In addition to this blog, I maintain a secondary website that has more detailed information about my findings and observations: http://www.feralnerd.com/fishblog. If you go there, you can find more detailed information grouped by subject and broken down by category.
Keep in mind, the material I post on this blog and on feralnerd.com represents my own personal observations and my own personal experiences. Do not rely on my findings as your sole source of information. I recommend you collect opinions and observations from many people, and not rely on my stuff, alone. Also keep in mind that I bend or break the rules a lot. I like to experiment and try things, because that is how you learn, and that is where some of the more interesting things happen. You will find me doing lots of stuff that the experts warn you not to do. I have found that the experts (whom I do respect) don't always have complete information, and sometimes they have wrong information. So while I have the money to burn on my favorite habit, I'll bend the rules whenever I feel like it. If anything interesting (or bad) happens I'll definitely let you know.
That said, here's a little info about me, and what I like to call "my favorite habit":
I got my first aquarium sometime around 2001. I started by getting a book, titled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freshwater Aquariums," by Mike Wickham. It's pretty decent. It told me everything I needed to know, and I'm surprised to find myself going back to it so many years later. I started with a 10-gallon tank, then got a 20-gallon tank from a friend. My latest tank was set up earlier this year, and it's 55-gallon.
The first important thing I learned about keeping an aquarium is the cheapest thing you'll put in your tank will be the fish. I was shocked. Just setting up my first 10-gallon aquarium I spent close to $350! There was tons of stuff I needed:
- A cover for the tank
- A light
- An under-gravel filter
- gravel
- decorations
- Some realistic-looking fake plants
- A rock (you'd be surprised how much rocks cost)
- An attractive piece of bog-log
- A big cave-thing
- an air pump
- a bigger air pump
- a bio-wheel filter (the undergravel filter wasn't cutting it)
- an aquarium stand (I used a sturdy little TV stand that I found at Fred Meyer)
Let me just say, if you're thinking about starting up, don't be proud. Get everything second-hand that you can. Most of the stuff you can beg/burrow/buy second hand will look just fine once you clean it up. The best place to find stuff is at garage sales. Craigslist has lots of stuff, too. Scavenge everything you can.
I managed to get the 10-gallon tank for free--my parents had been keeping gerbils in it, and hadn't used it in a long time. I cleaned it out and filled it with water to make sure it didn't leak, then made sure no one was emotionally attached to it before swiping it.
My second aquarium setup was given to me. A friend found a 20-gallon tank with all the equipment (even plants and gravel) at a garage sale for $5.00. He thought of me, bought it, then just gave it to me. Kind of cool. It cleaned up really nice, and I was able to move the 10-gallon tank to my office.
Last Christmas I bought a 55-gallon tank. That's been fun. I have a little money to burn now, and I have been going to different pet stores every couple weeks or so to get something new.
Over the years I have kept all sorts of fish, from goldfish to gouramis (my favorites). Here is my current setup:
Tank 1 (55-gallon)
- 5 angel fish
- 3 clown loaches
- 1 red-tailed shark
- 4 bala sharks
- 2 corey-cats
- 3 otocinclus
- 2 yellow gouramis
- 2 pearl gouramis
- 1 opaline gourami
- 3 fiddler crabs (2 males and a female)
This is an active tank, and fairly aggressive, too. I was worried about the otocinclus at first because they are so docile, but they spend so much of their time immobile that the other fish just leave them alone. The opaline gourami is the alpha fish. He's a lot smaller than some of the others, but he's definitely the one in charge. The red-tailed shark is the longest. He spends most of his time hidden (unless a bala shark wanders too close to his lair). All of them spend their time shooting around, chasing eachother. Very nice.
Tank 2 (20-gallon)
- 6 zebra danios (still a favorite after all these years)
- 6 blue mickey-mouse platties (very cool)
- 1 mystery snail
- 1 apple snail
- 1 red-claw crab
- 2 very tiny, baby angelfish
- 1 goldfish
This tank used to be full of goldfish. I originally bought the goldfish to start the cycles for the 55-gallon. After it had stabilized, I had the goldfish start the 20-gallon tank. By then they had grown on me, so I decided to keep them. They all changed color. The biggest of the group (who I call Lenny) started out green and turned brass-colored. Another one that was orange and white turned pure white. There were some others that each had a brown blotch along their back, and they all turned pure orange.
Last saturday I got rid of them, donating them back to the pet store. I kept Lenny--he's quite a prize. I want to see how big he gets. The others were kind of boring. Goldfish are fine for kids, but I just never found them interesting.
You know, people everywhere will tell you not to put goldfish in the same tank as freshwater tropicals because the goldfish won't do well in the warmer temperatures. That may be true, but sometimes you learn the most when you bend the rules a little. Lenny grew to about 3 inches long since I got him in January. His tank stays around 73 degrees. In all fariness, two of Lenney's original tank-mates stayed their original size. Others grew, but only got a little bigger.
Speaking of goldfish growing, I was told that goldfish will only get as big as as the size of the aquarium you keep them in. I read somewhere else that was not true, but the problem is the quality of the water they are kept in. If you change the water religiously, they should get very big. One fish doesn't make a very accurate sample set for experimentation, but I'll try keeping the water clean to see how big Lenny gets.
I learned recently from Lenny that goldfish are very peaceful. On my scale of 1 to 5, I would have to put goldfish at a 1. I tried putting him in the 55-gallon tank with the other big fish. I figured, "hey, he's huge. They'll leave him alone..." Not so. One of the yellow gouramis went after him, "hey, I'm the big yellow fish in this tank, mister!!" A couple hours later when I checked on the tank, Lenny was hiding down in the weeds. He reminded me of bad, bad Leroy Brown who "looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone." Poor big, dumb, peacful Lenny--I named him after the George Steinbeck character from Of Mice and Men. Lenny's caudal fin looked like the fringe on a lace doily, and he was missing several scales all over his body. Man, not good! He does fine now, back in the 20-gallon tank. He doesn't bother anybody. Eventually he'll get big enough that he'll eat the danios, but by then maybe I'll have a koi pond he can live in.
Anyway, that's all I'm going to write for today.
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