Back when I was in 6th and my brother was in 5th, his teacher was breaking down a cichlid tank. I had always talked to my parents about getting some more fish ever since we had the beta fish. Well one day when My dad and I went to pick my brother up from school, we picked up some cichlids his teacher had brought to school in a ziplock bag. We put them in a 5g terrarium, and they lasted about a week before we upgraded them to a 20H.
With all fish comes the maintenance part. Back in the early days I thought to clean the tank you had to take the fish out, drain the tank, take the gravel out, and clean everything thoroughly with soap. As you might guess, that ideology didn't prove to be true. 4 dead cichlids later, I had a spare 20H. I thought to myself, "well I have a tank and some water, might as well just go get some fish." Sure enough my mom and I would go to the petstore (petsmart) almost every weekend for the next 6 months buying and replacing fish with petsmarts 2 week live guarantee.
About $200 of dead tropical fish later, we decided to try another smaller pet store across the highway. That's where we met the owner Dave (Had it not been for my Mom bringing me to the pet store and Dave being so supportive and informative, I can guarantee I would not be any where close to where I am today in this hobby). Dave (even with all the heart and effort he had) still lived with a couple different rules that most would agree with. The main one is the 1" per gallon rule. One day when My mom and I walked in and he was cleaning tanks I saw these 2 dragon looking fish. I promptly asked him about them and he said "yeah they should do fine in your 20." Sure enough I took 1 home and thought it was just the coolest thing ever so I went back trying to find a way to get the other one. Likewise he said "as long as you do enough water changes I think you'll be fine." (not long after, one killed the other and I named the remaining one "Curvine") Thats where it all started. I soon was researching night and day (since it was summer break, literally night and day). Soon I came across the popular ornate. Long story short I had to have it. Unfortunatley as my fascination with bichirs grew, Dave's fish store closed down, and Dave suddenly disappeared, so I drove with my dad all over Houston trying to find some place that would bring them in. 3-4 months later and still no ornate we made one last stop and found one at a store not even 5 minutes away. We bought it, and soon after that we bought a 75g for when the ornate got bigger. On our trek to find the ornate we found a couple other places that had some other species of polys. Soon I had 1 senegal, 1 ornate, and 1 buettikoferi. Then I discovered Jurassic aquatics..... That's a whole other story in and of itself. Anyway, I then upgraded to a 200g used reef tank thinking I could use the reef tank's sump as extra filtration. Well the REEF tank created too much flow for the polys and soon I had lost almost half of my collection. I then downgraded back to the old 75g. A couple months later I upgraded to a custom made 285g my parents thought would be a nice fixture in the "office" room (we all know and still call it the fish room; especially when massivore is fed). And thats where my collection has been growing for the past few years.
With all fish comes the maintenance part. Back in the early days I thought to clean the tank you had to take the fish out, drain the tank, take the gravel out, and clean everything thoroughly with soap. As you might guess, that ideology didn't prove to be true. 4 dead cichlids later, I had a spare 20H. I thought to myself, "well I have a tank and some water, might as well just go get some fish." Sure enough my mom and I would go to the petstore (petsmart) almost every weekend for the next 6 months buying and replacing fish with petsmarts 2 week live guarantee.
About $200 of dead tropical fish later, we decided to try another smaller pet store across the highway. That's where we met the owner Dave (Had it not been for my Mom bringing me to the pet store and Dave being so supportive and informative, I can guarantee I would not be any where close to where I am today in this hobby). Dave (even with all the heart and effort he had) still lived with a couple different rules that most would agree with. The main one is the 1" per gallon rule. One day when My mom and I walked in and he was cleaning tanks I saw these 2 dragon looking fish. I promptly asked him about them and he said "yeah they should do fine in your 20." Sure enough I took 1 home and thought it was just the coolest thing ever so I went back trying to find a way to get the other one. Likewise he said "as long as you do enough water changes I think you'll be fine." (not long after, one killed the other and I named the remaining one "Curvine") Thats where it all started. I soon was researching night and day (since it was summer break, literally night and day). Soon I came across the popular ornate. Long story short I had to have it. Unfortunatley as my fascination with bichirs grew, Dave's fish store closed down, and Dave suddenly disappeared, so I drove with my dad all over Houston trying to find some place that would bring them in. 3-4 months later and still no ornate we made one last stop and found one at a store not even 5 minutes away. We bought it, and soon after that we bought a 75g for when the ornate got bigger. On our trek to find the ornate we found a couple other places that had some other species of polys. Soon I had 1 senegal, 1 ornate, and 1 buettikoferi. Then I discovered Jurassic aquatics..... That's a whole other story in and of itself. Anyway, I then upgraded to a 200g used reef tank thinking I could use the reef tank's sump as extra filtration. Well the REEF tank created too much flow for the polys and soon I had lost almost half of my collection. I then downgraded back to the old 75g. A couple months later I upgraded to a custom made 285g my parents thought would be a nice fixture in the "office" room (we all know and still call it the fish room; especially when massivore is fed). And thats where my collection has been growing for the past few years.
