How Did You Get Into Fishkeeping.

[BigC]

OK,
Lets get a nice simple thread going here, on how you got to where you are today in this great hobby.

What was the single most influential factor which led you down this fishy path?

 

[kewskills]

a very bad illness, thought i was gonna die, done it because i was house bound at the time. now cant get enough of it

 

[doresy]

MONEY!

As a kid I was envious of a mate from a 'better off' family accross the road. He had, what seemed at the time, a fantastic tropical aquarium in his bedroom.

Now that I have most things I want from life my mind drifted back to those days. I suddenly thought, what's stopping you from doing it now. That was 4 years and 4 tanks ago.

Apart from giving up smoking for good (around the same time), it was the best thing I did. I feel also that both those things have added years to my life........win-win situation

 

[stridm]

Growing up there was a reef tank, fw, and eel tank, so it started there

 

[digdog]

OK,
Lets get a nice simple thread going here, on how you got to where you are today in this great hobby.

What was the single most influential factor which led you down this fishy path?

went to an american car show at a garden center, no cars turned up so i bought a fish tank!

 

[jkrekord]

My Grandad he is an avid fishkeeper with several amazing tanks, and when i was younger he used to have about 15 amazing aquariums (he's cu down to 3 aquariums now) so yeah my fascination started due to him.

 

[rsands]

i remember having a big fish tank when i was young then we got rid of it! love water sports so always wanted a pond (water related lol)...now i took a notion of an aquarium and now i have spent a FORTUNE on it!

 

[kpintheshed]

i was exppecting a xbox 360 but my mum thought it was a good idea as a new fish shop opened next door

 

[Chris_qld]

When I was about 12, I remember being at my uncle's and he had a huge cubic marine tank with a coupla clownfish swimming in the anemones, a 2ft eel (not sure what type), a decent sized lionfish, 2 seahorses and a few other fish (not sure what type).

Also had a 6 ft tank with one huge oscar in it. I can still remember putting my finger in and then crying to him that it bit me.

Every since then I've dreamed of owning my own marine tank. At the moment tho I'm quite satisfied with freshwater.

 

[Night Crawler]

Well, it all started when we found a little visitor in our kitchen one day. My girlfriend found something and shouted over to me. I went to have a look at what it was but I had no idea. So I put it into a little tub, took some pictures and tried to find out what it was. We got a small 20L aquarium given to us so we could put it in there while we tried to figure out what it was. Then we found some more in the garden. So we had 6 in total. After looking around the internet on several reptile and fish websites we found out that they were just common newts. They looked quite cute, but we let them go back into the wild as I had no idea how to care for them. So after that we had an empty fish tank just laying around.
Then one day I woke up, saw the tank and thought... Lets stick some fish in there oh and maybe we can start keeping geckos as well.
So I did some reasearch and asked my friend about their fish.
Now I have a 20L tropical tank, a 60L tropical tank, 2 leopard geckos and a crested gecko. And maybe some more tanks on the way within the next few weeks.

 

[jasonskillz]

my friend bought me a 5 gal for a present...and the rest is history. and now, i have a 130, and want a 300.

 

[Animalman]

I had always found fish to be fun to watch and really cool. When I was younger, one of my best friends' uncles helped to really get me started because he had a few tanks and I liked talking to him when I went to his house with my friend. Also, I had kept bettas when I was younger and over time I started wanting to keep actual tanks with many more species. I have had a break from the hobby for a little while but now plan on maybe trying to work my way back in with a small tank or two.

 

[Bozza]

My first fish days started when I was about 12. My next door neighbor was a few years older then me and had a fish tank and it seemed like a kool thing to get into. I had 2 60L's back then when I was 12 and now 8 years later im back into the hobby with 4 tanks (2x60L, 30L, 20L, 5L) . I "blame" the getting into the bobby now on my girlfriend lol

 

[stang1]

I went to my local garden centre to get some bits and happened to notice they had an Aquatic store....

 

[MattD]

About 6 months ago, when my lizard died (I took very poor care of him. It was such a shame now that I look back on how it easy it would have been to take excellent care of him), I wanted to start new and do it properly. I decided getting some fish would also add to my bedroom quite nicely, and I haven't look back once. Within days of Spock dying, I had a new tank, and about 800 pages worth of literature on the hobby. I cultured myself as best as possible, and have been doing it ever since.