Hello everybody!
Name's Angel. I'm a nerd (note username) and I've always loved aquariums. I've had dozens since I was a small child, but the ones from childhood I can't remember what happened to. First one I can remember eactly what was in it and how it started and how it ended was from seven-ish years ago. It was a 15 gal tropical tank with fancy guppies and tadpoles in it. It was thriving, they were reproducing, the plants were growing great but not taking over, tadpoles were developing....and then my mother flea-bombed the house because one of her indoor/outdoor cats brought in fleas and we couldn't get rid of them. I was visiting relatives in Maryland during this time and didn't know this was going on. But she thought the fish would be fine being left in the house because "they're fish, they breathe water, they won't even notice". *eye roll* Needless to say, she killed the entire tank. I was pretty upset about it (yeah I was still in high school at the time, but I had payed for everything and was monitoring everything and making sure it was perfect for them) and ended up just burying the tank somewhere in the back of my shed, never to be seen again (seriously, I've emptied out that shed every year in the Spring and haven't seen that darn tank) and gave up on having a thriving aquarium of my own.
Until about four-five years ago.
I caved and impulsively bought a 29 gal tank at walmart and set it up one day. Again, monitoring everything, running it for two weeks before checking levels again and deciding it was safe to start adding fish, etc. This time, I went further with species. I got fancy guppies again (love those guys and they're easy to get) even got a few lyretails, various platies and swordtails, plecos, snails (they ended up never coming out of their shells so I returned them - where they then promptly came out of their shells and proved me wrong since I thought they were dead - they had been in my tank for a week with absolutely no movement and upside down), red barbs, long-fin zebra danios, normal danios, a betta male and female (I've always had really good luck with temperaments on these guys - they've never bothered the other fish as long as I keep it to only one male or one male and one female), at one point I had leopard puffers but realized their aggressive behavior and returned them, leopard catfish, stripped Raphael catfish (my favorite catfish!), spotted catfish, ghost shrimp, and various live plants. That right there was the problem eventually - the plants. I can't remember the name of the one plant, but I had only bought one strand of it, and it completely took over to the point where it sucked out all the oxygen in the tank and killed everything, including itself. I had the water tested and everything, that's what the aquarium people said. Before everything died, I tried removing a bunch of the new growth, but it grew back and then some within half a week. It was nuts! After everything died I gave up again and actually just let it sit for a year on my bedroom dresser with all the decaying plant matter in it. I was pretty disheartened and I'm naturally lazy, so I kept making excuses why I wasn't dismantling it and cleaning it out and tossing it in the black hole in my shed where the 15 gal disappeared into.
Until two months ago.
I finally got up off my lazy backside and scrubbed that thing clean. Scooped out all the gravel and scrubbed that, too. Scrubbed the filters, heater, etc. Then after rearranging my room so my dresser was away from my windows instead of surrounded by them (one of the aquarium dudes said the sunlight probably helped make that plant grow like crazy, so figured I'd bypass that. Plus, I'm rearranging my room so I can build an indoor enclosure for my box turtles for the winter. Right now they're outside but I can't hibernate them because when I rescued them, they were either very sick and one close to death or severely underweight, both of which you can't hibernate - or more accurately brumate - a turtle/tortoise with that), I put the gravel back in, filled it back up with water, added a couple decorations, and ran it again for two weeks. Now I have three comet goldfish someone didn't want anymore, a couple feeder minnows (started with 10-15 but the goldfish have been slowly eating them, dunno why, I feed them every day a good amount), about 10 or so ghost shrimp, another Raphael catfish (can't stay away from these beauties!!), and a bullfrog tadpole. There's also a water hyacinth and a moss ball. Eventually I want to either add my usual colorful fish choices (platies, swords, fancy guppies, etc) or turn it into an aquatic turtle tank and only stock it with feeders, and have another tank for my "pretty fishies" (the Raphael and tadpole, though I may have to take out the goldfish and add them to the "pretty" tank because I keep hearing that they can make turtles sick?).
Um, yeah. I think that's pretty much my story. Thanks for reading.
Name's Angel. I'm a nerd (note username) and I've always loved aquariums. I've had dozens since I was a small child, but the ones from childhood I can't remember what happened to. First one I can remember eactly what was in it and how it started and how it ended was from seven-ish years ago. It was a 15 gal tropical tank with fancy guppies and tadpoles in it. It was thriving, they were reproducing, the plants were growing great but not taking over, tadpoles were developing....and then my mother flea-bombed the house because one of her indoor/outdoor cats brought in fleas and we couldn't get rid of them. I was visiting relatives in Maryland during this time and didn't know this was going on. But she thought the fish would be fine being left in the house because "they're fish, they breathe water, they won't even notice". *eye roll* Needless to say, she killed the entire tank. I was pretty upset about it (yeah I was still in high school at the time, but I had payed for everything and was monitoring everything and making sure it was perfect for them) and ended up just burying the tank somewhere in the back of my shed, never to be seen again (seriously, I've emptied out that shed every year in the Spring and haven't seen that darn tank) and gave up on having a thriving aquarium of my own.
Until about four-five years ago.
I caved and impulsively bought a 29 gal tank at walmart and set it up one day. Again, monitoring everything, running it for two weeks before checking levels again and deciding it was safe to start adding fish, etc. This time, I went further with species. I got fancy guppies again (love those guys and they're easy to get) even got a few lyretails, various platies and swordtails, plecos, snails (they ended up never coming out of their shells so I returned them - where they then promptly came out of their shells and proved me wrong since I thought they were dead - they had been in my tank for a week with absolutely no movement and upside down), red barbs, long-fin zebra danios, normal danios, a betta male and female (I've always had really good luck with temperaments on these guys - they've never bothered the other fish as long as I keep it to only one male or one male and one female), at one point I had leopard puffers but realized their aggressive behavior and returned them, leopard catfish, stripped Raphael catfish (my favorite catfish!), spotted catfish, ghost shrimp, and various live plants. That right there was the problem eventually - the plants. I can't remember the name of the one plant, but I had only bought one strand of it, and it completely took over to the point where it sucked out all the oxygen in the tank and killed everything, including itself. I had the water tested and everything, that's what the aquarium people said. Before everything died, I tried removing a bunch of the new growth, but it grew back and then some within half a week. It was nuts! After everything died I gave up again and actually just let it sit for a year on my bedroom dresser with all the decaying plant matter in it. I was pretty disheartened and I'm naturally lazy, so I kept making excuses why I wasn't dismantling it and cleaning it out and tossing it in the black hole in my shed where the 15 gal disappeared into.
Until two months ago.
I finally got up off my lazy backside and scrubbed that thing clean. Scooped out all the gravel and scrubbed that, too. Scrubbed the filters, heater, etc. Then after rearranging my room so my dresser was away from my windows instead of surrounded by them (one of the aquarium dudes said the sunlight probably helped make that plant grow like crazy, so figured I'd bypass that. Plus, I'm rearranging my room so I can build an indoor enclosure for my box turtles for the winter. Right now they're outside but I can't hibernate them because when I rescued them, they were either very sick and one close to death or severely underweight, both of which you can't hibernate - or more accurately brumate - a turtle/tortoise with that), I put the gravel back in, filled it back up with water, added a couple decorations, and ran it again for two weeks. Now I have three comet goldfish someone didn't want anymore, a couple feeder minnows (started with 10-15 but the goldfish have been slowly eating them, dunno why, I feed them every day a good amount), about 10 or so ghost shrimp, another Raphael catfish (can't stay away from these beauties!!), and a bullfrog tadpole. There's also a water hyacinth and a moss ball. Eventually I want to either add my usual colorful fish choices (platies, swords, fancy guppies, etc) or turn it into an aquatic turtle tank and only stock it with feeders, and have another tank for my "pretty fishies" (the Raphael and tadpole, though I may have to take out the goldfish and add them to the "pretty" tank because I keep hearing that they can make turtles sick?).
Um, yeah. I think that's pretty much my story. Thanks for reading.
