Fish Lore Aquarium Forum Member Spotlight on HatchetHaven

Hello, I'm HatchetHaven (but people just call me Hatchet usually) from the forums! Now, where on earth do I begin? Well, I guess the beginning would be the best bit, but, your not interested in what I did when I was a 3 year old, so we will skip to the 14th of April 2007. This was the day I set up my first tank! It was that 7.5 gallon I have on my bedside table right now. So, I proceeded to fill it, and long story short I did everything I could possibly do wrong! So, I found out I was overstocked, so I decided my Christmas present would be my 48 gallon tank!

I really started to enjoy this hobby with the birth of a larger tank, I enjoyed researching about it, learning new things, and giving my fish the best care I could! Anyway, it was sometime in February when I got my first hatchets. 8 Silvers! I have lost a lot of hatchets since to various things (mainly my filter) and I have learned a lot about them because of this. I am happy to be able to harness this knowledge to help other people over on the forums as well, which is another reason I enjoy fishkeeping. No other hobby I have ever had is such a friendly community and when you see a finished tank that you have helped design, I tell you it's not just the tanks owner who gets something out of it.

I have 3 tank running at the moment. My 48 gallon, 7.5 gallon and 12 gallon. The 48 gallon is a high tech planted tank, with tropicas plant substrate topped of with black sand, DIY CO2 injection and dry ferts on the EI system. The 7.5 gal is a low tech planted nano, which I am going to stock with a mixture of small nano fish. The 12 gal is a Red cherry shrimp breeding tank - which I use for profit mainly to help fund my other tanks!

I'm keeping a fair few different fish at the moment. My 48 gallon stocking plan when complete will be 8 hatchetfish, 6 bleeding heart tetras, 6 cherry barbs, 1 Bristlenose pleco, 1 SAE, 2 Panda apisto's and 3 Nerite snails. I've got most of those fish and I've had them for 2-6 months, I've forgotten exact dates of each species.

In my 7.5 gallong, I plan on having 1 Betta imbellis, 6 Ember tetras and possibly 1 Peacock goby. I feed them once a day, but often they get fast days. I keep many, many plant species, I am a total plant addict! I cover every surface I own with plants, including those in the fish tank.

I have a lot of life to waste away and fortunately a lot of plans! I would love to get my family more into fish (I'm begging that when my aquascapes look better they will be 'sucked in'!) and possibly get them on a fish tank for themself. I also want to get a lot of people I know a school into this great hobby, including my best friends and even teachers! Imagain what that would be like... A science lesson about the nitrogen cycle!

When I get my own house I'd like to pursue that evil thing that we call the Betta addiction more, and I'd like to try growing more different species of plants! I'm also looking forward to having a lot more nano tanks. It seems to me that Planted nano tank are the most rewarding tanks to own, and there are so many cool fish available for them now - imagine what the choice will be like in 5 - 10 years time! I also desperately want a large (55 - 75gal) tank filled with as many schools of fish as possible.

I would like to thank the kind people on the forums for helping me learn so much about fish, my family for providing the tanks cash and house, a legendary guy at my LFS who gets me anything I need, and a huge thanks to every single site (There is a list several pages long, but special thanks to Fishlore) that has helped point me in the right direction.

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