Heart Fish! Read thread for description

[pinfish]

In the horse world, there are "heart horses." Heart horses are the horses that either brought the riders into the sport, was their first horse, or had an extra special bond with the owner or rider. So today, I thought with all this mayhem going around with the pandemic, we could all post pictures our "heart fish," along with a little story about them. Let's show off our babies!

I don't have a picture, but my "heart fish" was a little gold dust mollie that I saw at a petco one day. His name was "Splah," couldn't tell you why, it just was. For some reason something clicked and I bought a tank, cycled it, and brought that fish home once everything was ready. The guy at the store was nice enough to put that one specific little fish on hold for me. I never had the urge to buy a fish before, and without that fish, I wouldn't have four fish tanks in my room right now!

 

[esoxlucius]

My "heart fish" led me into angling first, and then some time later I started keeping fish in tanks. But it all stemmed from this one fish. The fish being the European perch. Still my favourite fish years and years and years later. The pic below shows you why (not my catch by the way, it's a random pic I found on line).

 

[fishhead0103666]

There never was a fish that got me into freshwater keeping however the fish that will get me into saltwater keeping are dusky angelfish along with Canthigaster jactator

 

[MrsE88]

My Original heart fish was my koi, sunshine.
It broke my heart when I lost her and all my other pond fish.


I had a pond before I started tanks and they got me comfortable with the idea of having fish tanks.
Now Oliver is my heart fish

 

[Hendre]

My first tropical fish 4 years ago were these two; an African knife and synodontis. Mr Katvis (catfish in Afrikaans, pronounced cut-fus) is still kicking today

Then:


Now:


He's also a bichir murderer, with his latest tankmate at least.

 

[Hendre]

Also will never forget my first two dinosaurs, Toothless and Nibblet.

 

[Kittiee Katt]

The older members have probably heard this 1000 times and are likely sick of it by now lol sorry guys


But by far my Horrace. He was a geophagus brasiliensis. My ex and I got him in 2010 when he was a tiny little guy, like 1"-2" we had him for 5 years, in which time he grew to be around 13" (33.5cm if I recall correct). We'd been keeping fish for a few months when we got him (and my family had kept fish my whole life) but we'd never kept a fish like him.

He had so much personality, here's a list of some of the things he would do:

He danced with me if the music was up - that is, I'd groove side to side in front of the tank and he'd go side to side with me.

He would kiss me - I'd kiss the tank and he'd bump his lips against where mine were.

He'd even let me pet him! I didn't pet him often because I didn't want to damage his slime coat, but if I ever put my hand in his tank he would swim against me. And there was a few times I showed off petting my fish, mainly to my ex's arrogant mates who didn't believe us how dog like he was.

You'll notice all of these say "me" because he wouldn't do any of it for my ex, in fact, he used to get angry (or it seemed, he'd go dark and start thrashing at the glass) when my ex touched me in front of his tank.

Unfortunately we lost him because of a move, long story short my ex in-laws offered to baby sit him while we got settled in so that we could move him when we weren't as stressed, they overfed him and didn't change his water and he got sick, he valiantly battled for over a year but ultimately lost his fight in 2015.

We had him cremated when we lost him, even his ashes were beautiful. His scales didn't burn 100% so there was tiny flecks of green, blue and purple through them.

Here's the best pic I have of him, I wish I had more.

 

[MrsE88]

The older members have probably heard this 1000 times and are likely sick of it by now lol sorry guys


But by far my Horrace. He was a geophagus brasiliensis. My ex and I got him in 2010 when he was a tiny little guy, like 1"-2" we had him for 5 years, in which time he grew to be around 13" (33.5cm if I recall correct). We'd been keeping fish for a few months when we got him (and my family had kept fish my whole life) but we'd never kept a fish like him.

He had so much personality, here's a list of some of the things he would do:

He danced with me if the music was up - that is, I'd groove side to side in front of the tank and he'd go side to side with me.

He would kiss me - I'd kiss the tank and he'd bump his lips against where mine were.

He'd even let me pet him! I didn't pet him often because I didn't want to damage his slime coat, but if I ever put my hand in his tank he would swim against me. And there was a few times I showed off petting my fish, mainly to my ex's arrogant mates who didn't believe us how dog like he was.

You'll notice all of these say "me" because he wouldn't do any of it for my ex, in fact, he used to get angry (or it seemed, he'd go dark and start thrashing at the glass) when my ex touched me in front of his tank.

Unfortunately we lost him because of a move, long story short my ex in-laws offered to baby sit him while we got settled in so that we could move him when we weren't as stressed, they overfed him and didn't change his water and he got sick, he valiantly battled for over a year but ultimately lost his fight in 2015.

We had him cremated when we lost him, even his ashes were beautiful. His scales didn't burn 100% so there was tiny flecks of green, blue and purple through them.

Here's the best pic I have of him, I wish I had more.
View attachment 1414574

Hey! Nice to see you back on here again. I don’t think I’ve seen you on in a long while. I hope all is well! ?
Your boy was a really beautiful fish.

 

[Kittiee Katt]

Hey! Nice to see you back on here again. I don’t think I’ve seen you on in a long while. I hope all is well! ?
Your boy was a really beautiful fish.

It has been a while I'm doing great, how are you? And how's Oliver?

 

[MrsE88]

It has been a while I'm doing great, how are you? And how's Oliver?

All is well here? Getting started on spring projects now that the weather has warmed up? And he is doing great. He just got a bunch of plants added to his tank and so far he seems to really like them.