What are your greatest aspirations as a fish keeper?

[Minanora]

Ultimate goal/pipedream: Have a "fishroom" with some aquascaped tanks; some breeding projects, with reptiles/terrariums mixed in, and have my art studio in this same space. Pretty much just a room that I never want to leave. Not like a room with tanks stacked on racks, I want most of it to be like a space (a large space) in a home or a studio. But I would do the room with, air line, water line and drain line on each wall to make moving tanks around the room while redecorating easy. Solenoids for each wall of water supply. A dedicated R.O. holding tank and several CO2 tanks. Pipedream!

This will likely never happen. So my thing is just to have all of my tanks reach their happy place and have happy fish that live long lives. 😛 

 

OH OH OH! AND I also want either one of those papasan chairs or a big amazing beanbag in this space. The papasan chair that you can take the dish seat part off and play with on the floor like a human bowl as a child. 😄 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Minanora
Added stuff.

[AndEEss]

I'm pretty pleased with my current set up. 75g with a lot of bottom dwellers and some bigger tetras.

But occasionally I watch Aqua Design Amano videos on YouTube and think, man, I'd love a big 5', 150 gallon biotope or SA-themed rimless tank. 

Get a slow, directional flow going with some lily pipe outflows on one end and inflows on the other. A whole bunch of longggg Jungle Val waving in the current. Maybe a big log or a couple of rocks poking up above the surface. A bunch of cory cats, various tetras, and some ostracods and other microfauna. A semi-functional ecosystem.

[Widgets]

On 4/18/2022 at 11:17 AM, Jawjagrrl said:

Does that make this forum group therapy? 🙂 I've gone from zero glass boxes of water to six since August 2021. And that doesn't include the sister 75s in progress.

Hello. My name is Widgets, and I am a nerm with MTS...

[Odd Duck]

On 4/17/2022 at 4:27 PM, Guppysnail said:

It sure would be nice to NOT continuously have wet armpits and socks 🤷‍♀️🤣🤩

Tank top, towel handy over the other shoulder, and barefoot.  Socks take too long to dry.

[Tihshho]

Biggest aspirations are to keep this hobby alive and be able to share my experiences with it with the next generations of hobbyists. 

[EVoyager31]

Breeding! One day when I own my own house (with a basement), I will have racks and racks of tanks. 10s,40 breeders, etc. Start small with common species like neons and barbs, then once Ive mastered that move on to more challenging species. Hopefully I will be near a LFS I can sell to. I will also start growing and selling plants, I’ve seen many sellers have great success of ebay (one in particular has taken tons of my money) lol. My personal/show tanks will be in my living room or office. 
Maybe eventually (if I make enough $$) I will try my hand at saltwater too (keeping only).

 

It will take time and tons of research but thats the fun!

[Minanora]

@Widgets ORD 🤣

[Ken Burke]

I just want to keep discus. Some day I’ll get a tank for em

[drewzero1]

I used to want to do some serious breeding, but I absolutely don't want to get into the "racks of tanks" stage of MTS. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! People's levels of commitment to a hobby are no-one's but their own!) I'd like to get to the point where I can have one nice display tank and one project/breeding tank, and a summer pond outside.

I'm really interested in native fish. When I was a kid I used to love catching stuff and watching it in a tank for a while, so I'd like to try collecting now that I have some idea what I'm doing. Keeping white clouds has made me appreciate having an unheated tank that follows seasonal temperatures of my basement and watching the fish change their behavior based on the season.

Further down the line, I've always wanted to try saltwater. The corals are so cool and I'd love to try keeping something striking like cardinal pyjamafish. I figure that's best saved for after my child(ren) are grown a bit, assuming we still have any disposable income by that point. 😬 My SO said the other day that I should keep starfish instead of shrimp, so I've been looking at what that would take 😜

[gardenman]

Many years ago, I saw a pair of retired breeder Sailfin Mollies that were the most gorgeous fish I've ever seen. They were huge! At some point, I'd like to try to recreate that larger strain of Sailfin Mollies. In one of the Coop videos, they visited a breeder in Florida who'd had them in the past. I think the genetic potential is there to recreate the larger Sailfin Mollies. Breed the largest fry to the largest fry and do so over a period of years/decades and you could rebuild that line. They'd have a limited market as most people don't want to devote a large tank to something like a Sailfin Mollie, but they were just so gorgeous. They were about eight inches long, so you'd need a 55-gallon or larger tank for them, but they were impressive fish.

[Tihshho]

On 4/19/2022 at 9:05 AM, gardenman said:

Many years ago, I saw a pair of retired breeder Sailfin Mollies that were the most gorgeous fish I've ever seen. They were huge! At some point, I'd like to try to recreate that larger strain of Sailfin Mollies. In one of the Coop videos, they visited a breeder in Florida who'd had them in the past. I think the genetic potential is there to recreate the larger Sailfin Mollies. Breed the largest fry to the largest fry and do so over a period of years/decades and you could rebuild that line. They'd have a limited market as most people don't want to devote a large tank to something like a Sailfin Mollie, but they were just so gorgeous. They were about eight inches long, so you'd need a 55-gallon or larger tank for them, but they were impressive fish.

It's more than just Sailfin Mollies that were big back in the day. I've seen female guppies that were about 5" and males that were over 4" with their tail from breeders that were working to keep old strains of them going from back in the 50's. My Dad would tell me about those since I was a kid and it was nice for us to both see them as those were the guppies he remembered back in his day when he was part of his local Guppy Club as a kid. He also noted that there were Swordtails that pushed todays standards with big females being 7" and males with long swords making them closer to 10". I always took it as the stereotypical fishing story until I saw some myself or talked to his childhood friends who were also in the hobby.

[gardenman]

I've got some swordtails now that are pushing the seven-inch mark. The later developing males tend to grow the largest. The later developing makes them harder to sell for retailers though as buyers want the swords in a younger, smaller fish. I don't have any swordtails close to ten inches, but seven inches is pretty reachable for some of mine.

I think you could create dwarf and giant strains of most livebearers without a lot of trouble. The giant strains might be easier as a dwarf strain runs into live birthing issues. There's enough size variability in most livebearers that if you bred purely for size, you could probably create a giant strain without too much trouble. One of the issues would be that fish grow over their full lifespan, so a giant strain may appear relatively normal at sale and only explode in size over their lifetime. Could a breeder/retailer keep them until they'd reached their potential before selling them?

[Tanked]

On 4/18/2022 at 4:57 PM, Odd Duck said:

Tank top, towel handy over the other shoulder, and barefoot.  Socks take too long to dry.

I actually keep a few sleeveless shirts for servicing the aquariums and patio pond.

[malk_keblai]

Not that it's never been done before, but creating biotopes based on habitats in my native country is for sure an aspiration. The process of visiting the country for research and collecting purposes, while also spending time with family is such a complete package

[Hannah Parker]

I want to keep a fish alive for a long time. I just got a baby fancy goldfish for my 20 gallon long, and in the next year or two I would love to create the perfect 55 gallon for him and another goldfish, and maybe some tankmates, and watch them grow and thrive for years.