This is part two of the series of me telling my aquarium keeping story to you and hopefully you sharing your stories with me.
Today I would like to tell you about my first real interest when it comes to aquariums and types of fish.
The reason I have put aquariums and types of fish in to one story is that they went hand and hand for me. As I am sure many of us have done when we first start out we were eager to give everything a go. Every waking hour I was looking at fish online, reading forums (mainly the FNZAS one) and searching TradeMe for deals on aquariums and fish.Within a couple of months I had a dozen aquariums tucked around my house with all sorts of fish in them, but the fish that were taking my interest the most were African Cichlids and in particular ones from Lake Malawi.
I had ps.demasoni, electric yellows, cobalt blues,kenyi, snow whites and one of my all time favorites bumblebees, just to name a few.
Very quickly it was apparent to me that I needed to keep these animals in an appropriate sized aquarium due to their nature and overall size they got and luckily enough for me I scored my first "big" aquarium not long after I started looking. It was 1500x700x700 made from 12mm glass and it came with a stand and an Aqua One CF2400 filter, I scored it for $500- I had hit the jackpot! That was the moment that I feel in love with big aquariums (little did I know it wasn't actually that big, but it was a giant to me at the time)
Once I got it home I filled it up with water, set up the filter got it up to temperature and threw all of my African Cichlids in to it in one go (missing out a cycle yet again, tut tut not a good practice). but it was missing something, off to my LFS I went and I bought a stack of plastic plants. I dropped them in and my master piece was completed! I was in love with it and I was so proud of what i had created.
I kept this tank running this way for 8 months or so before I moved on to a different style of fish, big nasty American Cichlids (but that is a story for another day) but my love for African cichlids stayed strong as I have had them many times since and still long to keep them and breed them still to this day.
If you have a story you would like to share with me about your journey of discovering your favorite fish or aquarium size please feel free to do so by replying below
Today I would like to tell you about my first real interest when it comes to aquariums and types of fish.
The reason I have put aquariums and types of fish in to one story is that they went hand and hand for me. As I am sure many of us have done when we first start out we were eager to give everything a go. Every waking hour I was looking at fish online, reading forums (mainly the FNZAS one) and searching TradeMe for deals on aquariums and fish.Within a couple of months I had a dozen aquariums tucked around my house with all sorts of fish in them, but the fish that were taking my interest the most were African Cichlids and in particular ones from Lake Malawi.
I had ps.demasoni, electric yellows, cobalt blues,kenyi, snow whites and one of my all time favorites bumblebees, just to name a few.
Very quickly it was apparent to me that I needed to keep these animals in an appropriate sized aquarium due to their nature and overall size they got and luckily enough for me I scored my first "big" aquarium not long after I started looking. It was 1500x700x700 made from 12mm glass and it came with a stand and an Aqua One CF2400 filter, I scored it for $500- I had hit the jackpot! That was the moment that I feel in love with big aquariums (little did I know it wasn't actually that big, but it was a giant to me at the time)
Once I got it home I filled it up with water, set up the filter got it up to temperature and threw all of my African Cichlids in to it in one go (missing out a cycle yet again, tut tut not a good practice). but it was missing something, off to my LFS I went and I bought a stack of plastic plants. I dropped them in and my master piece was completed! I was in love with it and I was so proud of what i had created.
I kept this tank running this way for 8 months or so before I moved on to a different style of fish, big nasty American Cichlids (but that is a story for another day) but my love for African cichlids stayed strong as I have had them many times since and still long to keep them and breed them still to this day.
If you have a story you would like to share with me about your journey of discovering your favorite fish or aquarium size please feel free to do so by replying below
Cherie
February 02, 2021
I really enjoyed this story, reminds me alot of me right now! hahahaha. My journey started in September last year when my daughter wanted a fish for her birthday. (in my head, I was like ‘really? boring! but ok) so I brought her a 9lt Betta tank (we didn’t use it for Betta) and got her two beautiful male guppies and a bristle nose catfish. i watched my daughter get really excited about them, so i started watching them, and that’s were it all began really, I haven’t stopped watching since! Recently a great friend of mine called Karin brought her son 2 apple snails and she was like “come check out these apple snails” and i was like “well… I mean ok, but snails? woopdy doo” then she said, “you’ll see”.
I went to visit her snails, I’d never seen anythign like them! how anyone can see these and not become obsessed is a mystry to me (that’s very punny!) I couldn’e believe how big they were, how beautiful were, it was very pleasureable to watch them gliding around the tank, proforming (what looks like) beautiful ballet with their ‘feelers’. I WAS HOOKED. I asked my daughter if she wanted one, and she did (kinda of my excuse to get one for me really) we went and brought one, took it home and added it to our tank. I very quickly relasied that the tank was 2 small for all of them (and also I’ve become seriously obsssed with these snails! spening hours at night on the internet watching youtube videos about them). I need a bigger tank. Then I found a second hand 165lt tank. I brought it right away, then I joined some facebook mystry snails groups and started watching youtube videos on tank health and making sure the chemisty is right for these snails. Now my tank is just right, waiting for new snails!. I’m enjoying this new hobby emensely, now I’m a person who owns a fish tank and is in love with snails…… who even am I anymore hahahahahaha. This is a very exciting journey, I’m learning heaps, I can’t wait to see where it takes me.