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The Beginning


DevonCichlid
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Alright I want to give a big thanks to Tanker for setting up my journal. Its been something that I've been thinking of doing for a while now so you can all read my disjointed thoughts and opinions and laugh at my many mistakes. I've been keeping a really loose journal, with hardly any dates but keeping track of what I'm stocking, feeding, parameters, etc. I'm sure I'll have lots of topics in here that aren't in order or probably don't make any sense but that's probably me anyways.

Back in 2010 I had just finished renovations of my entire basement and had some new open space from a bar that I had removed. I know, not the coolest thing to do by removing the bar but it was part of the reason why I had to remodel the basement. The house was built in '72 and nothing had been updated or changed until we bought it in 2007. We started to do upgrades right away, had a baby on the way and loved the idea of a house that needed fixing up. Long story made short, in late 2009 I was going to rip up the linoleum in the bathroom downstairs and the shower unit that was raised about 6" off of the floor had black mold underneath it. Lots of it. I ordered a dumpster the next morning and started ripping out the shower. That led me to basically 70% of the bathroom needing to be replaced and led into my wet bar area where the plumbing there appeared to have been leaking as well for an extended amount of time. The wet bar was also raised 6" off the ground so until I actually started pulling things out I had no idea what to expect. So after a long winter of work and renos at night I come full circle to my first fish tank.

There was a beautiful spot I had picked out against a west wall right under a window, I'm sure you can all see where this is going. I went to the local pet store, the only one in town at the time that sold aquariums and started to fill my cart. I bought one of those awful 20G rimless tanks with a clunky plastic lid and algae enhancing lights in it. I went into this blind, really blind. I didn't know what a nitrogen cycle was, and certainly wasn't going to wait to add fish, I was going to set it up quickly and get the fish in there the next morning. Without fish I think I spent around $900 for the tank with lid and stand, heater, submersible filter, gravel and some decorations. I look back at it now and I just setup 8 - 20G tanks for probably a very similar cost but that's for another thread. So I went home and filled the tank bucket by bucket (small buckets), spilling a little bit of water on my new hardwood floor every pass by but that wasn't going to hold me back. The kit I bought came with Cycle and Aqua Plus or whatever its called so at least the water was at least conditioned although certainly not cycled.

Actually once the tank was setup it looked quite nice. My wife helped me aquascape, meaning she told me where to put everything and it turned out really nice. She had drawn a line with the aquarium though. She would not feed, clean or be responsible for the fish at all....fair enough. I went to the pet store right after work and picked out my stock and brought them home. I honestly can't remember what I picked out but the selection was quite limited compared to what I'm used to now dealing with the local Edmonton stores and importers. I can remember buying a few guppies, a few danios, a few cories, a few bloodfin tetras (major fin nippers), a few neon tetras and a pleco. Yup all basically within 24 hours of setting up the tank.

That's where it goes downhill, sure I get my enjoyment out of it and disappointment when I would come home and there would be a few more dead fish but the hobby has already got its clutches into me. The algae buildup from what I can remember is amazing for the amount of time I had the tank, I do my cleanings and manual water changes but really don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Then comes the next downhill turn. I get offered a promotion in Edmonton, absolutely nowhere near where I currently lived. Its Thursday and I start there on Tuesday. I pack up and get a hotel booked for the next week. Well it turned out that the other employee that was capable of helping out had taken a move(before) in addition to the manager quitting so I wasn't going to be heading home on the weekend as I would have to stick around until help arrived. That lasted a month and I still hadn't had a chance to finish a few things at home on the house as I wanted to list it so we could sell and move. Luckily my banker referred me to one of her clients and we sold w/o any realtor fees which helped out immensely. Since we had bought the house in 2007 we had redone the entire house inside and out except for the kitchen (which was next) so I had chewed into basically all my profits and would need that extra cash for my down payment.

Anyways I get off track very easily as you can see. I go into the basement and the tank water is green, dark green. Its disgusting but I gotta clean it up. I am very disappointed but my wife had clearly stated she wasn't helping and that's fair. The mistake was on me anyways. So anyways I proceeded to clean out the tank and was scooping out dead body after dead body when I see some movement. I stop what I'm doing and fill up a 5G acrylic tank I had picked up off a buddy. I end up pulling out a bloodfin tetra and a cory. No idea when the last time they were fed but they were still living and were full of piss and vinegar once they got in their clean tank. So anyways everything got cleaned up and I tasked my wife with at least feeding these guys until we would be moved into our new house.

That's enough for today but that's my start. I'll probably keep posting in here as I progress along until I start journaling my current tanks.

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