Fish Lore Aquarium Forum Member Spotlight - November 2007

We started in the wonderful world of Bettas and fishkeeping the Saturday after Christmas '06. Stacy got a Betta from Dave for a Christmas Present (Super Mario). The Betta Bug and MTS quickly set in and now we have 6 Betta Splendens, 4 Betta Mahachai, 6 Platys, 7 Red Fancy Guppies, 2 Red Geissen Guppies, 5 Julidochromis Marlieri Cichlids, a Black Angelfish and 7 Endlers.. plus a varying number of Red Fancy Guppy Fry in 12 tanks.

As a result, our first tank was a 10 gallon tank with plastic plants and some misc. decor including a bridge and cave with a substrata of gravel from a friend with a 55 gallon tank. (We didn't know then but that gravel wasn't going to do us any good since it had been stored dry for a long time.) We went with a lot of bad advice too, like using 'Cycle' and aquarium salt and only running our tank for 48 hours before adding our Betta. We picked up our first Betta, Super Mario, on the Saturday after Christmas last year.

During our first week with Super Mario, more research let us to decide on adding a trio of Platys to Super Mario's tank. (This is when we first found FishLore, but didn't realize then what a great forum it was and it would be another 2 months before we'd start partcipating and learning. ) After a couple days, we got to thinking that Super Mario was happier on his own, so we got a new 10 gallon tank setup and moved him into it. This was when we noticed that he'd taken a few fins off of the Platys.

MTS and the Betta Bug had set in, and our 3rd 10 gallon tank came at Valentine's day with a 2nd Betta for Stacy, Aslan the Fierce. Not long after this, came 6 Cory Cats - it was going to be 2 per tank, but became 3 for Aslan & 3 for the Platys when Mario sucked down an algae wafer. After we got our Corys, we decided to switch to flat marbles from gravel because we wanted to take care of the Corys and were just tired of the stupid gravel dust clouds. At the time, we didn't really know about Betta fins or realize the marbles would help their fins. Sora and Angel joined the Betta family later in February, bringing another 10 gallon and a 5 gallon hex with them. One of our female platys surprised us with fry in February, bringing yet another tank into the collection.

We lost Mario to Dropsy at the beginning of March and in researching what happened, we rediscovered FishLore and saw what a great place it was for fish owners. We stopped using 'Cycle' and finally got cycled tanks.

In May, we made up for the 2 months of not buying fish by buying a red double tail combtail Betta, Mickey, and a little female 'rescue' Betta, Sweetie, that looked so sad in her cup with stress lines and torn up fins and missing scales. Then we went crazy at an IBC Betta Auction, bringing home 2 male Betta Splendens, a female Betta Splendens and a breeding pair of Mahachai Bettas. One of the males died suddenly from some sort of seizures, but the others did well and joined the family, bringing us to 9 tanks.

The Mahachai Bettas were ready to spawn when we got them and gave us fry at the beginning of June. That 1st spawn taught us a lot about this newly discovered wild Betta species, but most were lost to that learning.

During the summer, we got ready for moving to Denver and only got a 29 gallon tall tank from a friend who didn't want it anymore. It came with a male platy who'd survived being left out in the garage during the hot Florida summer for over a month.

After getting settled in here in Denver, we heard about the Colorado Aquarium Society having their bi-annual fish auction. Talk about letting kids loose in a candy store! They had tables and tables of fish & fish supplies. The auction lasted for hours and when the smoke cleared, we were taking home 4 Angels, 5 Julies Cichlids, 18 Red Fancy Guppies, 6 Endlers and a bag of Tiger Shrimp. We also got a 20 gallon tank and 29 gallon tank with enough supplies to fill them both. *WARNING: FISH AUCTIONS ARE DANGEROUS! ;)

Mike invited us to join the FishLore team of moderators back in May, promising us cars, money, fame and fortune or maybe it was belly button lint and a vampire Betta? We've had a great time being a moderator and have enjoyed seeing lots of new members come aboard. FishLore has changed so much since March and just keeps getting better. It's a great community that we have here and we're very happy to be spotlighted in this month's FishLore magazine.

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