This is what happens when family takes an interest in my fish...

My uncle has kept saltwater aquariums for many years. He lives in Florida and has an unending supply of cool stuff he finds scubadiving, including odd corals and anenomes, and I remember watching his tanks when we visited when I was a little one. I'd stand there for hours, wanting to pet the anenomes, because well they look squishy and who wouldn't want to pet them?

Anyway, given that I've seen his various absolutely GORGEOUS tanks over the years, I assumed he'd know more about fishkeeping than I do. He was actually the first person I asked about introducing a live rotifier colony to one of my tanks. His response was "what's a rotifier?" Should have been my first clue, really.

So over the past few months, he's inquired about my tanks, but made it clear he thought they would be boring because "freshwater fish aren't very colorful"

He was visiting this past week, and asked if he could come see my tanks at some point, so after we went on a long hike today, I brought him in my place and showed him all of my tanks. He asked a few questions, but was so genuinely surprised when I showed him Storm, my prize gorgeous betta that I love to death. He stared for a while and was just going on about how pretty the fish was. So I explained a little about bettas, showed him my uberis tank and the male (only fish I could find at the time) and showed him my lone surviving female betta and explained how the girls aren't as pretty as the boys, and the wild types were basically like a whole different fish.

Took him in my room and showed him my guppies. Again with the "WOW those are really pretty!" (I do have some nice guppies if I do say so myself). So I again had to explain about the females not being very colorful.

Took him around, showed him the gouramis, K class endlers, and such, and he marveled at how nice my gourami tank looked, then asked about the sick fish (I must have mentioned I had to deworm the tank). Much to my surprise, he had no idea what gill flukes were. Me: uh.... hookworms that apparently you can't see very well in labyrinth fish....
To which he responded with questions about how a fish could breathe air from above the water.

Then he asked about my guppy breeding, and was equally dumbfounded to find that guppies have live babies, as do endlers.

Oh sigh my family... lol. How can a guy with decades of fishkeeping experience not know these things? He was amazed at how much I knew about fish disease and care. He'd never even heard of half the stuff I mentioned when he asked questions.

And the whole freshwater fish aren't colorful thing.... well I guess I showed him

 

You broadened his horizons! That's so cool

 

I told him to get a betta

 

Wow I'm trying to get my friends and family more interested. I passed a betta on to my mother several months ago and she loves him so much. My sister calls and we chat about her once successful guppy tank that slowly went downhill after she had her daughter. (Hopefully my visit in march can get her up and running again.) Aaand I get to help set up a fish tank in my godson's new nursery Perfect excuse to go fish supply shopping without the other half getting suspicious that I'm going to sneak in a new tank. So jealous of all your tanks

 

I wish all of my uncles were like Johnny. He's the nicest guy ever

 

He was born back in the age when you didn't think a whole lot about fish tanks, you just put them up and figured they'd take care of themselves. He must've been doing something right all those years to maintain his Saltwater tanks successfully. Or it could've been pure luck!

Glad you had such a good time with him.

 

You're so lucky. No one I know wants to hear that much about my tanks. I might have to corner my bestie and force some more information and pictures down her throat. So jealous of your family.

 

I have the same thing going in my family. Supposedly, I have this mega-fish expert in my family (used to own a pet store).
So I was a little wary, but decided to call him up.
He knew NOTHING about fish. My god, I almost had a heart attack to think of all the animals that died under his care.

 

LOL-I gave my niece a wedding present of a 30 gallon with fish, food, decoration, water conditioner, TSS, net, bucket for removing water, syphon, lights, filter, and an airstone. I also gave her detailed instructions on maintenance and an API test. I wanted her to be successful! She is very happy and has thanked me like 20 times! I also understocked so that she wouldn't have to deal with too many water changes.
You are very lucky to have one so interested and interesting in your family Junebug! I had to grow one!

 

Maybe it's not so much that he doesn't know, but since he's kept saltwater tanks, maybe they don't get the same issues?

 

Maybe it's not so much that he doesn't know, but since he's kept saltwater tanks, maybe they don't get the same issues?

The only fish disease he's ever heard of is ICH and he told me he added lots of wild caught fish to his tank without quarantine... this was me: O_O