I remember my dad having an aquarium when i was a kid, and I used to love going to the petshop and seeing all the different fish they kept there.
When I was about seven we moved overseas, and we didnt keep anymore fish for a while, then I remember keeping a betta every once in a while, as kids we used to fight them and try to get them to breed. On one ocasion my mother bought me and my brother a 5 galon tank, colored gravel, fake plants and a flourescent hood. The tank lasted about as long as the bulb did.
Fast foward a couple of years and I was finishing college, this one day i go over to a classmates appartment and i see he has two bettas one his and one was his girlfriends. So i had a flashback of when I was a kid and used to make them fight. I was surprised to know my friend didnt know about this so i said you want to see something cool ....And I put the two fish close together and they started flairing and trying to intimidate each other..This turned out to be very fun especialy when a few beers are involved. ..Anyway we had our fun and the next day we were telling some people in our class about it and my girlfriend overheard...She surprised me the next day with just about the biggest betta Id ever seen in my life. I loved it but just kept it in its bowl for the time being...Then one day Im at my girls house and shes all excited and giddy and tells me to go to her room...
..............She bought me a ten galon kit..
I of course was thrilled as soon as i got home I got started..of course i was a total noob and made just about every mistake in the book...I bought two of each fish..added water straight from the tap etc..around the same time my best friend got himself a kit too and set up... After killing just about every fish that went into the tank I decided to get some books and slowly worked my way from there...The last (mistake) I made with that tank was when one day i went to the petshop and i saw these little blueish purple fish with dark vertical stripes across their bodies....I thought cool these look just like saltwater fish..sic....sicllids...ohh Chiclids..ok ill take 4 of those...And just like that I was introduced to the African Chiclids ....Kenyi or psudotropheus lombardoi..to be exact..I was instantly addicted...About a month later i took two of them back to the store and just kept the other two which later turned out to be a pair. I kept reading, used the internet, and eventualy learned how to properly care for them (not that I was doing too much in a 10 gal with two cichlids in it) long story short..they didnt kill each other but all **** would break loose if one crossed into the others territory. Despite knowing better I decided to keep my fish as i liked them very much and even got to the point where they would let me touch them when i fed them..Ive had them for about 1 year and a half by then...One day im staring at my tank and i notice a little purple thingy in one of the tiny holes in a rock i had in the tank...I take a closer look and ..........................................WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOt.....
It was a tiny little baby ..yeaaahhhhhhhhhh ...I was so excited.....I kept on looking and found 3 more...Inmediately i took out the two parents and kept them in a small 2 gal plastic aquarium i had purchased earlier for some reason... after a few week the fry had grown significantly and reluctantly i took them back to the petshop....The clerks looked at me amazed and asked me what I did and how i accomplished this...I said i didnt i found them in there by accident.... a few months later I decided to move back to the states and so I did...
A few months of being here made me a little homesick an i missed looking at my tank..So i was with a friend one day and he said he needed to stop for dog food. so we walked into a pet supermarket and there it was a 20 gal kit for about 100 dolars..I couldnt resist...I bought it ..set it up
cycled it this time and a few days later went to get some fish...thats where i saw kribs for the fist time...and instantly fell in love with them....
Ive had my tank for about 2 months now and ive learned alot...Especialy the fact that im still a noob.....
My goal is to one day keep a huge reef tank ...Ill get there eventualy.