Nerm problems

[Brandy]

11 hours ago, Ken Burke said:

Yeah.  I’m not good at single.  What is the male version of “Cat Lady?”

Um...well...tell me how many tanks you have and I will let you know...🤣

[Ken Burke]

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

So true! Without her patiently let me be me, but also simultaneously keeping me from going overboard...I shudder to think how it all might have worked out. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

My point exactly! If not for the brains of this operation, I’d live in a 20 sq ft corner of my 3200 sq ft fish room.  Well maybe fish house.  Instead, I get to live with my 3 tanks and a summer tub, and dream about just one more.....😂😇🤪

[tolstoy21]

3 hours ago, Daniel said:

So true! Without her patiently let me be me, but also simultaneously keeping me from going overboard...I shudder to think how it all might have worked out. Sometimes I feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Yeah pretty much that's my experience of married life.  Someone gotta catch you before you go too far down those slippery slopes!

[Maggie]

Having worked for a divorce/family law attorney for 10 years, I am guessing that you married folks have a lot more going for you re your marriages than anything solely aquarium-related. Your spouses' patience with and/or indifference to your passion (except maybe putting on the brakes when it comes to $$ or space) are but a side effect of a good relationship. Trust me, if your spouse is unhappy they suddenly become very critical and intolerant of anything you do, not because they don't like what you do, but because they don't like you (and many times it's mutual). 

- happily single with a large side of loneliness

 

[Paul]

My wife really likes the fish but the only tank she sees all the time is the Discus tank which is on the main level of the house. The rest of my tanks are up in the FROG (Family Room Over the Garage) and since she doesn't go up there much new tanks just show up there. There's a 20L & a 10 siting in the attic (another place she doesn't go to) waiting to be set up. Hey two of my hobbies (Fish Keeping & Gardening) keep me home the third one Brewpub crawls(Day Drinking) with the boys not so much.

[Maggie]

@Paulhow can anyone not like discus? They're positively gorgeous!!

[CanadaAmanda]

My hubby is so patient with my quickly growing obsession... he likes fish too but nearly not as much as me. He hasn’t complained once about my many trips to various stores, the random buckets and aquarium stuff, and helps me with some of the awkward tasks and handy stuff.  The fish are honestly saving my sanity going into Covid winter - all spring I was reading way too much news and working at home on my own it’s really nice to be able to look at the tanks and watch the activity.
 

My main pinch point is my house - we’ve outgrown it... there isn’t much space.  My 29gallon is about as big as I can go.  I could replace various decor items around the house with a bunch of small tanks or start replacing furniture with tank space but realistically until we move, I think 4 tanks and none bigger than 29gal is the limit.

[Daniel]

Update: It worked out.

I said 'when the our boys come over for Thanksgiving, they can help me setup the new aquariums.'

She said with raised eyebrow, 'aquariums plural?' I said yes and that was all she said (the two 75 gallons are on the right of the photo, and most importantly the top 75 gallon is still down hill from the water source aquarium in the livingroom - barely visible through the doorway - so siphoning still works).

Now, for sure, no more aquariums!

 

[Ruud]

I echo what @CanadaAmanda says about lack of space and outgrowing a place. Sometimes (most of the times) it feels like a puzzle here and severely restricting my hobbies. It is okay as I know this is not a situation that will last forever, but most likely another few years. 

@Daniel congrats with the setup (and spouse approval). Your room looks really good and I do like the old cinder blocks way of stacking aquariums. Biggest question is... what will they house?

 

[Daniel]

Just now, Ruud said:

I echo what @CanadaAmanda says about lack of space and outgrowing a place. Sometimes (most of the times) it feels like a puzzle here and severely restricting my hobbies. It is okay as I know this is not a situation that will last forever, but most likely another few years. 

@Daniel congrats with the setup (and spouse approval). Your room looks really good and I do like the old cinder blocks way of stacking aquariums. Biggest question is... what will they house?

 

In theory they will house the upcoming baby discus. But you know the old saying...don't count your baby discus before eggs are layed, hatched and the fry are free swimming and are big enough to be removed from the parents.

[binkysmom]

On 11/23/2020 at 2:57 PM, Aubrey said:

Or you have to find clever ways of disguising your grow out tub from your landlord.

I need one of these! Great solution 🙂

 

[Hobbit]

Nerm problems.

When you set up summer tubs early to try to let them cycle before you add fish, and then mosquitos start breeding like gang busters in them. So you go ahead and order fish, but the temperature at night is still too cold. So you move the tubs inside. But the fish can’t eat the mosquito larvae fast enough, and you try to net the extras and feed them to your other fish, but you still wake up to about 50 mosquitos on the ceiling in the kitchen.

Me to my husband: “I’m so sorry Dear.”

Him: “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done for your animals.”

[H.K.Luterman]

21 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

Nerm problems.

When you set up summer tubs early to try to let them cycle before you add fish, and then mosquitos start breeding like gang busters in them. So you go ahead and order fish, but the temperature at night is still too cold. So you move the tubs inside. But the fish can’t eat the mosquito larvae fast enough, and you try to net the extras and feed them to your other fish, but you still wake up to about 50 mosquitos on the ceiling in the kitchen.

Me to my husband: “I’m so sorry Dear.”

Him: “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever done for your animals.”

That picture makes me itchy.

[SWilson]

I hope it’s okay to jump on this thread to share my happy story of relationships and this hobby.  

I consider myself very lucky.  Before any aquariums at all my partner noticed me looking longingly at aquascape pictures and videos (spoiler alert, none of my tanks look like those) and encouraged me to try it, to keep doing it, consoled me when I made mistakes. 
Then we discovered the snails and other oddballs and my partner was all in. They very sweetly asked if it would be okay if they got a tank even though it was “my thing” — so I bought them their first one.  Now we both have MTS.  We share the hobby but the cool thing about this hobby is that there is so much variety that our interests, the way we set up our tanks, what we keep, are very different. 
 

our therapist told us to stop getting tanks, and our response to her has basically been that meme that @Daniel posted. Our tanks are in separate rooms (which were supposed to be our home offices but are now fish rooms we do work in) and I joke that we need to consolidate so we can at least hang out while we are doing water changes and maintenance.  The only negative thing about is both being in the hobby is that they keep stealing my tweezers and test strips! 😂 

this was the trunk of our car this past weekend bc of the sale (and then I went back and got a 20 long) 😅. The 75 will replace a 55 that I have (that’s the story for now anyway lol) and it will be our first communal community tank.

Edited May 11, 2021 by SWilson

[Hobbit]

3 hours ago, H.K.Luterman said:

That picture makes me itchy.

It makes you more itchy in real life!!!!! Luckily a vacuum works great against mosquitos. Now you know!

@SWilson that’s very sweet! My husband is super supportive but he would not have any tanks if I wasn’t in the picture. 😄

[CT_]

4 hours ago, Hobbit said:

When you set up summer tubs early to try to let them cycle before you add fish, and then mosquitos start breeding like gang busters in them. So you go ahead and order fish, but the temperature at night is still too cold. So you move the tubs inside. But the fish can’t eat the mosquito larvae fast enough, and you try to net the extras and feed them to your other fish, but you still wake up to about 50 mosquitos on the ceiling in the kitchen.

Have you been spying on me?! 😄

I'm in a similar boat.  I discovered mosquitos yesterday (i thought i had months before they'd show up!) so I'm racing out to buy some WCMM today, and a threw a 200W heater in my pond to help the transition for my rice fish from indoor to outdoor and give them a bit of extra "summer" heat for spawning since tank spawning didn't work.

 

 

[FriendlyLoach]

I think the first question to ask someone on the first date should always be "do you want to have aquariums". LOL

[Hobbit]

@CT_ the heater sounds like a better plan than mine!!

[SWilson]

@CT_ and @Hobbit we unexpectedly found sooo many mosquito larvae in our backyard pond which doesn't have fish in it yet (we just moved in in July, the idea is to convert it into an aquaponic system eventually) -- I have been catching them and feeding them to my amazon puffers.  They love them.  We read online that you net the larvae and put them into a jar or container of tank water, add salt (to sterilize I guess?) and let it marinate for an hour (use a lid! I've had those buggers turn into mosquitoes during this process), then net them out of the container and feed them.  I also give a little rinse with tap water before putting them in the aquarium.  

[Hobbit]

@SWilson my fish in the 55 gallon are also very much enjoying every larvae I manage to net out. It’s just really hard to get *all* of them... 😅

[CT_]

13 hours ago, Hobbit said:

@CT_ the heater sounds like a better plan than mine!!

🙂  yeah I did the math and its only a few dollars of electricity for the month I'll need it.  I ran an extension cord and joined it in one of those dry boxes made for chaining Christmas lights.

10 hours ago, SWilson said:

@CT_ and @Hobbit we unexpectedly found sooo many mosquito larvae in our backyard pond which doesn't have fish in it yet (we just moved in in July, the idea is to convert it into an aquaponic system eventually) -- I have been catching them and feeding them to my amazon puffers.  They love them.  We read online that you net the larvae and put them into a jar or container of tank water, add salt (to sterilize I guess?) and let it marinate for an hour (use a lid! I've had those buggers turn into mosquitoes during this process), then net them out of the container and feed them.  I also give a little rinse with tap water before putting them in the aquarium.  

I'd been wondering how to fed these to my tank.  My cardinals would go nuts (they're vicious!).  I didn't try because I was worried about other pathogens, though I just threw my rice fish in the same pond so how worried can I really be?

[Hobbit]

12 hours ago, CT_ said:

I'd been wondering how to fed these to my tank. 

Honestly I just net the larvae out of the tub and stick the net directly in my tank. 😅 @Daniel said he’s never had fish get pathogens from collecting and feeding wild food, so I just go for it. But as my signature says, I’m not afraid of trying things. 😁 I’m not the most cautious fish keeper.

[CT_]

11 minutes ago, Hobbit said:

Honestly I just net the larvae out of the tub and stick the net directly in my tank. 😅 @Daniel said he’s never had fish get pathogens from collecting and feeding wild food, so I just go for it. But as my signature says, I’m not afraid of trying things. 😁 I’m not the most cautious fish keeper.

Excellent.  Could you try and pick up one of those tiny ants that collect around a dropped popsicle and feed them to your fish and report back 😛 ?  I think I may be onto a source of unlimited fish food at my house.

[Hobbit]

@CT_ sounds worth a try to me!!😆

[Lowells Fish Lab]

@Daniel Beautiful fish room. Am I interpreting the photo correctly? Is that a row of tanks sitting higher and behind other tanks? If so, that's a cool way to get more out of the space. I'll have to try that someday.