I guess I should stop by here and post

Hi all.

I just found this forum and love it.

I have no monsterfish but desire them in a very unhealthy way.

Fish keeping has been an obsession since I was a kid. It started with a few guppies at 8 and by 14 I was breeding dwarf gouramis and trading them to the local LFS. Now I'm nearly 40 and slightly lost. Why are under gravel filters bad now?

This appears to be one of the most knowledgeable forums related to keeping fish active right now so I'll stick around until I finally have the giant gourami I've wanted since I was 14 and messing around with DGs.

piranhaman00 said:

Welcome!
Have any setups going now?

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I made a "now that I'm sure I'm not going to kill my fish, what cool can I add to the tank?" post here:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...ould-an-elephant-nose-work-in-a-55-gallon-hex

The apartment we're in has ****ty heat and AC. I wanted to see how big the temperature fluctuations would be on a 55 gallon tank over the course of a year before adding anything that doesn't naturally live in a drainage ditch.

xraycer said:

Welcome to MFK!

There are still people using UGF, and although effective, it's just dated. I suppose people (myself included) just don't like the idea of having all that organic crud under the substrate.

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Plants dig it, in addition to the water circulation around their roots. That's what the fish books said 25 years ago anyway.

UGF in a heavily planted tank is much more efficient than in a tank with no plants. I've always had well-planted tanks.

xraycer said:

Welcome to MFK!
BTW, I picked up a baby white giant gourami last summer

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How big is a "baby" btw?