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Why are you in the Aquarium Hobby?


MaxM
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Hi All,

I was recently wondering what causes people to be in the hobby. I personally fell into the hobby (long story). Once in, however, I've noticed that I find the hobby extremely relaxing and sometimes I just sit in front of my fish and just watch them for quite some time. I'm not sure what it is that causes such a calming affect, but I can say that this is the first hobby I've ever REALLY been into.

How about you?

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I know how I got into the hobby. When I was 9 years old I read a book about a boy who kept guppies and the humorous plot centered on how fast the guppy population got out of control. So I gathered a dozen quart jars and saved my allowance and bought some female guppies. I could see the babies developing in the gravid females and when the first babies were born I was excited. But when it turned out some the babies from gray moms were golden, I was hooked.

I think the why centers on glass boxes.

Glass boxes allow us in the comfort of our own homes to see from only inches away the intimate details of complex biological systems with all the majesty and drama that life on our planet brings. I have an honey bee observation hive in my house also and it is a completely different more engaging experience than the other 120 colonies I keep outside. Our fish aren't in a barn or an out yard, they are in our living rooms, bedrooms and even bathrooms and aquariums contain entire worlds of wonder.

And yet, I think this part is important too. Aquariums aren't completely dirt-easy. There is a learning curve and therefore a challenge. And just when you reach a new peak of competence there is yet another peak to climb, so it never get old. And the more you learn, the more fun and rewarding it is. It is a virtuous feed back loop.

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I think EVERYONE needs a hobby. I believd this to be true before i even got into aquriums. I just wanted an aqurium for my house, and decided my daughters birth in febuary was the perfect time. I had no idea about plants or anything. Now nearly 9 months later ive got three. a 5 gallon, a 10 gallon and a 65 gallon with an oscar. I have hundreds of hours invested into my tanks and i dont even wanna think about the hours online researching. It may even be a border line addiction.

I have a lot of things im interested in and things i take part in but nothing has grabbed me like this hobby has. Aqurium COOP has a role to play in that as their youtube page helps to normalise the idea of it as a "hobby"

 

Great post, got my brain jusices going. Cheers!

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I used to have a firemouth about a decade ago, when I was in college, that I would feed live ghost shrimp. I thought the ghost shrimp were pretty cool and would see them carry eggs, but was never able to keep them alive long enough to reproduce. I got rid of the tank and fish after college instead of trying to move them. I wouldn't say I was in to the hobby then. It was more like "check out my FIREmouth eat these live shrimp." I didn't think about keeping an aquarium again until several years ago when I saw a Flip Aquatics video and was introduced to cherry shrimp for the first time. I had to have them. I don't have a local pet store, so I ordered a five gallon from Amazon and ordered 10 shrimp from Rob. That was four years ago, and now I have the 5g, a 4g, a 12g, a 20g, and two 2.5g tanks along with 6 species of community fish and numerous plants. It started back because of a genuine curiosity in shrimp and a need for something to focus on other than my stressful managerial job. I left the stressful job 2 years ago, but the hobby stayed.

 

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COVID hit and my home office felt really empty and boring. There was nothing to look at. My dog doesn’t like sleeping in there, my cats are more distracting than need be during a Zoom call. 
 

I kept fish as a kid (along with a variety of reptiles, rodents, amphibians, cats, dogs, insects, etc) and liked them. I tried them again as an adult, failed because I had no clue about the nitrogen cycle and thought it was me. Then I went full tilt into houseplants for a few years and got good at those, did terrariums and water gardens and propagated a bunch of plants and killed a bunch of plants but eventually figured out what works for me, etc.

When COVID hit I was thinking geckos and got fully into Clint’s Reptiles, but most of what I liked was either a) nocturnal, b) easily eaten or horrifically wounded by my cats, or c) both. Then I thought hey, I used to like fish. Guppies were fun and pretty and cheap. I wonder if there’s anyone on YouTube who covers fish like Clint covers reptiles. 

aaaaaannnnd here we are now. 

Edited by RovingGinger
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I’ve dabbled in the hobby since the ‘80’s,  mostly out of the hobby.  It’s hard to keep fish when you move every 2.5 years.  At least that was the average time on station while I was in the Air Force. Anywho, my wife got a betta, and MTS set in.  Since I Don’t need to PCS anymore, I don’t need to worry about starting over and over. 
 

 

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@RovingGingeri too caught gecko fever and found Clints Reptiles, I now have 4 crested geckos... but onto aquariums. When my dad was a kid he had a fish tank in his bedroom, so when I was a kid we were allowed to get bettas. Granted, none of us knew what we were doing and id be horrified by how I kept them now, but that’s besides the point. My first real “tank” tank was a 10 gallon community that was way overstocked and had the weirdest mix of fish ever, but I got a Platy at petsmart to add orange color to the chaos, and ended up with 4 babies per month for a while. The original one died, and a few months later babies started popping up again. Finding those babies is what really sealed this hobby for me, the idea that I could make more of something living like that on my own was mind blowing at the time, and is my long term goal with the hobby now. That tank did eventually crash, and for my entire high school life I would randomly ask to set it back up again and my parents always had an excuse not to. Low and behold, the moment I got to college my roommate and I started getting fish tanks, and I’ve now been in the hobby a bit over two years. What keeps me most interested at the moment is that I’m always learning. There’s a million different things you can do with this hobby, and a million ways to do them. Getting to learn how to keep a beautiful slice of nature at home and always having something new to learn about has been my favorite part recently, partly because I’m limited in what I can physically keep. Being able to breed things and make babies of various species is my other motivator, and I’m excited to get a shrimp colony going again hopefully soon. 

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5 hours ago, Ken Burke said:

I’ve dabbled in the hobby since the ‘80’s,  mostly out of the hobby.  It’s hard to keep fish when you move every 2.5 years.  At least that was the average time on station while I was in the Air Force. Anywho, my wife got a betta, and MTS set in.  Since I Don’t need to PCS anymore, I don’t need to worry about starting over and over. 
 

 

forgive me for my ignorance, but what does MTS stand for?

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Jacques Cousteau specials got me hooked on underwater environments. I was given his books for a couple Christmas’ and I was hooked. My first tank was a turtle tank and a lack of research led that tank (turtle went back to the shop) becoming a fancy goldfish tank - 55g it was gorgeous and I remember going to a fancy goldfish purveyor and seeing vat after vat of fish and just was mesmerized. I kept koi for awhile in ponds and grow out tanks - sold them for a fortune to me at the time and then used that money to get into cichlids SAs, CAs then Malawi’s through high school. Then college came and I got out until my late 20s. I did my biggest and best Malawi biotope had a gorgeous rainbow tank and man I had fun. Then early 30s and some moves and marriage I was out again. I talked a lot about the impact it had on me as a stabilizing and centering thing so my wife got me a 15 g Flex for my birthday last year and now I have MTS and 6 more tanks. 

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2 hours ago, MaxM said:

forgive me for my ignorance, but what does MTS stand for?

Multi-Tank Syndrome (MTS) despite all the money poured in to hobby, all pledges at the MTS telethon and we are still no closer to a cure than we were in 1930s.

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10 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Multi-Tank Syndrome (MTS) despite all the money poured in to hobby, all pledges at the MTS telethon and we are still no closer to a cure than we were in 1930s.

I've noticed that a lot of people in the hobby have multiple tanks. I didn't realize that it was an addiction. 🙂 

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Sadly yes, it often starts with gateway fish like a 'free' goldfish but very soon moves on the hard stuff and next thing you know you are hiding your spending on your 'fishroom' from your spouse.

My name is Daniel and I keep tropical fish.

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I have kept fish since I was 12 years old, I got bit by the fish keeping bug when I had two angelfish pair off in their community tank and lay eggs. The first time, they ate all the eggs, then I started reading up on how to raise them (this was late 80s, no internet) and was bound and determined to raise the fry. I finally succeeded, and I was overjoyed when the LFS owner paid me for the youngsters when I took them in. 

Keeping fish tanks I think at times has kept me sane at times. When I have been down, I can go stare into an underwater world and escape, at least for a short time, the real world that is going on around me.

@DanielI know what you mean, hiding fishroom spending from the spouse. I do sell shrimp, plants and fry to help with some of my spending.

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9 hours ago, RovingGinger said:

COVID hit and my home office felt really empty and boring.

Someone from work said on Slack yesterday "I really miss the chatter in the office", I said "I don't miss it at all, I prefer the trickling sound of water from my fish tanks". 

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I was born into the hobby. My mother was a Betta and Cichlid breeder, so MTS was normal in my house. She had tanks all over, dedicated live culture shelves, grow out tanks. They were mostly confined to a "fish room" but there was spillover. There's always spillover. I remember moving across country, my parents had to rent an extra moving truck full of tanks, stands, buckets and bags of fish. I've had at least 1 tank in my room that I was entirely responsible for taking care of since I was 7 years old. Out of 4 kids, I was the only one that had any interest in my mom's aquatic obsessions. 

I was always drawn to feeder guppies as a kid. I loved their patterns, they were cheap (I liked to pay for things on my own) happy, and in a way I felt like I was rescuing them. I got a pair of Jewel cichlids when I was 10 and absolutely fell in love. They were grumpy, stubborn, ornery little explosions of glittery color that ate earthworms from my hand. My childhood experiences with fish still carried over into adult years. Sweet little prolific Livebearers and grumpy Cichlids are what fill my fishroom today. 

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I know how I got it into the hobby, because well it was a family affair.  We have kept tanks since I was a youngin' back in the early 80s.  

I stayed in the hobby because as years went on I found it was a great source of being mindfulness and helping me with anxiety.  Just taking the time to sit and watch the fish and the plants really does help to ground and center me. 

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I had a couple small tanks at various stages of my childhood with goldfish. Knowing what I know now makes me wonder how I kept them alive. I remember, as a child, my Dr. Office having a beautiful aquarium and was always fascinated by it. January, this year I dove in with a 45gallon high. A lot of research and youtube has filled me with more knowledge this time. I now have 5 tanks, 75g, 45g, 30g, 20g, 10g. I truly enjoy creating these amazing ecosystems in glass boxes to learn from, but also to sit back, lost in the Tranquillity of them. I love my hobby!

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My wife and had always bought a goldfish or two for the my son and other kids she babysat, and again when our niece and nephew were smaller and around a lot. Eventually the fun would wear off and my wife would get tired of the hassle. i wasn't interested much at the time because I traveled often. Last September it all changed when we let the 3 yr old granddaughter pick a couple of fish out at our local Meijer store. Next thing I know - I find out they are tropical and need a heater and filter. One year later I've gone from that little 1/4 gallon cube to my recent upgrade -  a 60 gallon setup.. 😀 And now, Pappy and granddaughter are hooked- Big Time...

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My 9th grade science teacher had a 75 gallon malawi african cichlid tank. I loved all the vibrant colors and the behaviours of the cichlids. When I saw that there were fry swimming around, it got me really interested and made me want to start keeping fish. Of course I started with african cichlids 🙂

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