How did you get started in the hobby?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
My grandmother gave me a 50 gallon tank fullsetup and told me to take care of it. It came with cardnials, and after that I went crazy and bought exotic fish like arowanas(which ate all the cardnials) then upgraded to 125. Now I'm trying to earn money to buy a 250gal
 
It started about 7 yrs. ago with 5 lionhead orandas and an old 40 gal. octagon tank that was used to house a ball python.After about three yrs. of playing with those I purchased two 30 gals.then two more than two 55 gals then a 90 gal.It seem to have taken over,Id like to turn my entire basement into a aquarium,If the wife lets me :grinno: Once the kids are gone it will happen, oh yes it will :naughty:
 
Whats Shaking all!, my first post here, and excited to be a part of this forum.

My first tank was at age 7, (25gal, goldfish/tetras/sharks) was a great tank.

Haven't had a tank since then, untill about 6 months ago. Wanted to get back into the hobby for years, but never had the cash. One of my employees heard me mention my passion for big tanks. Few months later, said employee was at his local redneck bar (small town this side of nowhere one gas station) and they fired the bartender who cared for a 60gallon tank. Days later the fish were dying, he called me up! Boom, free tank!
 
Whats Shaking all!, my first post here, and excited to be a part of this forum.

My first tank was at age 7, (25gal, goldfish/tetras/sharks) was a great tank.

Haven't had a tank since then, untill about 6 months ago. Wanted to get back into the hobby for years, but never had the cash. One of my employees heard me mention my passion for big tanks. Few months later, said employee was at his local redneck bar (small town this side of nowhere , with one gas station) and they fired the bartender who cared for a 60gallon tank. Days later the fish were dying (dart tips, broken glass we found in the tank, along with pizza chunks :( ), he called me up! Boom, free tank! Wife and I were going to clove oil the fish, they were so sad looking, but instead we spent 200 bucks, new powerfilters, emperor 400, medicine, and named the big fish P.E.T.A.
He's a 16" healthy recovered Tiger Oscar, a 15" Pleco as a buddy, and we just got that tank out of the bar as the sheriff showed up for the biker tassles haha.

TFH, and these forums have helped us from newbie, to newbies with some idea of being good fishkeepers. Hoping to upgrade to a 150gal tank soon. Hope to post pics, and thanks for the great Site !
 
Well Hiya Elrec, Welcome to MFK and back to the hobby.
 
I had a 10g when I was abt 8 and I had goldfish in it for a year. Then I quit for a while and last year when I turned 14 my sister bought me a 10g with guppys and columbian sharks. Now I have a 90g with a P. Perruno and a Manaquense and right now Im saving for a 300g frontosa colony tank. :thumbsup:
 
I've always liked to look at fish, but about 5 years ago, one day i went to one of my friends house and he had a 100 gal. tank with a Jardini and 9 red parrots, and a Koi pond in the backyard. So i watched, and as i watched with passion, all of a sudden i felt really peacefull and relaxed and imagined my self as a fish inside an aquarium, just swimming around very peacefully! Sometimes when you use your imagination it kinda looks like the fish are flying instead of swimming throughout the aquarium. So there on i decided to go buy myself a 55 gal. and started the hobby. Then moved on to a 125....! And now i'm whooped! But i aint complaning! :headbang2
 
When I was about 10 years old, which is 6 years ago, I caught some gudgeons at the local creek that would take down guppies and anything else that moved.

Since then its turned into an obession.
 
It started, of all places, when I worked at PetsMart, and found a white betta in our shipment of these fine fish. I'd never seen a white betta before; we always got in blues and reds, and once in a while a green tinted one. So I hid said white betta in the back of the store, and before we closed, bought him and this godawful little betta container, which had a nice divider so you could keep TWO bettas in less than a quart of water. Shudder.

I decided I wanted him to have swimming room, so tossed the divider...and he still didn't have swimming room. So he got an upgrade to a 3 gallon unheated unfiltered and never cleaned tank, and died shortly thereafter.

I left the world of bettas for a while, and got interesting in the crayfish which came in our feeder fish shipments. With my mom's permission, the 3 gallon became a 10, and then a 20 to house my growing crayfish pair (they bred several times, but the female never "berried."). During this time, I experimented with adding various fish in the tank, and yes, the male Skit ate nearly every damn one of them. Then his mate died, and I persuaded my mom to have actual FISH in a fish tank. Skit was removed from the 20 gallons, and given his own 20 gallons long in my bedroom to cruise in.

Skit's now dead, and we have 4 tanks, plus two gallon-size betta "vases." The next step, of course, is saltwater.... :headbang2
 
I sold my frogs and had some extra tanks. Got a small Violet Gobie, and then he got bigger, so I upgraded to a 90, then he jumped out of the tank... Thats when I found my Birchir, the rest is history.
 
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