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Newbie from Baltimore... may ask a lot of questions :).


the_greg
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Hi All-

I am an aquarium newbie. Well maybe not completely new. I had an aquarium 20+ years ago for a few years but that was a lifetime ago and I enjoyed it but when we moved to a new house we didn't have room for it while we renovated.

I stumbled back into this. Before Christmas I had googled "presents for old people" looking for a gift for my 80+ year old parents. One of the ideas on the list was this. I thought that was a great idea. My parents are animal lovers, live in a retirement community, lots of time, low maintenance. So I bought one, set it up, let it run for a while, and stocked it. It is still at my house as they have had covid for the last two weeks. I'll be dropping it off at their place next week.

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Once I had it setup I remembered how much I loved having fish before and since then have gone a little nuts and have added three more tanks. I started with the Betta tank (Mr. Blue)

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Then I made a tank in our family room:

IMG_0331.jpeg.5ba69bbdaae358a4c27bab7caff86418.jpegThen I put a tank of pea puffers on my desk where I work all day (my personal favorite):

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Last thing I've done so far is buy another 14g cube like above and a 10g quarantine tank.

It's been fun. Really into learning about plants. I never did that before.

Now for the challenges:

Back in the old days I never quarantined anything. I think I was just young, lacking internet, and didn't know better. So I've filled each tank without quarantining and without medicine. I lost 1 fish in the biorb, 7 fish in the family room, and 1 pea puffer. So I'm currently doing the med trio on everything.

I also didn't cycle (again didn't recall that was a thing). So I got things to temp, added de-chlorinator and bio kickstarter.

Learning my lessons.

I'm getting ready to build a 40g breader for 2 pairs of blue rams. Going to do that one right. Build next week, wait a few weeks, quarantine and med the fish, and hopefully have much better success.

The forum has been exceptionally helpful teaching this dog new tricks. Nice to have a community like this. I'm also going for customer of the month with Aquarium COOP I think. I've been placing an order every other day it seems. I don't know what the sticker thing is all about but I've gotten a lot of stickers. Nice job running the business @Cory. I've owned a bunch of different businesses and I am sure this one is challenging and rewarding.

Also have a well stocked local fish shop, House of Tropicals, in Baltimore. Can't speak to how they run things yet, but they have a ton of fish and supplies which is also nice.

Looking forward to meeting people.

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Welcome to the forum, I’m getting ready to get some rams as well such a wonderful fish!

There’s plenty of threads on here about the different ways to cycle your tanks. Or just ask in other threads. There’s plenty of helpful members on here.

you get a free sticker with every order, I need to update this pic Ive gotta a couple more since this was taken.332D5E97-4DA1-4C82-86DB-23B1CAF73D70.jpeg.544e4aa705db69d6cc1067e64fe8fbe7.jpeg

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Welcome @the_greg! If I could fly, I'd only be 20 minutes from you. 😄 (I live across the bay.) I've heard good things about House of Tropicals but I haven't gotten to visit yet. Nice rimless tanks, very snazzy. Glad you've found your way back into the hobby! And I hope your parents recover well and that they like their new fishy friends.

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Welcome @the_greg! I trained at Hopkins and know House of Tropicals too well! Spent a lot of money on Mbuna and rainbowfish at that place!

40 g breeder is a nice size tank. Should give you enough room for 2 pairs of rams. Are you buying 2 breeding pairs or are you grabbing a group of 5-7 and letting them pair off? I would do the later to save money as a breeding pair will cost you $$ online. They should be the last thing you add to the tank. They require pristine water and are not cold tolerant in the least wanting temps >80 and most breeders keep them in the mid-80s. I would get lots of wood, some cave like structures, smooth stones for them to lay eggs on and more plants then you can imagine to create sight breaks for when WW3 breaks out when they get to breeding age! @Fish Folkhas been breeding them with his boys for awhile and of course @Dean’s Fishroomis the master breeder of rams. 

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