back seat and my mother looked after them. Currently I believe my tank in Australia is fairly dead. I don't think mum was doing water changes. She did have my bristle noses breed, but they all died before my last trip home. I was pretty bummed as I had always wanted to breed those.

When we bought our house here in Des Moines Iowa (USA), I was amazed at how big it was, and always thought the big basement had a room perfectly suited to a becoming a fish room. However firstly I wanted a 55 gallon for my entry way as a display tank. The cost of a new setup that I could live with was going to run in excess of $500 so that put a hold on that.

Then I realised I could buy second hand. I ended up getting my display tank, stand, filter AND 4 more tanks of various sizes, and some fish for $400.

So this leaves me with a display tank in my entry way, it houses my 2 pairs of electric blue cichlids which I want to breed ( I know they have in the past) and 2 small pelcos for algae control. Another in my office (if you look at my webcam on my web site you may see it sometimes - it has a big Mexican cichlad in it). I also have started my fish room. So far I have two 10 gallon tanks which I plan on expanding to four or five soon. I also have two 20 or 30 gallon tanks (don't ask me specifics I am Australian and we use the metric system!). They house one huge pelco and at least 60-70 Yellow cichlids.

All of my fish came from the lady who sold me the tanks. In turn they were a legacy from her son.

So far I have upgraded one filter to a Tetratec with internal heater, which is nice but a little too noisy for my office so it went downstairs to the fishroom. It works great though.

I also want to get a canister filter for the 55 Gallon display tank, as then I can hide the piping more. I had Eheim filters back in Australia but they aren't as popular here. Fluval seem the best bang for buck in canisters.

Ultimately I want to have live plants too. I hate the fake ones. Yet currently I haven't found any local stores that have good ones. They all look like crap to me. Once I get a few decent ones I will be able to propagate them myself for all my tanks I hope (if anyone has some spare Java Fern or swords let me know!).

Anyway that is my journey so far. Marine doesn't seem to be my thing yet. It just seems to be more expensive to get into. When I do try my hand at it I imagine I will have a display tank with nice corals and the like. I see the fish in marines as secondary, but that is just my opinion.

[swmmnglessons]

I'm one of those people who'll get really interested in something (almost obsessed) and then get tired of it after a while. Well about 2 months ago, for some reason, I started wanting a puppy. I got so obsessed and my fiancee was ready to throw me out. So I started using our 2 year old as an excuse saying he needed a pet to play with...Well then I brought up a goldfish, said it'd be fun for him to learn to feed it, but secretly it was me trying to get my way. I'm a shopaholic too...lol...So I go out to Wal-Mart, and knowing nothing about fish, I bought a medium sized fishbowl, a feeder goldfish and a black moor. I went home, put the gravel in (didn't even rinse it off), put the water in (didn't dechlorinate or anything) and plopped in the fish (didn't float for 15 mins either). Well needless to say, I did everything wrong and 2 fish was way too many in that sad little bowl. Well the black moor was dead by the next morning. I kinda figured the goldfish would die too if i didn't do something so I went back to good old Wally World and bought a 5 1/2 gallon kit, not knowing it'd be a waste of money too since you can't really keep any fish in it since it's so small. So in goes the goldfish and then I figured he needed some friends. So not knowing you shouldn't mix goldies and tropical fish because of their differnces in temps, I bought 4 neon tetras. The goldy eventually died but the tetras are still here so I guess they're tough little suckers. I've since added on and now have three tanks, only one of which has fish...lol

[Katfish]

I started with a black molly in a fruit bowl at age 14, started saving money to buy a 10 gal tank for about 3 months. I finally bought it at the end of November, just the tank, they sold everything seperatly back them.
Then in December i got another 10 gal tank as a christmas gift from my Aunt who didnt know that i had one allready.

I didnt know much about taking care of them, had mollies and guppys and a few catfish, after awhile they started multiplying and the color combinations were awesome, i got into buying all sorts of stuff to put in the tanks. Had 3 air pumps and a whole bunch of plastic tubing and two charcoal filters. I started to dred when it came time to clean the tanks, it used to take me hours to finish it, but looked great once i did. I got a blue flourecent light bulb that really made a spectacular show. The fish kept multipying and at one general clean-up i counted 102.

Needed to go off to the University so i started giving my fish away and even sold a few, population was a around 70.

Now 20 years later i started again, got a 10 gallon tank and this time put in other type of fish, trial and error, then sold the 10 gal and got me a 20 gal, and a few more fish. I had a red tail shark that grew about 2.5 inches long that looked great for 3 years and 2 angel fish that grew pretty big compared to the other fish, tetras, bloodfins.

So now i am ready for a 30 gal and keeping the 20 gal. Getting a made to order stand for each from a carpenter friend and still going with some trial and error, only this time, with all of your help, keeping the errors to a minumum.

Katfish

[fishfreek]

Great story Katfish.

Thanks for shairing.....

[nikki]

I love animals and specially cats but afer the death of my last one (he was 16) I decided not to have another one as the road near the house is really dangerous now. So I feed the birds in the garden and got a rabbit, but it's not enough so I turned to fish. I was advised to start with a fresh water fish tank and I started my tank a few months ago. Now, I have 10 rasbora hengeli, 6 kuhli and 3 ancistrus. I'm planning to add a couple of colisa lalia and a betta splendens. My tank is a 120 liter planted tank.
I love my fish. It's a great hobby, I read books on them, I do research on the Internet and I joined a club in my town.

[hisc1ay]

Well, my story for this one is simple. I kinda always wanted to keep a tank, and one day my uncle gave me a 5.5 and some guppies, so that was that. I added some fishies and I've pretty much been keeping a tank since then.

-j