How long have you been in the hobby for?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 10/20/2022 at 11:08 AM, Patrick_G said:

Round one:

I got started as a kid in the 70s because my mom was into pets of all sorts. I often had  tank or two in my bedroom and my mom had a 75 in the family room.

Round two:

After not having a tank for a while I got into cichlids because they were cool and a few of my friends kept them. I did some breeding and it was fun but eventually lost interest in my college years.

My journey is like Patrick's.  We always seemed to have a 10g tank.  Had one as a kid, then when I was like 10-ish we got a 20g hex. Also had a 10g in high school.  Then I went off to college; I think I may have given the fish away to neighbors that had fish tanks?  After college I started up the 29g and had cichlids.  Then moved from PA to FL.  The fish in a bucket w/ airstone - well, there was some loss on the trip.  From what I could see, some were aggressive towards others in the bucket.  😞  Anyway I set up the tank in FL and added the fish I had and then bred mbunas.  My brother found that his convicts had a love affair also, so we were breeding those too.

Then I moved again, several times, once again adopting the fish out to other hobbyists - and it was a number of years before starting the tank back up.  I did that after I bought my first home.  Eased back in with a 10g and got just a few swordtails.  Then next thing you know, my friend got in trouble with the landlord for having a fish tank and he didn't know what to do, so he brought all those fish to me.  So then, what do you know, my 10g is now overstocked.  Fortunately still had the 29g and the stand at my parents' house.  Dusted that off, halfway filled it, monitored it.  Ok great, no leaks.  Added substrate, decor, filtration - we are rolling baby!  And filled the rest of the way up with water.  (Fish not moved from 10 g yet)

Now time to chill.  Sit down, watch some TV... the next day... I heard crrrrack... ok, what was that?  Went to the tank... puddle forming on the floor.  Oh man, the tank is compromised!  Hastily drained it (thank you, Python) and got everything out ASAP.  My husband carried it to the curb with what little water it had left in it and on his way to the curb THE BOTTOM OF THE TANK FELL OUT.

So then I had to go to the store & get a new tank.  And then eventually another one.  And then a tote-aquarium... and so on... and all this was probably TMI.  End of ramble.

[Golden Rams]

1967

Edited October 20, 2022 by Golden Rams

[Patrick_G]

On 10/20/2022 at 10:22 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Now time to chill.  Sit down, watch some TV... the next day... I heard crrrrack... ok, what was that?

Oh crap! That’s a sound I never way to hear.

[AquaHobbyist123]

I have been keeping fish in some shape or form for about 4 years. My favorite that I ever had was a female veiltail Betta. My favorite currently would be the guppies I raised from fry

 

[cavdad45]

I started 1n 1982, got in and out of it over the years

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I’ve been in for about 2.5 years. It all started during COVID. Got my first tank as I wanted to try some aquaponics, and then it just exploded from there. I now maintain 13 tanks and have maxed out the space and time I have. All but 1 (grow out tank) are planted community tanks. I don’t “force” things to breed, but when they do I enjoy raising the fry and trading them to my LFS for store credit. Can’t imagine not having tanks at this point. 

[jwcarlson]

On 10/20/2022 at 12:02 PM, Guppysnail said:

It wasn’t as hard as it is today. I imagine we had more losses though I don’t remember having more. I seldom seen anything outside of occasionally ich. Fish were hardier I think due to not being mass produced and inbred. I thought I was going high tech when I got my first box filter. 🤷‍♀️

I hadn't really thought about it that way.  Beekeeping is much the same.  In the 70s and 80s when my grandpa and dad were keeping them it was basically you just chucked them in a box and they just... lived.  In the 90s a parasite called varroa was introduced and became widespread.  Honey bees, as a host, didn't evolve alongside varroa and it decimated populations and made keeping bees alive overwinter very very difficult.  My grandpa and dad quit beekeeping because of it. 

[Jess]

@TheSwissAquarist I love the tank in your post!!!!  That looks amazing.  Really beautifully scaped and I love your choice of fish inhabitants.  This is a great post. I love reading about other peoples' history and experience in the hobby!

As a child I loved the 29-gallon fish tank in my dentist's office, and when I was in middle school they offered it to my family, and my parents agreed (one of the BEST DAYS EVER!).  I kept the tank through high school, and stopped in college because I went away from home to school.  I read everything there was to read about freshwater aquariums and tried my hardest to grow plants but never could (I still don't know why I couldn't, to be honest).  I experimented a lot, but I had very little budget and back in the late 90s/early 2000s the internet wasn't what it is now.  I got back into the hobby in late 2020 - my partner helped me build an aquarium stand and I really wanted to try aquascaping because I was so inspired by Takashi Amano.  Fast-forward 2 yrs and now I have 3 tanks, almost 4, and none of them are aquascaped (anymore - they started out that way though), but they do have a lot of plants.

I love all my fish.  Parasphromenus sp. (licorice gouramis), Sphaerichthys sp. (chocolate and vaillant gouramis), Hemirhamphodon sp. (little halfbeaks), Sundadanio sp. (neon rasboras?), chili rasboras, and Trigonostigma hengeli (glowlight rasbora maybe?), and habrosus and Adolfoi corydoras.  They are all amazing, with distinct behaviors and little personalities.  My job is stressful, and I find fishkeeping a very relaxing hobby.  I can't think of an absolute favorite fish (species or individual fish).  But all my gouramis are extremely fun because they beg for food.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 11:04 PM, Jess said:

Really beautifully scaped and I love your choice of fish inhabitants.

Thanks! After having a bit of a fiasco with my second ever tank, which basically had 6 of each small tetra in a big box store in (65 gal), I quickly learned that 100 neons or cardinal tetras look soooo much nicer.

[nabokovfan87]

Going to be a bad answer, but I literally couldn't pinpoint how long.  The short answer is "not long at all", but we did have a tank growing up for about a year or so when growing up.  Because of the memory of that tank, the enjoyment of that type of an atmosphere around the house I got one a few years back.  It's been a minute or so (years I mean) but I honestly couldn't tell you how many.

Started with that Marineland Bowfront starter pack that I kept eyeballing for months and then turned that into a few tanks because of Cory, then turned that into a 55G in my room and then added a 29G for some other fish, then turned that into a 75G tank and then removed a ton of the tanks from around the house and everything went into the 75.  MTS is totally a thing, but I really enjoyed discovering that UGF turned into actual plants underwater and I'm still amazed by the entire thing.

Currently running 2 29Gs with some of the fish that made the move to the new house as well as some new adds to the tanks 🙂 .  The 75G is sitting in the hallway waiting to exist again, one day, eventually....

On 10/20/2022 at 8:37 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

What is that plant in the middle?  It's awesome.

On 10/20/2022 at 5:23 AM, Guppysnail said:

After probably a week of catching nothing with my hands and coming home in tears my mom felt bad. I was persistent and the following morning my mom handed me her kitchen strainer to see if I could scoop up some fish. 

That's awesome. Your mom sounds like a wonderful person.

Edited October 21, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 8:46 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

It all started during COVID.

I think a lot of people decided to get an aquarium then, partly because we were all so BORED.

On 10/21/2022 at 9:08 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

What is that plant in the middle?  It's awesome.

Hygrophilia Corymbosa var. 'princess'. Somehow my LFS/big box store (it's a chain of 4 stores) has superb plants. Starting work there tomorrow!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/20/2022 at 2:23 PM, Guppysnail said:

Catfish are still my favorite🥰

I thought snails were🤷‍♂️

😂

[Marcelo]

Good Thread !!
 

3 phases here …

My dad had an aquarium probably back to 1990 or about that and I started to like the idea. This was in Brazil. I remember going to the LFS with him and my brother. He had a lot of neons.

I had mine in 2010 also in Brazil: My first planted tank with dirt, laterite and sand + injected Co2 and etc, neons, angel fish, Corys and some tetras. I terminated my tank about 8 years later due a lot of professional travels. 

Fast forwarding, to last year, I started a new one here in Florida. 
 

I love this hobby.

 

[TOtrees]

As part of my personal trip down the rabbit hole, I briefly set up a tank at my parents house, just a little 10 gallon with  neon tetras and panda cories. I did the maintenance on it, just a weekly water change and vac. But that elicited all sorts of conversation and objections to the very concept of water changes.

When my mom was a kid (this would put us in the 50s I guess) her family had an angel fish tank, with other stuff like maybe a few guppies or something. As far as I can tell, it was basically a glass box with gravel at the bottom. She remembers taking babies to the fish store so something was working in there. But water changes weren’t on their radar, not even a little bit. Every six months they’d take out the fish put them in a bowl and literally scrub the whole tank down inside and out then put everything back in with tapwater and leave it alone for another six months. At least that’s the story I get. My grandparents are long gone so I can’t turn to them for confirmation, but that’s just mind blowing to me. The fish back then must have been ridiculously robust.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 10/20/2022 at 2:46 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

and then it just exploded from there

“All fish no brakes” is the perfect handle. 🙂

[lefty o]

On 10/21/2022 at 7:25 AM, TOtrees said:

As part of my personal trip down the rabbit hole, I briefly set up a tank at my parents house, just a little 10 gallon with  neon tetras and panda cories. I did the maintenance on it, just a weekly water change and vac. But that elicited all sorts of conversation and objections to the very concept of water changes.

When my mom was a kid (this would put us in the 50s I guess) her family had an angel fish tank, with other stuff like maybe a few guppies or something. As far as I can tell, it was basically a glass box with gravel at the bottom. She remembers taking babies to the fish store so something was working in there. But water changes weren’t on their radar, not even a little bit. Every six months they’d take out the fish put them in a bowl and literally scrub the whole tank down inside and out then put everything back in with tapwater and leave it alone for another six months. At least that’s the story I get. My grandparents are long gone so I can’t turn to them for confirmation, but that’s just mind blowing to me. The fish back then must have been ridiculously robust.

that sounds about right. i very much remember that tank cleaning regimen my dad used in the early 70's.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:10 PM, Marcelo said:

I love this hobby.

Don’t we all!  (i.e. this forum wouldn’t exist if no-one did🤷‍♂️)

[Patrick_G]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:25 AM, TOtrees said:

Every six months they’d take out the fish put them in a bowl and literally scrub the whole tank down inside and out then put everything back in with tapwater and leave it alone for another six months. At least that’s the story I get. My grandparents are long gone so I can’t turn to them for confirmation, but that’s just mind blowing to me. The fish back then must have been ridiculously robust.

This was our regimen for small tanks too, although we did use a water conditioner to remove chlorine, and my mom knew not to clean the plates of the UGF. At some point somebody told me about water changes and I got some test strips, but that was years after my first tanks. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/21/2022 at 2:40 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Hygrophilia Corymbosa var. 'princess'. Somehow my LFS/big box store (it's a chain of 4 stores) has superb plants. Starting work there tomorrow!

That's awesome, congrats!

[Anjum]

Hmm, I only consider myself a NERM for the last year or so. Before that, I'd keep fish for a little while, but when they died, or I lost interest, I'd scrap the whole thing. Fish were only ever something nice to look at, and that wasn't enough to ever capture my interest long-term. But now I've really become enamored with the biology of it all & trying to re-create an ecosystem. It's added a richness to the hobby for me & now I don't know that I can ever be without an aquarium. 

I might've known I'd come back to it someday, but I didn't see the value at the time. When I was about 16 (28 yrs ago), had my 1st job & my own money, my parents let me buy this giant stone bowl, kinda like a planter but without a drainage hole. I'd guess it was 30-36" diameter. They let me put it in my bedroom, on the 2nd floor, and put 3 Black Moor goldfish in it. I'd sit & watch those goldfish for hours. I realize now how necessary for my mental health that is, being able to get lost in a different world & shut off the anxiety in my brain, sans inebriants. Unfortunately, the pull of inebriants was strong & I spent many years treating my mental health that way. I'm glad I found my way back, even though it wasn't intentional. I had impulse purchased a betta, for something nice to look at. When things went sideways, because I didn't know what I was doing, I went looking for information & finally the world of a balanced ecosystem aquarium was revealed to me. And now here we are, 3 full tanks at home, plans for a fish room & at least one tank at work. We are now entering the cold, damp, dark season & when I get home in the evening & see my brightly lit glass boxes full of life, a weight lifts off of me. 

 

[TeeJay]

I first started in the hobby when I was a boy. A couple of 19 gal tanks with goldfish to guppy's. Then in my early 20s with cichlids. Mostly convicts.

Then I didn't have tanks for close to 20 years. Until I came across videos from the co ops, primetime aquatics,kg tropicals and md tanks. Watching all of them inspired me to get back into the hobby. And with loads of help from folks here. Especially @Guppysnail @Chick-In-Of-TheSea @nabokovfan87 has help me grow into the keeper that I am today. I now have my 29 gal least killi tank. My 10 gal shrimp sanctuary and 10 gal Cory tank. These tanks I have had only set up for just under a year back in the hobby. I had never had live plants before now. Or shrimp and snails either before now. Mini mts set in lol. The only thing saving me is I live in an apartment and can't set up more tanks....well maybe another 5,or 10 gal sometime..🤔😮🤫

[PineSong]

On 10/21/2022 at 7:28 PM, Anjum said:

We are now entering the cold, damp, dark season & when I get home in the evening & see my brightly lit glass boxes full of life, a weight lifts off of me. 

This is what brought me back to the planted-tank hobby a couple of years ago--I needed a gardening fix in winter and had fond memories of a planted "Walstad" tank I had 15 years ago...I got a 20g long and once I saw the updated lights and sponge filters in use today I was off to the races. I have 5 tanks and a tub pond.

I was in charge of a 10g goldfish tank starting in about 1977 until I left for school in 1983.

Many fishless years after college, then only bettas in 2 gallon bowls... until around 2001, I had kids and someone gave them an unwanted 10g with two veiltail goldfish. I was confused about why these goldfish just sat on the bottom of the tank 24/7, so I got on an online goldfish forum and learned a lot of new stuff. Put the goldies in a 55 and turned the 10g into a planted tank fueled by direct sunlight and stocked with red platies and Endlers.  The last goldfish passed away after about a decade and I knew I did not want to keep goldfish anymore--the platies and Endlers had converted me and the plants were a must.

The peaceful vibe of that first planted tank is what I was looking for when I set up my 20g long, and I am very happy with it and my other 4 plant-filled tanks. I owe a lot of that enjoyment to this forum, where I have learned so much. Thanks everybody!

 

[Papagoomba]

I got into the hobby in around may of 2021. My now almost 3 year old daughter had a heart transplant in april of 2021 and with that comes the anti rejection meds and a lower immune system. Her transplant team told us that the only pets she can ever keep are dogs and fish. Ive always kinda wanted to get into the hobby but after hearing that she could only ever have fish and dogs i figured it would be a great time to learn everything i could and get into it. My daughter loves all the tanks we now have. It has become a definite addiction of mine and I love it. As far as my favorite fish thats kinda tough. I absolutely love my little murder beans (pea puffers), but recently ive fallen in love with my chilli rasboras

Edited October 22, 2022 by Papagoomba
forgot to add something

[Scapexghost]

May 17, 2018 or dec 25, 2018 debatably. 2021 is when i got really into it.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/22/2022 at 7:06 AM, Scapexghost said:

May 17, 2018 or dec 25, 2018 debatably. 2021 is when i got really into it.

I take it your birthday is May 17 ?