How did you get into the hobby?

[Slaphppy7]

And so the journey began...

Yep...joined another forum, to try and help her figure out why her fish were dying constantly...once I figured out proper fishkeeping, I became hooked....

 

[Trop65]

How did you get into the fishkeeping hobby?

For me, I love animals. I have all exotic species, and I have always been interested in public aquariums. I thought I would try it out. Started with a 55g fish tank a year and a half ago...I now have five.... Fish tanks seem to relieve stress and anxiety - especially with larger tanks and smaller fish.

For me, it was my oldest sister. She gave me my first aquarium when I was 10. A little 10 gallon. Best present I ever had to this day. Opened up this wonderful hobby to me!

 

[embsidney20]

For me I think it started because I was obsessed with the Blue Planet series when I was little, I used to watch them all back to back on VHS, knew every sharks name in Latin ( no clue now lol) I was a bit underwater obsessed and wanted to be a marine biologist for many years growing up!

I asked my parents if I could have a tank when I was about 10 years old and I ended up with a whopping great big 240L with a beautiful custom made oak cabinet and hood. Second hand of course It was stunning, I was so lucky to have that as a first tank!

I kept mollies to start with. A very strong memory back then was when they started having babies and my bedroom turned into a maternity ward with myself and my family sat watching in fascination for ages together. I quickly learnt that they bred like rabbits and moved on though

Love keeping fish again now I'm in my 30s. Living art in the room. Far, far better than anything on TV!!

 

[flipperfeet]

How did you get into the fishkeeping hobby?

For me, I love animals. I have all exotic species, and I have always been interested in public aquariums. I thought I would try it out. Started with a 55g fish tank a year and a half ago...I now have five.... Fish tanks seem to relieve stress and anxiety - especially with larger tanks and smaller fish.

Cat allergies.

 

[biofish]

8 months ago, I found a 1.5 gallon with a filter, thermometer, and pebbles at a yard sale as a bundle for $1 and I thought “eh what the heck I’ll try it. How expensive or difficult can it be.”

Jokes on me….

 

[outofwater]

Had fish when I was a little kid. Died because none of us knew what we were getting into. 10 years later wanted to try again, had a custom made smallish aquarium, 30 gallons or so. Did slightly better but still managed to kill a few fish in the first week's, and the survivors (a few months later) didn't hold my interest, by then I was starting to chase after girls instead. Fast forward a couple of decades, recent separation, suddenly more time in my hands and too many things in my head, I decide this hobby is both challenging, and calming. Got lucky to find someone going thru the opposite of my situation and giving away a full setup on a 29 gallon tank. Have it sit foe a couple of weeks while I'm still getting my bearings at my new place, make he comment to a friend that "hey, I got a free aquarium and will be setting it up shortly" and he drops his betta with me to pet sit it for the holidays.

Took a crash course on cycling, spent many hours reading about fish compatibility and the bio load my aquarium can sustain, and here I am. My son already is taking a liking to it too, so I foresee many new aquariums in our future.

 

[nik_n]

When I was around 10 years old I was with my mum in the shopping mall. I'm pretty sure I was annoying her because she said if I stay quiet and leave her be she would take me to the pet shop, which used to be and still is my favourite shop in the mall. She took me there and I was looking around at the fish section and I saw a blue betta fish with red fins. I asked my mum if I could have it and she said I could. I remember that as one of the happiest days in my life. I got a 15l (3gallon) tank for one male and three betta females. I knew absolutely nothing about fish back then and neither did the employees in the pet store. I did no know that you could not keep betta fish of opposite sex together. I know what you are thinking, BUT all the fish were living perfectly fine for 6 months. No injury whats so ever. There was a dominant female but nobody was hurt. I would take the fish out, and clean the whole tank with tap water every week together with gravel. They seemed fine to me and lived in the same tank for 3 months, but then I dropped the tank (no fish inside just the glass box itself). Go another, a bigger one which leaked and then the same one as before (which I still have to this day). The male died after 6 months and the two females followed soon after. The one female was still alive and I smuggled it across the border of 3 countries when we moved, however she died soon after. After that I got a 180l tank with a bunch of guppies, mollies swords and cories. Through the last 6 years I kept lots of fish in that tank and still am to this day.

As I already said I didn't know anything about fish or fish-keeping. Absolutely nothing. I believed everything the employee at the store told me. After I started researching about fish and saw female betta fish pictures online I assumed the store employee was wrong, since the fish on the photos were colourful and the ones I had were beige. I went to many fish stores since and never saw the likes of those fish again, until recently, about 2 months ago. That is when I realized that I kept a betta sorority tank in a 3 gallon tank and did so as successfully as I could, but more importantly the fish didn't fight at all. I was in disbelieve. Thinking back, I think this only worked because the male didn't know the females were his species since they had no colours at all, but I don't understand how the female fish didn't fight. I'm assuming I got incredibly lucky, but that sparked my interest in this hobby.

 

[VlainWA]

1. 2017 - Took Number 1 step daughter to the local aquarium on a spur of the moment outing. Decided to get a Betta fish on the way home. Had no idea how to keep it so tank 1 quickly was upgraded to tank 2 - a 5G aquarium.
2. 2018 - Tank 2 was upgraded to Tank 3 - a 20G community tank with live plants.
3. 2019 - Tank 3 was upgraded to Tank 4 - a 40G community tank as fish were growing. No Betta fish now.
4. 2021 - Tank 4 was upgraded to Tank 5 - a 65G community tank as fish were growing again and slightly overstocked.
5. 2022 (current) - Tank 4 being repurposed to be a neon tetra only tank.

Moral of the story - don't do random spur of the moment outings!

 

[Fremlins]

A couple of things got me into it as a kid. Jacques Cousteau was on the telly a lot, and my Dad (who was something of a SCUBA pioneer having got into it in the early 50s) had a shelf full of books by the likes of Cousteau, Hans Haas etc. I couldn't really go diving in tropical waters but I could save up my pocket money and get a 10g acrylic tank which I made all sorts of mistakes with. My mother threw it out after a couple of years but I started again in my 20s so I could make the mistakes all over again...

 

[Mcostas]

Mom had them when I was small. She actually used them to explain the facts of life to me, lol! It was the PG fish version involving guppies and bettas, mom bred them.

We continued to keep fish until I left home. Mom bred Egyptian mouth breeders, fire mouths, and other easy to breed species. I bred a few different species. My favorite thing was to look at the infusoria under my little microscope.

I'm a retired medical microbiologist and wanted to look at something with my microscope, so I gathered jars of ditch and pond water. Then I got a Betta. Now I have two bettas (each in their own tank) and a school of neons.

A lot has changed since the olden days of fishkeeping. I no longer have overstocked aquariums with a fish representative of different species chosen for looks. I also do weekly water changes, not sure how often I did it before, it wasn't enough though.

Fish seem more fragile now, fish shops run by knowledgeable people seem to be non-existent. Luckily my favorites (neons and bettas) are common.

I also enjoy raising life food to feed my little sea monsters.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yep...joined another forum, to try and help her figure out why her fish were dying constantly...once I figured out proper fishkeeping, I became hooked....

I remember that! ha ha A lot has happened since then.

 

[autyfish]

I have always had pets, and loved animals of every kind. When I left for college, my mom took me and bought me a 5 gallon hexagon tank and some fish (far too many for a 5 gallon). Some of the guys in the dorm had massive tanks with convict cichlids and blood parrots and African leaf fish. And I was the chick with the pink gravel and 5 fish in a 5 gallon tank. But I took good care of my fish. At the end of that year, I stayed to live in the dorm over the summer so I could be close to my boyfriend (now husband) and as happens in college, some of those guys with the awesome tanks were not coming back next year. So guess who was the convenient choice for their tanks? Lucky me! I moved a 30 gallon bow front tank with blood parrots and African leaf fish all over with me. Finally everything got too big for my tank, so I had figure 8 puffers for a while, then tried to set up a nano reef. I’m not sure I ever bought any fish before we moved to start our “grown up lives.” Gave my tank away to one of its original owners. Moved home, had kids. Took a few years off in there. Had a 10 gallon with a couple fiddler crabs in it that lived forever. My kids have had bettas that also live forever. Haven’t had any tanks over 10 gallons in years. My son just got a 37 gallon for Christmas, and we are working on getting it all happy and healthy. I’m loving spending the extra time with him and teaching him about it all!

 

[ClownLurch]

Fairground goldfish won at “The Hoppings” (travelling fairground) on Newcastle Town Moor in the late 60s.
Got it some friends etc etc.

 

[malfunction]

Like some of the other posters here, it goes back to my parents. My mum has always had fish tanks and when I was around 8 I became responsible for looking after her tank. This was back when undergravel and box filters were the height of technology, so a lot has changed since then.