2 1/2 years ago, my husband came home with his $85 mother of all yard sale finds...that 55 gallon tank chock full with two 15" pacu, four large oscars and two 12"+ plecos. The people (who were moving away) told him that the fish were pacu and oscars. I had to get online to find out which were the pacu and which were the oscars!
After purchasing his fish and tank, my husband came home and grabbed the largest pots he could find. He went back and put each large fish into its own pot. One pacu jumped out of his pot which was sitting on the tailgate of hubby's '67 Chevy truck, and groveled in the gravel, until hubby picked him up, dusted him off and returned him to his pot. Once he got his treasure home, hubby scrubbed the tank and the gravel and the filters and the filter media, because everything was "dirty". He then filled the tank with chlorinated water and put the eight fish back into their now "clean" home. The only thing I knew about fishkeeping was that the water had to be dechlorinated. It quickly became very apparent that we had severe overcrowding, and that we needed a bigger tank. I joined several fish forums to learn more about fishkeeping and to ask questions about filtration, since the lfs didn't give me a good enough answer (he thought two canister filters might work). Unfortunately, I didn't discover MFK until much later. All I learned was that we needed lots of filtration, and that we could not have too much filtration. Being totally ignorant novices, we (my husband, actually) came up with a system that totally meets our needs, and our fishes' needs. It's a unique, one-of-a-kind system. While we were setting up our big tank, I was diagnosed with cancer and ended up missing 7 1/2 months of work in 2006. Fish forums became my teacher and my entertainment. No matter how sick I was or how much pain I was in from the chemotherapy, I was still able to sit at my computer and browse fish forums. I spent most of my time on OscarFish.com (hadn't found MFK yet), and I learned about the nitrogen cycle and the necessity of good water parameters.
One observation I have made, is that a newbie will join a forum and ask lots of questions, and a month later, they will be spouting off advice! I guess that's kind of what happened to me, too, although I'm the first to admit that I don't have much experience. I'm now an administrator on a very small fish forum--which only means that I police the forum for computer-generated spammers. I have been fortunate enough in my short time as a fish keeper to have dealt with only one bout of ich and cloudy eye/pop eye when we put feeder fish into the tank with a sick oscar...so that doesn't make me an expert on fish ailments. Whenever anyone asks a question about something I have no experience with, I just browse some of the other fish forums that I have joined, until I come up with the proper answer! I was helped by fish forums, so if I can help someone else, it's time for me to return the favor.
My husband's spur of the moment yardsale purchase has become a life-long commitment for us. If our pacu live 28+ years, they could easily outlive us. We are committed to providing our fish a safe healthy haven. We love our boisterous, jovial giants, and they give us much pleasure and joy.
I'm amazed at people like you, Liz, who keep so many different kinds of fish and have so many tanks. Sometimes I think that it would be really nice to have a tank of colorful Africans, and a planted tank with discus, but I am not that committed of a fishkeeper. We are committed to our current fish and have a system that works for us and for them. We just like to play too much, and plan to be gone too much to keep other fish. After I finished chemotherapy, we spent 5 weeks at the lake where I recuperated. We made the 9+ hours round trip home every 7 to 12 days to do water changes on the tanks. I guess I'll just have to keep browsing this forum and admire your fish and everybody else's fish, since we won't be getting any more fish ourselves!
Susan
