What Made You Want A Freshwater Aquarium?

[TUCCI]

Well let’s see….I remember I was in my 20s and I wanted to build my own stand for a 55g tank. I had a job working in a small Elementary School in south Phoenix as a custodian. Part of my job was to irrigate the fields with irrigation water. This particular memory, I recall getting the water flowing and sealing myself up in the wood shop. I spent the whole night building a stand for my tank. By the time daylight came I had completed it. It was my first freshwater tank and with the exception of the span between 2013 and 2022 I’ve had countless fresh and salt tanks with freshwater being my favorite as I have an issue with keeping saltwater fish. No hobby has always kept my attention and enjoyment including having countless motorcycles. There’s no comparison….

 

[C.w.deegan]

It all started with a bag of dog food lol. My wife kids and me went to a local pet store to get some food for are dog, when my 2 boys were looking around they noticed the fish section. They were around 3 and 5 years old at the time and the kept trying to get me to go look at the fish with them and asking me to get them a tank for their bedroom. They liked the looks of the tetra glofish and thought they were cool and kept begging me to get them a tank lol. Long story short within a week they had a 10 gallon tank and a few glofish in their room on the dresser. I was the one who set it up and did the maintenance on it and I started to enjoy doing the upkeep on the tank. so I went out and got a 40 gallon for the living room about a month laterand set it up and me and my wife stocked it woth what we liked. Now 4 years later the original 10 and 40 gallon are still running and I also have a 55 and a 20 as well now lol. The 10 became a betta tank the 20 is the glofish tank now and the 40 and 55 are community tanks with a lot of variety between the 2 tanks.

 

[Jacky12]

Well, I was meandering around Walmart and their 20 gallon kit appealed to me. Now I have ten tanks, two are 125 gallons. Most important thing I’ve learned is to seek out used tanks. I have saved the big bucks, even had a guy deliver the 110 straight to my kitchen. Great price!

 

[Joe_D]

As to why I have freshwater Aquarium as apposed to a saltwater one.....

I got my first real aquarium in the early 1970s
Back then, stetting up a saltwater tank was much more involved as there was no pre packaged "sea water" like there is now.
You had to add you own chemicals and keep testing it to see if it was finally safe for salt water fish,

It is of course much simpler now of course,

When I got back into having a tank again I chose a fresh water tank as that is what I am familiar with. :

 

[Kuhli44Neon]

Salt water tank too expensive

My mum kept many kinds of freshwater fish in multiple aquariums and raised a few different kinds. I learned from her. We only kept seahorses as saltwater fish, but even they require a lot more care. Our saltwater efforts were limited to brine shrimp.

 

[syhko]

I am so late!

It all started from my boyfriend and I at a fair and decided to play a game to save the goldfish. It was so negligent as you would throw ping pong balls into small bowls filled with goldfish and the water was dye colored. Those fish were beyond stressed. I didn’t know the first about this stuff, but my boyfriend and I won a few fish and decided to save up our fish tickets to get a free fish house and a goldfish of our choice. We named him Asa.

Yeah.. the beginning was rough. Bought a 3 gallon kit and put Asa in it, without water conditioner or anything. He lived pretty long for being a fair fish, he was a trooper. I cried hysterically when he died a month later.

It’s been a year since then and I now own 3 tanks! I learned a whole lot. I have a nano tank, a bottom feeder tank, and still trying to figure out what to do with the other tank. Love my freshwater tanks! And I find myself learning more everyday.

Rest in peace Asa, you were a real one.

 

[Jacky12]

Cleaned all the canister filters. What a job. Shopped for a new one, can’t decide what kind. Beginning to think all Fluval products are overpriced and I can do better.

 

[bulatz]

i live in a condo that im not sure likes animals and being an animal lover i randomly decided to get a fish tank lucky me my neighbor who i work with had a 75 gallon that he wanted to sell cheap . so far about 3 months in i love it, spent a little under 1k after 3 months which hurts slightly but ive enjoyed it very much. i got a community tank with some different types of loaches my fav and for some reason i bought alot of angelfish, they are funny but annoying. i be tryin to find my loaches hiding and they swim right in my line of site all 8 of them always hungry. i wish they wouldnt follow me every time im at my tank haha.

 

[MooseMama]

My fishkeeping obsession began 18 years ago when my daughter, whom I was homeschooling using the Montessori method, was ready to move on from studying invertebrates to vertebrates. We had done catch-care-and-learn-and-release for a number of invertebrates at that point and she had proven herself a great lover of animals as well as old enough to participate in most aspects of small animal care.


After a tremendous amount of research, help, and advice from the Aquamaniacs community, I got a betta, Finnigan, for her in an uncycled tank while cycling a 5 gallon as his ultimate home. We learned about fish needs, water testing, the nitrogen cycle, and so much more. When the "big" tank was fully cycled we had a very lengthy tea party to celebrate and make the transfer.


And then I found Gilligan. He was in a pathetic little cup filled with debris and at first I thought he was dead. His coloring was a very light lavender, with clamped fins, but I noticed that he was still slightly breathing.


I had gone into the pet store for Finnigan's bloodworms. I came out with a mostly dead fish, the cheapest 5 gallon I could find, and a heater. Within two days of clean water and room to swim we discovered that he was a double crown-tail and his healthy colour was a vibrant purply-blue.


That's how I got started. My fishkeeping expanded to two cycled tanks with live plants and three uncycled. I loved it, but a few years later my life changed drastically and fishkeeping had to be phased out.



Someday I hope to have my own fish again, but for now I unexpectedly have a school aquarium to care for with species in it that are new to me. I'm getting to re-learn those skills from long ago.