agabr123

I suppose I'll preface this post by saying that I have 12 tanks now (even as a college student with no money), 7 of which currently hold fish and the rest are either in need of cleaning/re-sealing or cycling...

To tell the whole story of how I got to this point...at first, the student government was giving out free goldfish in one of the buildings at my college. The little guys looked so depressed (TINY .5 liter bowls, no heater or filter due to the size and expense, etc) but for some reason I decided to get one. Of course, due to my incredible lack of knowledge about fish, not having kept any since I was about 8 years old, he promptly died. At any rate, I was pretty sad about that, and one day when I was at wal-mart I saw this brown-colored betta. Well, I was on the rebound hard so I had to get the guy. STILL not knowing anything about fish, I got him a 2 gallon bowl, bigger than the tiny thing before, but still no heater or filter.

Two of my roommates had bettas (in tiny bowls, no heater, no filter), and they decided that it would be a good idea to get females for them. That, of course, promptly failed. Luckily, the two girls were removed with no harm done except some stress. Also luckily, my girlfriend had just brought her 10 gallon tank to the dorm. Her sister had previously been taking care of it, but knowing very little about fish the cycle collapsed, the ammonia was through the roof, and algae had overgrown the tank. We ended up putting the two girls in the 10 gallon, having read somewhere that girls could live together peacefully (wrong!). Well, after the smaller of the two girls was constantly being harassed by the larger, we read somewhere that if there are THREE betta girls they can form a hierarchy, but just two will fight. So we went out (thinking we were doing the right thing), and bought another female betta. That promptly failed.

Right around this time, the bowl that billy had been in had somehow gotten a crack in it (probably the best thing that could have happened!) and we ended up buying two 2.5 gallon tanks, one for him, and one for hera, the biggest of the females who was always picking on the littler ones. Artemis, the baby, remained in the 10 gallon, and we gave persephone to a friend.

After ammonia spikes, bloating, aggression, tank mate issues, size issues, ICH, but no losses thankfully, we've finally gotten to the point we are now (the tanks in my signature, ALL heated, filtered, and properly cycled). I first ended up on fishlore when I had two dwarf gouramis, two corycats, and a female betta in a 10 gallon (i've since given the dwarf gouramis to a friend) and my female was too fast for all of them and got incredibly bloated.

Anyways, now that I've blabbed on for so long, the point of this whole thing was that I would love to hear everyone else's stories! How you got involved in fishkeeping, how you made your way to this site, how badly you have MTS?

And finally, thanks to fishlore for keeping my poor bettas alive through my inexperience, newbie mistakes, and lack of knowledge!

TFA101

Well, it started with a fish bowl, a 3 line corydoras, and a minnow in a 10 gallon tank. My neighbor needed a home for his two old fish. We had a filter, old rattly air pumps, and a rena heater, a castle ornament, two dragons and red gravel. Oh boy it was hard when my minnow passed. I think it was a cycling thing. Then, my cory committed suicide by burying himself.

Then, I got a shoal of neon tetras, a clown pleco, and more cories. One neon remained after two months and lived to be two years old. I named him johnny. Till this day (since around seven years ago, the clown pleco is still with me)

Looking back, its amazing how many fish i went through.

My most recent was a trio of black phantom tetras and 2 zebra danios. The danios were constantly hassling the phantoms and one died and the other was given away. The three remaining phantom tetras were fun little guys, battling each other and showing off. The clown pleco didn't do much and it was a joy to see her out of the log to eat. When we moved, i got rid of the phantoms, and let somebody pet sit the clown pleco. I set up the 10 gallon in my new house, and cycled it, then purchased two eclipse catfish and brought back the pleco. After some fish school education, the eclipse cats were quickly given away.

I then had 5 black widow tetras, 3 breeding peppered corys, a clown pleco, and at one time a red tail shark in my newly purchased 20 gallon. the 10 gallon was given to a friend who really needed it.

After some time, the black tetras needed a new home along with the two remaining cories. I kept the clown pleco. After some time, i regained my strength in fish keeping and bought a betta tank, cycled it, went through one betta named Dusty (RIP) and purchased Mango, who is still with me. Then I got some swordtails for the 20 G and the community started over again now that I'm back on my feet.

Currently, I have

20G

1 marigold swordtail (female) 1 tuxedo variatus platy, 5 zebra danios, 1 oto and that good old pleco.

2.5 gallons

Mango, my orange dalmation betta

and i will have a 5 gallon ready with a betta girl and for my borthday I'm setting up a 30 gallon high tank with a koi angelfish, 6 bleeding heart tetras, 5 cory cats (albino), and a longfin albino ancistrus pleco