Saltwater & Reef

Melody · 04-13-2004, 02:50 AM

Hello all... I have been snooping around this site for two weeks now and this is my first post. What a great place! Wish I had found you all a LONG time ago...
I'll tell you a little about me... life story here... you may want to go get a cup of coffee. this is a long one

Im not so new to fish, my first tank was maybe 100-125 gal? (Im not sure because I was still a kid and it seemed huge at the time) It was a sort of hand-me-down from my father when he could no longer care for it. and it was full with four of the the biggest, meanest, grumpy Oscars you have ever met. It took two people to clean the tank, one to wrangle the fish and watch them, and the other to clean. One slip up and you would loose some flesh... 8O
Two of them were missing an eye, on opposite sides, and they would swim side by side. They ate, slept, & hunted like this. Pretty darn effective Strangest thing I have ever seen...
Gosh I miss those guys...

And then I took a break....
and I was fishless for quite some time...

And then Elvis came into my life... he was the most pathetic looking betta that I had ever seen. I think PetSmart was getting ready to throw him out, he was sitting on a bench in the little blue poop filled cup next to a bunch of dead bettas... I asked about him and the guy said if I could save him I could have him...
and I did...he lived for about 4 years by my kitchen sink in 1 1/2 gallons..

.(sorry...I didnt know)
Then Elvis developed some swim bladder problems, and swimming became very difficult and then Elvis was dead... He was lovingly planted in one of my flower pots that summer...

Gosh those were some pretty flowers that year...

and then my dreams came true...
I was able to talk my husband into getting a 10 gal. tank for our daughter for christmas.. I figured that way I would still be able to enjoy it a little and he did... I was elated...

THen Christmas morning I came down stairs and Santa had brought me the most beautiful 44 gallon tank I had ever seen, with a huge canister filter (that two brave little feeder guppies now paddle upstream in)and all the fixins!
On the "advice"

of my local pet store I got it cycled & stocked for a nice "community"... lost a few... and had a few tattered fins... I now have 44 gallons of what I like to think a beautiful aquarium of semi aggressive fish.
a ten gallon community tank and one of my newest additions a beautiful saphire blue betta named Elton.

Have had a couple of trials & tribulations... had a bad case of Ich... only lost one from that one... ( Hoover, my catfish) had never dealt with it before and no one told me about increasing air (only had plants) with temp... came home to a bunch of gasping fish...water change and two hours of taking a big cup and pouring water back into tank until hubby could get to Walmart & back with a air pump Thank God for 24 hour stores... everyone survied that one...
Lost Merry & Pippen (my Green Tiger Barbs) to a lovely Fungal infection, but now my school is back with more... seven in total...
well now that everyones coffee cups are empty.....
I should go... cant wait to get to know all of you...

~Melody