Sometimes, I pretend my 36 gallon tank is a 360 gallon tank with 1/10th the work!
What is a "monster" fish afterall? Is it big compared to you? Big compared to other fish? Big enough to eat an unwanted litter of kittens? Or is it just something about the fish that adds a little fear and drama to your tanks?
And why all this obsession with bigger, better, faster, more anyway? Eh?
My first tank was given to me by a friend who had too many big fish in a 36 gallon tank. He bought them a couple years ago when they were cute and small but like fish often do, they grew like cancer. He was overwhelmed and distraught by the upkeep and since my daughter and I had always admired his tank when we visited he gave the entire setup to us for Christmas!
Hell of a guy! Now I had too many big fish in too small a tank to deal with... but I had bigger worries... I was now an aquarium owner!
Well, I'll save the story of how getting a free aquarium turned into an obsession and two more tanks with (I'm sure) more to come for later. I was wise enough to trade many of the fish that were overbearing the tank for supplies instead of more fish. I wanted to take time to figure out what this tank's purpose was going to be...
I tried different combinations - many unsuccessfully - and even bred a few species until I picked up a larger tank (thanks, desparate for cash guy on craigslist!) and transferred the remaining fish crowding the tank to the bigger tank where they have prospered ever since.
But I didn't know what to do with the original tank... At first I went with a short lived run as a blue crayfish specimin tank - a nerve racking, ill-timed and expensive lesson that genuinely sucked. I just couldn't figure out what to do with a 36 gallon tank! It was too big to be a quarrantine tank and too small to keep anything "cool" in it. So I used it specifically for breeders for a while... but soon that became boring too.
Now I have many hobbies besides aquaculture. One day while trimming some of my bonsai plants, it hit me! The purpose of bonsai is to make a small tree look big by making it stay small. Why not apply the same concept to the little tank? Make the tank bigger by making it's habitation smaller!!! Now I had a purpose.
My goal was to stuff it full of little teeny fish that wouldn't grow large and make a teeny calm, relaxing ecosystem out of it. To make it appear how a larger tank with larger fish would look. But to maintain that status.
It started 3 bucks worth of 50 cent danios. They didn't last long, but the seeds were sewn!
I eventually jammed it with 19 neon tetras and 4 blue tetras and several varieties of shrimp as well as a gaggle of ghosties. I bought the smallest pleco I could find - when he got big, he moved to the bigger tank and was replaced by another miniature pleco. I added a couple of tiny corys and a tiny clown loach after a snail breakout (problem solved) and a giant African filter shrimp (who is still the largest inhabitant of the tank at about 3 1/2 inches) for fun and even got some bumblebee cats and an otoclincus cat. I have about 40 inches of fish and inverts in a 36 gallon tank and it looks full of color yet it is PLENTY spacious at the same time!
It was this little tank teeming with colorful life. And if I just sat much closer to it and/or whipped out a magnifying glass, it was a GIANT tank with TONS of HUGE fish in it!@!! Yeah, I'm weird... sue me.
Now I've gone through some adjustments here and there - I lost a few neons to a little thing called "LFS neons tend to die easily" but the rest are the plumpest blue and red little suckers I've seen! And the blue tetras were wound up too tight and made the rest of the tank nervous so they eventually became dinner in the new big tank. I tried mini gourami and giant danio experiments that failed miserably - but I gotta tell ya, working in miniatures has been more rewarding to me than keeping a single giant fish or two ever would.
I now have a little water city of teeny, little "monsters" that I can get lost in by watching. And my kids LOVE that tank more than the other two. Then again, it is closer to their eye level and my kids are a touch obsessed with ghost shrimp because they "fly like helicopters"... With all those little bassturds moving around there's so much activity yet the tank is overall very calm and peaceful to watch.
Wanna know the best part of working in miniatures? They are the cheapest fish you can buy (not including the weird and exotic shrimp)!!! Hell, most of the fish I got were through trade or adopted for free! And your LFS Will gladly trade a bigger one for a small one if they can sell the bigger one! Besides, if they don't work in your tank they become "delicacy" feeders for your "other" monsters... Don't your other "monsters" deserve a little exotic variety now and then?
Some people construct ships in a bottle that won't float or huff glue while building plastic scale models of their dream cars, some people build gingerbread houses for little cookie people; not me... I keep a bunch of teeny, weeny monsterfish!!!
PLEASE tell me I'm not the only person who loves the "lil' monsters"?!?!?!
What is a "monster" fish afterall? Is it big compared to you? Big compared to other fish? Big enough to eat an unwanted litter of kittens? Or is it just something about the fish that adds a little fear and drama to your tanks?
And why all this obsession with bigger, better, faster, more anyway? Eh?
My first tank was given to me by a friend who had too many big fish in a 36 gallon tank. He bought them a couple years ago when they were cute and small but like fish often do, they grew like cancer. He was overwhelmed and distraught by the upkeep and since my daughter and I had always admired his tank when we visited he gave the entire setup to us for Christmas!
Hell of a guy! Now I had too many big fish in too small a tank to deal with... but I had bigger worries... I was now an aquarium owner!
Well, I'll save the story of how getting a free aquarium turned into an obsession and two more tanks with (I'm sure) more to come for later. I was wise enough to trade many of the fish that were overbearing the tank for supplies instead of more fish. I wanted to take time to figure out what this tank's purpose was going to be...
I tried different combinations - many unsuccessfully - and even bred a few species until I picked up a larger tank (thanks, desparate for cash guy on craigslist!) and transferred the remaining fish crowding the tank to the bigger tank where they have prospered ever since.
But I didn't know what to do with the original tank... At first I went with a short lived run as a blue crayfish specimin tank - a nerve racking, ill-timed and expensive lesson that genuinely sucked. I just couldn't figure out what to do with a 36 gallon tank! It was too big to be a quarrantine tank and too small to keep anything "cool" in it. So I used it specifically for breeders for a while... but soon that became boring too.
Now I have many hobbies besides aquaculture. One day while trimming some of my bonsai plants, it hit me! The purpose of bonsai is to make a small tree look big by making it stay small. Why not apply the same concept to the little tank? Make the tank bigger by making it's habitation smaller!!! Now I had a purpose.
My goal was to stuff it full of little teeny fish that wouldn't grow large and make a teeny calm, relaxing ecosystem out of it. To make it appear how a larger tank with larger fish would look. But to maintain that status.
It started 3 bucks worth of 50 cent danios. They didn't last long, but the seeds were sewn!
I eventually jammed it with 19 neon tetras and 4 blue tetras and several varieties of shrimp as well as a gaggle of ghosties. I bought the smallest pleco I could find - when he got big, he moved to the bigger tank and was replaced by another miniature pleco. I added a couple of tiny corys and a tiny clown loach after a snail breakout (problem solved) and a giant African filter shrimp (who is still the largest inhabitant of the tank at about 3 1/2 inches) for fun and even got some bumblebee cats and an otoclincus cat. I have about 40 inches of fish and inverts in a 36 gallon tank and it looks full of color yet it is PLENTY spacious at the same time!
It was this little tank teeming with colorful life. And if I just sat much closer to it and/or whipped out a magnifying glass, it was a GIANT tank with TONS of HUGE fish in it!@!! Yeah, I'm weird... sue me.
Now I've gone through some adjustments here and there - I lost a few neons to a little thing called "LFS neons tend to die easily" but the rest are the plumpest blue and red little suckers I've seen! And the blue tetras were wound up too tight and made the rest of the tank nervous so they eventually became dinner in the new big tank. I tried mini gourami and giant danio experiments that failed miserably - but I gotta tell ya, working in miniatures has been more rewarding to me than keeping a single giant fish or two ever would.
I now have a little water city of teeny, little "monsters" that I can get lost in by watching. And my kids LOVE that tank more than the other two. Then again, it is closer to their eye level and my kids are a touch obsessed with ghost shrimp because they "fly like helicopters"... With all those little bassturds moving around there's so much activity yet the tank is overall very calm and peaceful to watch.
Wanna know the best part of working in miniatures? They are the cheapest fish you can buy (not including the weird and exotic shrimp)!!! Hell, most of the fish I got were through trade or adopted for free! And your LFS Will gladly trade a bigger one for a small one if they can sell the bigger one! Besides, if they don't work in your tank they become "delicacy" feeders for your "other" monsters... Don't your other "monsters" deserve a little exotic variety now and then?
Some people construct ships in a bottle that won't float or huff glue while building plastic scale models of their dream cars, some people build gingerbread houses for little cookie people; not me... I keep a bunch of teeny, weeny monsterfish!!!
PLEASE tell me I'm not the only person who loves the "lil' monsters"?!?!?!
