Tell me what got you into the hobby

[Atitagain]

On 9/3/2021 at 7:57 PM, Streetwise said:

@Atitagain, I had something growing up that I didn’t appreciate until well into adulthood: excellent water. My folks had to drill a 400 foot deep well through limestone when they built their house in the mid 1970s. 

I was able to get away with 100% water changes when I didn’t know any better. The neighbors who built about ten years later, drilled a well and ended up with sulfur water.

My apartment and tanks are in a different town.

Recently, while treating my Betta, I did a test of my village water, and the Co-Op chlorine results were undetectable. I stopped using water conditioner over a year ago, when I learned that our water district does not use chloramine.

I don’t even have to off-gas my water now. I feel very lucky!

Never even thought to think about it. I’m on city water and have never tested straight out of the tap. Always just juiced with Fritz complete and didn’t think twice about it. 
 

off-gas? What is this? 

[Atitagain]

@Odd Ducki figured that you would still be deep into the hobby. It’s funny how things shape us, inspire us to shape many years of our lives. This may be kinda simple question “tell me what got you into the hobby”but a  very telling thread. May be my OCD but I’m a strong believer in the butterfly effect. It’s all the tiny decisions through every second that effects the next second. 
if I had never went to that party and seen an Oscar being hand feed…

anyways thanks for sharing, interesting story

 

[Streetwise]

@Atitagain, someone will reply with more chemistry details. The short answer is that if you have chlorine, and not chloramine, you can leave your water in another container for X amount of time, or Y amount of time with air/water flow, and it will be neutralized.

[Atitagain]

On 9/3/2021 at 10:01 PM, Streetwise said:

@Atitagain, someone will reply with more chemistry details. The short answer is that if you have chlorine, and not chloramine, you can leave your water in another container for X amount of time, or Y amount of time with air/water flow, and it will be neutralized.

Ahhh yes I read about this. To much info packing in my brain since joining here.

[Odd Duck]

On 9/3/2021 at 8:46 PM, Atitagain said:

Never even thought to think about it. I’m on city water and have never tested straight out of the tap. Always just juiced with Fritz complete and didn’t think twice about it. 
 

off-gas? What is this? 

Chlorine is a gas.  It doesn’t really want to stay in water, so if given the chance, it will evaporate.  Back before chloramines, we used to put our chlorinated tap water in a bucket with an airstone and run it for at least 24 hours and the chlorine would be gone unless there was a crazy amount in there.  If it reeked of bleach out of the tap, run it for 48 hours.

So many cities now use chloramines (a stabilized form of chlorine) that it isn’t safe to not use dechlorinator when using most city tap water.

[Dwayne Brown]

@Patrick_G I do still add dechlorinater, I feel its better to be safe then sorry.  

[Tanked]

Two things got me into the hobby:

I am a Pisces so the attraction to fish and water came naturally.

Having severe allergies as a child, I was told no plants, fur or feathers, So I got an aquarium.  We never got around to getting rid of the plants. cat, dogs, or birds.

[Brandon p]

My uncle gave me a 55gallon at 12 with the fish he had. I remember 2 silver dollars, 2 clown loaches, a huge pleco. They only thing I bought was a green severum that was sold to me as a Jack Dempsey. Underground filter. When I set it up I put 2 up tubes instead of the four he had and I left the other two in a 5 gal bucket about half full of water. 2 weeks later I went to clean up even thing and set aside for parts and one of the clown loaches comes siding out when I started to rinse it out. It was still alive and live 10 more years. I had no idea what I was doing. The books at the local library were not much help and there was no internet yet. I fell in love with a fish that I still love ❤️ but will probably never have. The Flame Angel. I’m in saltwater country but I really prefer fresh but that Flame Angel is cool