OP
OP
My filters range from 3 canisters and 6 HOBs for fish that need current, and mainly plastic box filters for ones that don't. I also have homemade filters, because I like making stuff, and a few commercial sponge filters. They are quite expensive here.
I have a pool hose, a flexible plastic one running to a floor drain, and I use a variety of siphon hoses to drain into it. I just walk along, draining. If I ever settle on a configuration for the room I might do the same with pipes. I really like fiddling with the set up and making changes though, so plumbing is out. One key is that I am tall, and built my racks starting at 30 inches off the ground for the lowest level. It's great for old knees and for gravity with the water changes.
Most of my fish catches are in the tanks of a friend who imports. I've gone fishing in Florida, Mexico, Honduras and Gabon. Since I now live with very soft water, I only keep softwater fish so the first three places won't get visited again. I have a fascination with African fish. Your upcoming speaker, Rusty Wessel, is an expert on North/Central American Cichlids and livebearers. He should be a good talk. I'm a newb at real fish collecting. Last summer was my first single purpose fishing trip. I'm looking around for people interested in central Africa so I can do another before I get too old to handle the conditions.
All the ones that need very manipulated water conditions. Difficult changes with context. There are fish I melted snow to breed because my old tap was too hard, and that was work. Others need special diets, etc. I had an Apisto whose eggs would only develop in super soft water, and that spawned 17 times before I got fry to hatch so I could raise them. But I had hard tapwater back then. Give me the same fish where I am now, and I think it would be easy. It's the set ups that are hard, not the fish.
I don't remember if it was guppies, or marble mollies. I was 8 years old and my brand new livebearers dropped babies. I was entranced. Parts of my brain are still 8 years old.
Fish predators. Luciocephalis pulcher, a pike gourami. They were fascinating but feeding them was brutal, and their food (guppy feeders) killed them with the diseases they carried. I hated using feeders, I thought the predator was wonderful, but the project was doomed.
I have two hidden secret agendas. One is to get people into killies and other rare and challenging fish, and the other would be to get fish clubs running again, for all the reasons you gave. Fun matters. Plus I see the hobby becoming more and more a set of monopolies that are limiting what's available, and steering us into keeping a very small set of cheap (to the stores) species, glofish and hybrids. I see choices becoming smaller and smaller. What I see in stores now compared to 30 years ago is a bad joke, created by the chains eliminating the competition. If we breed fish, we can work around that, at least for the people whose motivation is curiosity.- many more, but I'll stop here
