Hello fellow fish heads!

[DanGofCalgary]

This is a copy of a post I made last week on CAC website.

At least that is what we called ourselves in the 90s!

I have been lurking in your forums for the last week or two, and thought I'd post in the introduction thread.

I am a former member of the Calgary Aquarium Society and a former fish keeper (fish head! ). I liked spawning and raising fish, (I was especially endeared to the ability of having a self supporting hobby, doing something I loved that would support it self so not hampering the family budget).

I was lucky enough to achieve the title of 'Master Breeder' from the CAS, and believe I was the 5th or 6th of the club to achieve this. Probably over 100 that have that title now, but it was a very proud achievement in my life. The spawnings and rearing that I was most proud of was Sturisoma Aureum, but I suppose Rhinogobius Wui deserves an honorable mention too!

I had some great friends and mentors (yes I mean you Birgit if you are possibly reading this!) and had so many fond memories of wonderful times at auctions, meetings, learning about new fish, working with them and trying to succesfully rear them. If there was even an internet back then, (Not sure there was much of one) it certainly wasn't like now, where you can highlight one of the fish names in this post and instantly get a google of pictures, spawning techniques, watchouts etc!. What a different world we live in now!

Both wonderful (for my wife and I) and sadly for my fish keeping, our primary spawn of 4 beautiful daughters tended to devour enough of my time that fish keeping fell by the wayside, and I stopped keeping fish in 1996.

My youngest is soon to enter her second year of University, 3rd is in third year, and the older two are finished University so I am starting to feel the itch again to set up a few tanks.

So, I have cleared off a rack in the furnace room, and dug out what remains of my fish equipment, started looking in the bargain finder (online of course!) for tankage and am contemplating what species I might start working on.

I always felt that I hadn't completed the title of 'Master Breeder' properly as I hadn't spawned any of the peat laying killies, or enough challlenging Corys. I have so many fond memories of seeing tiny corys in Birgits tanks (she used to call them kittens, which always made me laugh!) and beautiful notho. killies in shows and such, that I am certain that is where I will start. My wife also had a HUGE fondness for clouds of baby angels, so it is likely that I might work a tank of angels up to a spawning pair or two as well.

I am also drawn to thoughts of the continuation of the hobby, and the desire to 'give back' as it were possibly through species maintenance or other useful assistance. I think of that movie with Bruce Dern out in space, the last gardener. Sometimes I feel us fish keepers may be along those lines.

Like all addictions, I of course believe that now that I am older and *cough* wiser I shall be able to limit how many tanks I run. We shall see. We shall see.

All the best,

Dan Grimbly

PS: Any of you old fish heads that remember me from back in the 90s, shoot me a pm! Love to catch up on your lives, and your fishkeeping if you still are keeping any.

[African_Fever]

Wow Dan, glad to have you back in the hobby! I'm sure there are many of us who could learn a lot about breeding various fish from you.

Welcome to the Forum!

[Hawkeye]

Welcome aboard

[Kronosdelsol]

That was a great read and glad you are back. Can't wait to hear what you get into and how your setup goes.

[Morphine]

1996!!! =\ That's like before I was BORN... Kidding

Anyways glad to have you back I do look forward to leeching off your hard earned knowledge... For free of course