'Evolution of a Newb'

[Tanker]

I was looking around and saw that I used to have a 'stock list' here... and it had fallen aside and not been updated. So I decided to see what is different, and what is the same... this would have been last fall I wrote this, approximately. Strikeout is old/gone/sold/dead/lost... bold is new. Regular (amazingly) is unchanged.

I am still relatively new to the hobby (only seriously keeping fish for about 18 months) so it's interesting for me to look back and see the shifts in fish and tank styles that I have gone through, in a rather short time. Compare my very heavily planted tank from last fall (absolutely chock full of colourful plants, and fast schooling fish), to my latest tank which is nothing but black rock, black sand and two mean piranhas and you'll see what I mean.

Puffers: Dwarf and Figure 8

Swords: Red Wag Lyre, Pineapple and Green (one lonely female left)

Rasboras: Harlequin and Hengel

Corys: Pepper, Panda and Albino

Bettas: Crown, Veil, Imbellis and Lyretail

Endler's Livebearers (now from three sources)

Zebra Danios

Africans: Electric Yellow Labs, Yellow Tail Acei, Tanzanian Black Acei, Lithobates, and N. ocellatus

Plecos: BN, clown and 'mystery'

Piranhas: Red Bellys

Crayfish: Electric Blue Female

Current plant list:

Pygmy Chain Sword

Amazon Sword

Temple Plant

Red Tiger Lotus

Moneywort

Star Grass

Java Fern

Rotala

How drastically did your first years in the hobby evolve? Anything similar to what you keep now?

Oh, and a "PS"... one year ago I had a 10 gallon tank with one betta and 6 Rasboras. That was IT. So in 6 months I went from that to the above 'original' list, to the 'edited version you see, now...

[Mighty Prawn]

I haven't yet hit a year. Its been about 7 months or so. I started with a 55 gallon, and now have 15 tanks. To be fair though, not all of them are currently in use. 5 aren't currently even filled with water, and probably won't be for a while.

My fish haven't really changed, much, I suppose. I'll let ya know next november ;-)

-Hideo

[Reza]

Started off with a 20 gallon and filled it with goldfish. During the summer they boiled so I decided to go for tropical fish; mollies, tiger barbs, rts etc. After one year I had upgraded to a 33 gallon (that at the time seemed HUGE!) and filled it with the same sort of fish as the 20 gallon plus angels.

In short, 20 to 33 gallon, goldfish to angels.

Edited June 8, 2006 by Reza

[jvision]

When I was 12 I bought a 10 gal tank and one VERY prego guppy. From there I've spent considerable time keeping and breeding Apistos - think I'll take this up again when the fishroom's done. I've bred Bettas, too. Then I started trying to keep plants - oh man, do I love planted tanks!

From then, I've had plants in w. brackish, African cichlids, and pretty much everything else!

My next new venture is going to be breeding tetras - I have a nice group of Congos and Bleeding hearts.

[Vapor]

I also have been at this only about nine months. Said the 27 gallon would be my one and only. Have since added a 90 gallon and two tens. :thumbs:

[windeindoiel]

I've been at it about a year and a half.

First I started out with Lyder's 44 gal, which had a ghost knife and some other fish... didn't care for them so I don't remember. (ok after much thinking back between the two of us apparently it was 3 rainbows) I recall clown loaches that all succumbed to ich. ("OH NO SWEETIE I THINK THE CLOWN LOACH IS DEAD IT'S LAYING ON IT'S SIDE ON THE BOTTOM.... oh wait he's swimming around again, I think maybe he's ok.) The ghost knife eventually died because we didn't realize that they don't do well with ich medication.

Then we got a rhino and sailfin pleco, some silver dollars, and one wonderful day, the senegal bichir.

Around this time I fixed up my old 20 gal baby beardie tank and turned it into a dwarf puffer tank. Eventually I added otos, amano shrimp, ghost shrimp (which disappeared, possibly out competed by the amanos?). I bought a vampire shrimp once, but I couldn't find it so I ripped apart the tank and then decided the tank looked better without the fake ruins in it and one of the rocks. I did not find the shrimp. Later that night I found the vampire shrimp about 6 inches from the ruins. I feel like a shrimp killer to this day. I've also had wood shrimp, I'm hoping to keep my current ones alive for once. This tank is down to just one dp and is now a 25 gallon that is supposed to be heavily planted (I'm still learning).

When the 20 gal freed up again it sat in storage for awhile then became my leaf fish tank, which is what it is now, I still love it. I added a farowella catfish and it's my SA tank too. The driftwood isn't leaching tanins like it used to though which is quite disappointing.

Then of course the ray tank was in planning for quite some time, and finally after a year of Lyder planning it and building it it went up and we got our rays and that's how it is.

I went from dwarf puffers to stingrays and plants.

And if anyone actually read this whole thing wow.

[MbunaFan]

I'm not quite evolving that fast with the tanks (I would if I could!). I started off about 3 or 4 years ago with a 33g and some Kenyi and electric blue Johannii. Of course, too small a tank, so they killed each other off except for the dominant male Kenyi and one sorry looking Johannii. Then my heater malfunctioned, boiled the fish and my beautiful Kenyi died while the Johannii survived.

Then I bought some electric yellows to add to the tank. Learned more about cichlids and found out that most of my electric yellows were probably hybrids.

Got a 90g, got rid of the Johannii, bought some P. socolofi, some P. acei, some C. borleyi and some BN plecos plus the above electric yellows. Later added a couple of Sunburst peacocks but only one survived. Got a C. afra, but him and the socolofi didn't work out. Wanted to start breeding some fish, so got rid of most of the above except the socolofi, borleyi and the plecos.

Set up my 33g again and bought some Saulosi for it. Now I've realized that there are waaaayyyyy toooooo many species of cichlids out there that I want and if I want to start breeding I'll need a fish room, so I'm working on setting up a mainly (maybe all) male show tank. Don't want to get hybrids so will have to be careful. Hope the fish don't all kill each other. Maybe this way I can satisfy my desire to experience the different breeds without going crazy with lots and lots of tanks. We'll see

Marie

[Murminator]

Nice list Tanker wait till you hit the salt evolution......the list get much much longer :shock: