Returning Old Man

[OldMan47]

I have been away from the forum for quite a while but found I have the time now to return. While I was gone I let my fishkeeping drop down to 15 active tanks while I used to keep 23. Last Sunday I resurrected my 120 gallon tank to house a new small breeding colony of C encaustus, barred goodeids, that I picked up at a club auction. At one time I was the official mod for the livebearer forum and the DIY forum on this site but I have been spending most of my time on other things lately. I am still on the board of my local fish club and am still a member of the American Livebearer Association, a club much like the BLA in the UK.

 

[Chad]

Welcome back. Glad you have time to visit. Livebearers are likely the most popular group of fish in the hobby so it's nice to have someone hanging out who knows so much about them. 

 

[Flubberlump]

I remember you! Welcome back, you gave me plenty of advice when you were last here

 

[RainboWBacoN420]

 I let my fishkeeping drop down to 15 active tanks while I used to keep 23. 

GASP! 
 
Are you kidding? That's still a lot of tanks OldMan, that sounds so overwhelming. You make it sound like that's not a lot of tanks.
 
Nice to see you still haven't gotten rusty.  

 

[*pete*]

Nice to see you back again OldMan47.
 
Give us a treat and Show off them C Encaustus with a photo !

 

[Blough]

That is a lot of tanks, I'm impressed. I could never find the time to tend to that many!

 

[Mark Z.]

Welcome back and thank you for the advice!
 
Mark

 

[jag51186]

Welcome back! Looking forward to the presence of another aquarist full of wisdom on the boards!

 

[Munroco]

Welcome back, wish my wife would let me have 15 tanks.

 

[DrRob]

Welcome back OldMan. Glad you've got some more free time again. If you work out where they're hiding it can you let me know?

 

[Far_King]

Welcome back.  I'd seen you posting a fair bit the last few days  Good to have yet more experience on the boards.
 
I am a tad jealous of all your tanks - maybe one day
 
I have six but only four currently running.  Once I get my house move sorted out I expect I'll be increasing the number slightly but I can't see I'll be getting as many as you lol.  Do you tend to keep species only tanks?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Welcome back OldMan!
 
 

Welcome back OldMan. Glad you've got some more free time again. If you work out where they're hiding it can you let me know?

 

[the_lock_man]

Welcome back Oldman, it's really good to see you here again. As others have said, you were a great help to me when I first started.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome back OldMan. Glad you've got some more free time again. If you work out where they're hiding it can you let me know?

I have retired and am almost done building my own home so I now have a bit of time. My free time since retirement was hidden in my house build, my wood stove preparations and spending time with family. I now have a nice running chain saw and a good splitting area so that part still takes time but has been at least solved. My house build is nearing completion so I am much less in the planning phases for it and I still do not have tons of free time because my family still eats up some.

For those intimidated by lots of tanks, don't be. The house I am building has a full basement that I get to use as I please. I could easily fit 200 tanks down there but then it would be more like a business than a hobby. Time for things like water changes is no big deal. If I use a 5 gallon bucket to do a water change on a tank each day I can get through all of them in 2 weeks so it is no big deal. Feeding takes maybe 2 minutes of just walking around with a jar of food in my hands. I do not deal with disease ever. I buy all of my fish at club auctions and never see the problems of pet store fish. I last had to deal with white spot about 8 years ago when I bought a half dozen female bettas at a pet shop and they were infested. A couple of weeks in their 10 gallon at high temperatures and a dose of salt and they were ready to go again.
Almost all of my tanks are single species tanks and even more than that some species I keep are best identified by their source location so I actually have the same species in 2 different tanks because each has its own source identified. That happens a lot with things like characodons where they are all considered the same species these days but different sources have somewhat different characteristics. I once thought I had Characodon lateralis in one of my tanks but the source information I had on mine did not match lateralis at all. It turns out that variations above and below a particular water falls have very different characteristics in the wild populations and I have one of each location variation in their own separate tanks.

 

[DrRob]

Sounds great. Got the log burners, and the smooth running chainsaw and chopping area. Sadly that's where it ends. The house build is ongoing (getting there though, only two more rooms to go) and a basement isn't structurally feasible in this piece of land. Working on retiring but apparently I might have to wait for another 30 years.
 
With you on fish from hobbyists, particularly breeders. If fish are healthy enough to breed and raise from fry then the chance of picking anything up is low. With that many tanks I'd be keen on keeping the workload down as much as possible, but then I spend most of my waking hours working at the moment and have dropped down to 2 tanks for now.
 
One day I'll get a single species tank rack going. I know where I'm going to put it, it's just full of things that will go somewhere else later at the moment. Looking forwards to hearing how your set ups are doing.