Hello all! My name is Bryan. I am new to this hobby and website and figured I should give you a little background info as to how I got into the hobby.
As a child growing up, I had a goldfish bowl or 2. I've always been fascinated by fish and aquairums. About 6 years ago I owned a 20
gal fw tank. About a year after I bought it I ended up giving it away after everything died off. I kick myself for that now but at the time I was more focused on chasing women lol.
About 2 years ago I found my love. She is an absolute animal freak! She had never owned a fish tank before tho and we talked about maybe getting one at one point. About 8 months ago we decided to give it a go but at this point in time I was focused more on guitar. She wanted to breed Guppy's. Not my thing. Don't get me wrong, its interesting just not something I'm into. We got a few tanks for the adults and fry and I helped her with it. A month or 2 after we started we had a house fire and lost everything.
Well mid December of last year we were at our
lfs shopping for the animals and I impulsively decided to buy an aquarium kit that was on sale. Before this point I will admit that I knew absolutely nothing about the hobby. I got the kit, a dozen or so fish, substrate ect. Fill the tank with water, fish ect, how hard can it be? It took less than 7 days for nts ( new tank syndrome) to plague the tank killing all but 3 fish ( which I still have). Luckily the
lfs had an awesome return policy and I got money back for the poor fish I killed lol :/.
Since then I have gone crazy! I'm constantly reading and researching the hobby. I am proud to say that after reading about cycling and the different ways to do it, tons of water changes and a little patience, that my tank has been cycled for almost 3 months now! My fish are lively, healthy, comfy in their environment and I couldn't be happier!
I've learned a lot of things since being in the hobby. It never hurts to research, read, seek advice and I'm not sure it will ever stop. Another thing I have learned is that everyone has an opinion. Some are similar to others while some seem rather extreme, at least to me. Never the less, I value any and all feed back, criticisms, advice and suggestions. I didn't get this far without it.
Thank you for reading my endless ramble. I'll see you all in the questions thread lol. Take care and have a nice day!