New to forum

[Jaimie]

I am located near Tampa, FL. As a kid my Dad always had a big tank in our house and I loved watching the fish. Wanted to have my own, but much smaller! Its a lot of work even on a small tank.

I currently have a 20 gal tank with mostly fancy tail guppies,which I am trying to breed, and a few bottom fedder types to help "clean a little". I also have a 2.5 gal tank with fancy tail guppy fry and a "vase" with a male beta that I swear gets excited to see me even when I'm not feeding him! LOL

I love the fancy tail guppies and are easy to breed naturally (not selective breeding yet). I like having the surprise of what the babies will look like as they are growing. Currently there are about 30 fry in the smaller tank, various ages (4 wks to 1 week).

I've had a few problems and lost a bunch of fish already but I am still learning! I can't seem to clean my gravel of debris with out stirring it all up and making the fish sick, or taking too much of the water out and then shocking my poor fish so that I loose a few. More frequent cleanings? A bucket to hold the water (instead of letting it down the drain) and a filter of sorts on the end of the hose to catch the debris... then maybe I can re-use the water back to the tank if I accidently take out too much ??? I'm going to try that next time!