Where are you taking the hobby

[pacu mom]

I am not a hobbyist. I have no interest in more tanks/more fish/different fish. We've made a commitment to our two fish, and we are in it for the long haul. Potentially, they could live 30+ years--that's a long time. Our fish are part of your pet family along with our cats. I guess I'm just a pet owner who has pretty much gone all out to accommodate two fish.

I do understand that fish keeping can be a hobby, like collecting thimbles or coins or stamps, where you buy/sell/trade up or down to improve your collection. Nothing wrong with that. I have asked myself what we would do with the tank in the unlikely event that we lost our fish. I think I would consider a biotope or go reef. Hope it never comes to that.

 

[wild bill]

Our plans took a huge step forward this spring as I now have a 32x32 foot building. This building will be our fish house some work ahead of us but it is taking shape.
The end goal will be to supply locally raised fish to stores here in Alberta. We will breeding the less common species to help give people a better choice of fish. When done we should have about 200 tanks up and running including my 1100 gallon tank. Hope we can find enough friends to help us move our current tanks into it.
This a real different thread great idea everyone can have a say in it.

 

[Texas321]

Our plans took a huge step forward this spring as I now have a 32x32 foot building. This building will be our fish house some work ahead of us but it is taking shape.
The end goal will be to supply locally raised fish to stores here in Alberta. We will breeding the less common species to help give people a better choice of fish. When done we should have about 200 tanks up and running including my 1100 gallon tank. Hope we can find enough friends to help us move our current tanks into it.
This a real different thread great idea everyone can have a say in it.

Have any idea of which fish you will carry?

 

[koltsixx]

Man this is gonna be a long post, even by my standards. lol I didn't realize the thread would get so many responses so fast. Glad it did though and that everyone is enjoying sharing. I tried to answer everyone as I'm truly interested in what you have to say. Hope I didn't miss anyone.

The hobby for me is getting smaller and smaller, not in the enthusiasm sense; but in terms of tank size. I'm enjoying the challenge, precision, simplicity and sometimes ease of the smaller bodies of water now.

I also want to focus more on breeding Betta's, as it has only really been brief forays into it before

Smaller doesn't mean any less dedicated, in many ways it can be more challenging. Would love to hear about some of your proposed setups and stock including the Betta's.

I'm just cruising right now. I just added a 75 gallon to my collection of tanks. I'm at 5 right now (150, 135, 75, 55, 20long) which is pretty much at my limit as far as time for maintenance, water changes, etc. Any more would be too much work. I work long hours during the week so weekends are precious. Problem is I've been wanting an archer fish tank real bad. So, I am planning that for the future when one of my current tanks opens up. I love all the stock I have now and don't really want to change anything. But I'm really looking forward to setting a tank up for archers.

I know how you feel, been drawn to archers myself, specifically clouded. So what are you keeping in those 5 tanks?

it is a balance. if the line is crossed between, it being work, or a hobby that you enjoy doing, the fish, you and your family will suffer.

Well said. You definitely have to make sure you don't let the hobby overwhelm you.It loses it's value then IMHO. When it becomes more work then passion.

Due to health reasons, I've sold off or given away over 120 tanks. I have about 2 dozen tanks left and am focusing now on breeding wakin goldfish. There are not many sources for this variety so, I'm going to see if I can make a dent in the market.

We also set up a few small moss tanks to breed FW spider crabs.

I'm close to convincing my wife to let me set the 650 back up for a pair of mbu puffers just so I can have a large food bill again since our boy left to serve in the Army.

Very cool, especially the freshwater crabs. Haven't heard them mentioned in awhile. Plan on selling on here to fellow MFK'ers?

I've tried a few different planted tanks. It's something I've always wanted to do but have failed miserably haha my current tank is surviving but I'm not happy with it.

Anyways, I really want to venture into dwarf can't cichlids. American or African. But I have zero experience with those guys and would like to give them a shot.

Hey man your doing better then those of us who never tried and those of us who failed. I'm sure you'll get the planted just like you want soon enough.

Any particular Dwarfs your thinking about? Is it going to be straight species, mixed dwarf cichlids or are you going to include and small dithers?

My main goal now is to get my Angels breeding and hopefully sell off some of the offspring. I know that I won't get a lot of money out of it, I'm just doing it for the experience. I'd also like to get a nano reef and put a few clownfish, shrimp, and snaills in there. After that I'd like to get a much larger tank (1000+ gallons) to house a few true monsters.

That's the way to do it. Making money in this hobby can be hard it's definitely better when the primary reason for breeding is experience. Makes it less frustrating that way. What kind of Angels where you planning on breeding?

Idk about where I'm taking the hobby, but the hobby's taking me on a trip to "obsessionville" with a quick detour through "broke town".

lol The hobby's taking us all there.

 

[koltsixx]

I want to eventually build a freshwater stingray pond.

What kind of Rays? Bose, Leo's Motoros? Have you worked up a rough plan on the pond and filtration, etc?

pond is my next goal. 1000+ or bust!

What kind of stock? And same as above any rough plans on filtration, etc?

Right now everything is new to me. Even though I've been in the hobby for 10 years, I've only ever kept smaller tanks (largest one was a 40 long). I've just recently gotten into larger tanks with my first 125g, stocked with an oscar and a colony of geophagus red heads. I'm also just starting into CO2 injection with dry fertilizers to get that 125 to be a planted tank. I'm trying a lot of new things at once, haha.

I must say, this is the most fun I've had in the hobby!

Glad to hear! Any plans for more tanks? What kind of plants are you planning on adding?

I am wishing for more and more.
right now i am sitting with a 5.5, a 75 that i need to stock and a 50 gal tub for my goldfish when its cycled.

I have only got deep into fish in the last 6 months but have had goldfish for over a year or so.

Right now i am trying to settle with the tanks i have and provide my fish with the best care i can afford to give them after how badly i treated my goldfish (9 in 22Gal tub) which now reside in my 75. Soon they will go into the 50Gal tub outside until my dad can pick up the 270 Gal IBC which i will use until i can build or buy something bigger.

For my betta i have made the inbuilt filter on top of the tank as efficient as possible and put 30 dollars worth of rock and plants to make him comfortable.

luckily for me being 14 i have enough time to maintain my tanks nicely but it is still a mission to pull the hose up onto the balcony to top up the tank

Welcome to the Hobby! Can't wait to hear more about your future plans.

I'm in the process of trying to streamline my collection mainly towards my gars and stingrays. Gars were what got me into this hobby years ago and I've almost always had some. Have a couple that should be approaching maturity. As unlikely as it is to spawn them I want to try playing around with some variables to try and spawn them.

For rays they captured my attention again earlier this year and have replaced catfish as the other major focus of my collection.

Right now mainly trying to sell off the other fish in my collection and have a larger upgrade that should be done by the end of the summer.

Sounds cool. I've always loved Gars. What species are you planning on keeping(Rays and Gars)?

I'm not sure where i'm going with this hobby but this hobby is sure taking me somewhere....bankruptcy!!! I got back into it last year after a 15 year break from the hobby. I bought a £1200 tank for an assortment of baby monsters. My RTGG needs a tank of her own now so i'm spending £4500 on a garage conversion to make room for another £1200 tank. And it doesn't bother me one bit but if my little lad asks for a new bike i tell him to bugger off!!!! Haha, this hobby.

lol This hobby really does have a way of making money disappear. What kind of baby monsters are you considering?

The hobby is taking me over. Haha having fish room built around my aquarium today.View attachment 1189189 View attachment 1189190

Very nice! Can't wait to see how it progresses. Please keep us updated here or create your own thread documenting that monster build.

Cool topic.

I kind of always do the same... no real theme or plans on the community of fish ive kept. It kind of always evolves but in a disorganized way. Big part was really only being back in the hobby the past few years.

Planning an upgrade in the near future, and this time i wanna do it right. Been planning the tank for 6 plus months. Polypterus have pretty much taken over the entire family so the tank will be a nice poly comm. I used to like the aggressiveness of cichlids but not my cup of tea anymore, i wanna get more into oddballs.

Thanks man! I was the same way with the Comm's. The upgrade sounds cool, would love to hear what you've got planned. Tank size, filtration, scaping, etc. I always wanted a Poly tank but I've had bad luck with them. Usually because I chose their tankmates poorly. I know what your saying about cichlids and I moved onto Oddballs as well for the same reason. Problem for me was they're just too many oddballs. They're was always something new or not often seen catching my eye. Between that and a lot of times unknown temperaments, some being pred's and the size differences they where available at time of purchase I ran into new problems. Then again I have no elf control when it comes to this hobby, so hopefully you'll have better luck then I.

Rays and predators are my focus. One goal is to grow my vatf to 18+

Would love to see a monster VATF. What kind of rays and preds are you thinking about?

I am not a hobbyist. I have no interest in more tanks/more fish/different fish. We've made a commitment to our two fish, and we are in it for the long haul. Potentially, they could live 30+ years--that's a long time. Our fish are part of your pet family along with our cats. I guess I'm just a pet owner who has pretty much gone all out to accommodate two fish.

I do understand that fish keeping can be a hobby, like collecting thimbles or coins or stamps, where you buy/sell/trade up or down to improve your collection. Nothing wrong with that. I have asked myself what we would do with the tank in the unlikely event that we lost our fish. I think I would consider a biotope or go reef. Hope it never comes to that.

Actually you're the best kind of hobbyist. Your animals come first and I have nothing but respect for that. It's a level I keep striving to reach for. I keep hoping to find my way and stick with a couple of species. It's what i hope I wind up doing with Crenicichla. Building a tank around them not myself by throwing in random rare fish.

Our plans took a huge step forward this spring as I now have a 32x32 foot building. This building will be our fish house some work ahead of us but it is taking shape.
The end goal will be to supply locally raised fish to stores here in Alberta. We will breeding the less common species to help give people a better choice of fish. When done we should have about 200 tanks up and running including my 1100 gallon tank. Hope we can find enough friends to help us move our current tanks into it.
This a real different thread great idea everyone can have a say in it.

Wow! That sounds sick! Would love to hear about the stock and planned filtration for that monster build.

 

[KNH]

Vatf is currently 14" so 18" may not be too far off. Considered adding an armatus but local vendor is getting in odoe pikes so I'll probably grab a few of them. Rays are blackies and may add others as I've been looking around.

 

[ehh]

Hey man your doing better then those of us who never tried and those of us who failed. I'm sure you'll get the planted just like you want soon enough.

Any particular Dwarfs your thinking about? Is it going to be straight species, mixed dwarf cichlids or are you going to include and small dithers?

Originally I was thinking of doing Mikrogeophagus ramirezi. I feel like they're common enough to easily get but I rarely see good looking pairs.
But the more reading I do on South American dwarfs the more really cool looking fish I find haha. But they're way more rare than the rams.
I want to put them in something like a 75 and shoot for a biotype. I feel like it'll be easier to do that with smaller fish.

 

[MonsterFishCreeper]

Current plans are to grow out the SA juveniles I have in a 75 to go for a nice SA tank with heavy driftwood and hopefully a few giant swords if the severum dont eat them.

I am going to be moving the 5 grow outs in that tank, plus a few more, to a 180 or larger and doing something a little different with the tank. I'm planning to build a really nice canopy with a cutout in the middle that incorporates a hanging hydroponic basket. A separate small pump will move water from the sump/tank up to the canopy and deliver tank water to a mix of plants that should grow well in these conditions. It should help keep nitrates a bit lower and will give a cool raining effect to the aquarium. Ideally I hope that the nitrate removal will allow for water changes every 10-14 days if possible. Additionally once the canopy gets covered in dense foliage it should look really awesome.

Other than that, I am going to build a double 55 gallon rack for my c. nanoluteus and c. panamensis grow outs. I have 6 of each species and will probably move out extras to end up with 2 trios if having 6 ends up with aggression issues.

Second project will be moving my green terror into the 75 gallon where the south american grow outs are living now to give him a bit more space.

Once that fish is moved I will have my very sweet 55 gallon acrylic setup I bought a couple months ago empty. I am going to probably do a heavily planted tank in there and keep it as my only planted set up. The stock will probably be dwarf pikes. The other possibility with this tank is doing a biotope for one of the more colorful thorichthys species if the tank is big enough to support a small group.

The only other projects I may take on in the next 6 months is building a 3-high 40 breeder rack but I have to make sure that my time will allow maintenance of 3 more tanks. With the above mentioned plans I will have 5 tanks going which may be my limit for now.

 

[koltsixx]

Vatf is currently 14" so 18" may not be too far off. Considered adding an armatus but local vendor is getting in odoe pikes so I'll probably grab a few of them. Rays are blackies and may add others as I've been looking around.

Nice! Do you have a thread on here with pics of the Vatf? I love Armies just not sure how one would get a long with the Vatf. My Arm's used to shank most silver fish I put in with them. Ignored a much larger Silver Aro but shredded my Vulpinus and SD's. I've only kept two Armies thus far so I'm no expert.

Originally I was thinking of doing Mikrogeophagus ramirezi. I feel like they're common enough to easily get but I rarely see good looking pairs.
But the more reading I do on South American dwarfs the more really cool looking fish I find haha. But they're way more rare than the rams.
I want to put them in something like a 75 and shoot for a biotype. I feel like it'll be easier to do that with smaller fish.

Early when I started fishkeeping I used to read up on dwarfs and IMO Rams where one of the funniest looking ones IMO. Those EB-Rams are a different story. You should see what Wetspot has. They've often times have some surprising cichlids few other have. I'm betting dwarfs are one of them. I feel you on the biotype. I recently picked up some Crenichla Macro and they're fairly peaceful just predatory and grow to about 10 inches and I was hoping to do a bio with them. Wanted to try adding some Tetras for color and movement, etc. As well as try appropriate scaping and inclusion of live plants.

 

[CarpCharacin]

I will have motoro rays in my pnd and possibly leopoldis. I was thinking of using bakki showers as the filter and building a sieve as a pre filter.