What Direction Has Your Fish Keeping Gone?

[snowflake311]

I have been keepjng fish for about 14 years now.

I started with mollys . Then kept just bettas and lots of then for years. I fell in love with plecos and other catfish. Then I got obsessed with big south American cichliids and discus.

Now I am in love with guppies and adventuring into the oddball world with a delhezi bichir. I want more oddballs in the future.

So what did you start with and what fish are you into now?

 

[mbeer21]

I've only been keeping fish for about 7 years now, but the direction hasn't really gone where it was meant to I started with a Betta, who lasted only a year. Got a proper tank then, with the intent of having a great new home for a new Betta.. but was a friend decided he wanted to have a lizard instead of fish, so he dumped all his with me All the fishy decisions since then have revolved around those guys (new tank, tank mates etc). Not that I really mind, of course, after so many years I'm pretty attached to them
Once I get settled in a new city with them I'm planning on getting a new tank with sand substrate for some corys and perhaps different tetras :3

 

[Primous]

I've been in the hobby for 5 years and I'd say the direction or rather, the theme of my fish keeping is *balance*

To begin with, like most, I relied on the advice of my lfs and in turn made every mistake possible. As a result I lost fish nightly and for a long time after cycling dealt with 90% of the algae types out there, the worst being bba. But with research (sometimes research into the early hours of the morning ) I learned how to fine tune my aquarium and regain control. For instance, I can keep nitrates @0ppm for two months with heavy stocking and without changing the water for the same period of time. Using soil, being really specific about the plants I chose according to their individual attributes, and combining the two in an effort to subdue London's "not suitable for aquarium use" water has been a fun journey.

But in finding this balance I have learned that mistakes are costly. Without research there's a good chance you'll be pouring money down the drain or throwing it in the garden. I have learned to look for the science in all advice given and to run with what works best for your individual set up. And in that respect learned that a lot of the advice 30-50% out there is folklore rather than fact. As a lose example being "You should wait several weeks - several months before you add neon tetras to a new setup because they are sensitive." I have learned that I can't grow carpeting plants I've tried every species out there and all but glosso (which I don't like) failed. I'm currently trying to grow Utricularia graminifolia (UG) which is said to be the most difficult carpeting plant there is.

But most of all I have learned that when done right, which in my case means balanced, this hobby is as rewarding as it is relaxing.

 

[FishBlast]

I have been keepjng fish for about 14 years now.

I started with mollys . Then kept just bettas and lots of then for years. I fell in love with plecos and other catfish. Then I got obsessed with big south American cichliids and discus.

Now I am in love with guppies and adventuring into the oddball world with a delhezi bichir. I want more oddballs in the future.

So what did you start with and what fish are you into now?

Started out with 4 guppies as a 5 year old kid. All died due to my mom putting a decoration in soap and not washing it properly.

Officially started a community tank in 1997 (as a 7 year old) when I received it from a friend who wanted to move to another country so she gave me a 40L (or 50L, not sure) fish tank with a big salad of a community: 1 giant betta, 4 normal bettas, bunch of zebra danios, some yellow tetras (not sure of name), bunch of neon tetras, around 4 baby angelfish, bunch of swordtails and guppies, 1 or 2 black mollies, 1 red wag platy, few black-widow tetras.
Had no idea about filtration (only had two filters consecutively in for a few days and didn't know how to set them up properly and gave up on the filtration).
Lost fish over the years, especially during summers when my dad was left in care of the fish tank. Used to do 100% water changes once a week.

Later on I had only swordtails and guppies, out of which the guppies were the only ones I've managed to get the fry to grow into adults and live longer than a year. Had 3 generations of guppies from my starter ones.
Lost countless baby and adult swordtails to tank-escaping and hazardous decorations (snail shell incident where I lost my favorite swordie male).
My dad kept buying random fish I never really asked for: hoplos, 1 fossilis, 4 variations of fancy-tailed goldfish (a black moor with them), 2 black swordtail females that didn't make it past their 1st week in the tank, 1 crucian carp I saved from becoming dinner for us, countless fry I got from a lake (tiny fish that seemed to shine in all colors of the rainbow) - never managed to grow these past 1 cm and they died then, but they were nice shoalers.

Out of those, only the guppies and swordtails managed to live for several years until I ended up with a sterile colony of guppies so the whole colony died, and the swordtails... ended up with a late-bloomer male killing my last male and then dying later on too. Hoplos lived between 6-8 years and my last one that I still have till this day is 9 years old.

After 17 years of all that above ^, in 2012 I found out about cycling and how I don't have to change 100% of the water or even wash the fish tank. And that is thanks to the people of this forum, as I didn't even know what to look up, in fact, my first post here was only about fish compatibility.
Current status: Things seem to be going up.
I have a community of 1 male hoplo, 2 teenage swordtails, their two fry, bunch of tiny ramshorn snails (around 3-4) and 2 golden apple snails. I have filtration, sand, rocks and plants. I don't know about the heater though, whole winter I didn't need to use it since the room was way above the set temp anyway and heater only occupied space.

 

[crago1990]

Started off as many did knowing nothing researching nothing and had a goldfish in a little tank wich my lfs saidd would be fine. Then moved to guppys but got fed up of babies all the time. Which took me to red tailed shark with tiger barbs which i loved but after joining this site soon foun out my tank was too small and my fake plants in my tank was shocking compared the planted tanks on here! So here i am now with a 200l tank with a comunity set up with plants all growing! And even thinking about breeding fish. This forum is the only reason i got out of small tanks with fake plants! Now for the first time even though my tank aint finished i can say im happy with my aquarium.

 

[onidrase]

I started out wanting guppies and shrimp in a little corner tank on my desk. Now I pretty much look at nothing but aggressive fishes in a room with more water than floor.

 

[NathanPrince]

I started with Goldfish when I was about 4, now 19 and I've kept a variety of fish including Mollies, guppies, Neons, Harlequins, Minnows and other of the more common fish. Then went to Bettas for a bit both male and female. Also have a tank for just shrimp and snails. Ive successfully bred and reared Cories so now after something more challenging.

Now I've gone down the Cichlid route with a breeding group of Bolivian Rams but more importantly fell in love with Apistogramma and starting to breed and collect a few different species as and when they pop up on the market.

Ive also ventured into the planted side of fish keeping and have had some nice rewarding growth from DIY methods such as Kitty litter and the likes. Gradually learning the ropes with aquascaping and getting some nice (to me at least) scapes on the go, my favourite being my new (Semi) Amazon Biotope for my Apistos.

 

[snowflake311]

Oh yeah 3 of my 4 tanks are planted. I like aquascaping but have not mastered the art.

After keeping big tanks I went small and found a love for nano tanks with shrimp. I love shrimp how could I forget.

 

[FishBlast]

Oh yeah 3 of my 4 tanks are planted. I like aquascaping but have not mastered the art.

After keeping big tanks I went small and found a love for nano tanks with shrimp. I love shrimp how could I forget.

Your shrimp in the pic looks awesome too.

I think I'll go for hornwort to plant my tank. It seems like Ceratopteris just doesn't fit in a low-tech tank. I now have a bunch of new sprouts but all the old parts of the plant have gone yellow and are eaten by my apple snails. So I'll go with hornworth and a 20W fluorescent light and whatever remains of the Ceratopteris, good for it.

 

[LongS]

I remember having a goldfish in a wee bowl when i was younger. Me or my mum never knew #29### all about it. Lived years aswell, we just changed all the water everytime it started to go green.

About 4 years ago my mum was given a load of guppy teenagers from a friend and she then bought a 17 litre tank for. Within a few days nearly every single one was dead. I intervened, didn't want to see any more die so i came straight on the internet and found this forum, typed in everything that had happened and learned alot about cycling and such. I managed to save one little guppy who lived quite a while.

Since then i have upgraded my tank, kept various community fish and tried plants. Now i have increased my knowledge to a point where i can keep fish very healthy and disease free, and am now pretty hooked on fish keeping.

I have now plunged myself into the world of Biotopes. Obsessively searching the internet for information on the species, plants, water flow and chemistry and just about anything i can get my hands on. Oh happy days.

 

[OldMan47]

I also started with mollies about 50 years or more ago. I have kept everything you might imagine over the years but have found a renewed interest in livebearers the last few years. Now I am mostly keeping goodeids, a bit less common livebearers that are mostly threatened or endangered in the wild. Their demise in the wild is mostly due to the agricultural use of their main water system. These fairly easy fish are dying out in the world because their native waters no longer exist. I have, in my own tanks, fish that are considered extinct in the wild. The last time that water was seen in their original location was before 2000 AD. Maybe, if enough of us take an interest in them, there will be some still around when and if the water system ever exists again to restock. My Ameca splendens, the extinct in the wild fish that I keep, are prospering in my tanks and I regularly sell off any surplus so that even if I die tomorrow there will still be viable breeding groups of them kept in captivity.

 

[NeonNeptune]

I started keeping fish with an outdoor pond I helped my mom dig when I was 5. I then put a crayfish from crayfish from a big crayfish boil we had every year in pond(i lived in Louisiana). Our gold fish started disappearing and found out it was the crayfish. I then moved it to a little 1 gallon aquarium. And that was the first time I kept an aquarium.
I then moved to Korea and got a little 5 gallon hex and put 2 neon tetras in it. One lasted a year and I gave the other one away when we moved. I then moved to Italy and mainly got into reptiles and amphibians. It wasn't until I moved to Alabama when I got a fire belly newt, but it died (listening to LFS). So got some gold fish and cory cats. I eventually lost those and moved backed to reptiles. I had two turtles but when I became 14 I got leukemia and my mom made me get rid of the turtles because of salmonella. I then switched to tropical fish and guppies which are the great great grandparents of my current fishes.