Are there any aquarium keepers out in the People’s Republic of Mudspikistan?
I decided to take up the hobby about a month ago. I don’t quite recall how I got interested, but it was piqued when I was in a Walmart and noticed they actually had Common Plecos in their fish section. Sure, it’s a cheap, hardy fish, but it’s a fish that’s going to grow from that adorable little 3 inches into a much more substantial 2 feet long.
That’s a 7.62cm to 61cm for people who have a sensible measurement system.
I started a little 20 gallon Freshwater tank and have it almost cycled with 5 Albino cherry barb inside of it. I think later this week, I’ll go back to my fishshop and buy more plants and a few more fish, namely a Dwarf Gourami and an Ancistrus.
I have a 20-gallon freshwater tank with a crawfish named Reginald inside. He used to have two Gouramis in there to keep him company (they’re some of the only fish mean enough to not get eaten by him), but my wife accidentally killed them a while back, so Reg has the tank to himself. These are from a couple of years ago- he’s gotten a good bit bigger since then.
If I were retired and had absolutely no other interests or obligations, then yes, I’d consider getting an aquarium.
To me, that crawfish just looks like a tasty meal.
However, I do know an aquarium hobbyist who really enjoys building and populating very large salt water setups and then selling them for a substantial profit to the various lazy rich people here in our area. Something you might consider …
Here are some pretty good Youtube channels regarding aquarium keeping:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AquariumCoop The best in my opinion. Cory owns a fishstore and frequently unboxes some pretty cool stuff. He also does lots of how to videos and explains the science behind fish keeping.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Dustinsfishtanks Dustin is a live wire, but he does give pretty good advice. His “Ghetto Aquarium” is pretty good if you’re trying to keep to a very tight budget!
I maintain a fishtank for 20 years now. Well, actually it is more like five over this period but only one at a time.
My current setup is a 300l, 150 cm wide tank with some low demanding plants (Valisneria, Anubias, Echinodorus) and 4 species of fish: Poecilia reticulata, Ancistrus, Hasemania and Crossocheillus siamensis.
I’ve installed CO2-fertilization last year and am looking into upgrading to LED lights.
It’s relatively low maintenance: Change 50 % water and trim plants every 2 to 4 weeks, add liquid fertilizer (Fe & N) once a week, feed fish daily.
Eventually I’d like to venture in aquascaping (think bonsai underwater). There are some amazing youtube channels on this:
Regarding Youtube, I also liked some videos of this guy:
Until two years ago I had a cichlid tank (African Mbunas from Lake Malawi). Beautiful fish but very agressive/lethal to other species and most plants. With them< your tank looks like a rock desert (their natural habitat) and it gets dirty pretty fast.
Before I got into PC’s and flight sims I worked on a farm stuck right in the sand dunes. I rigged a tank up for salt water getting my water from the beach or harbour and stocking it with stuff I found in rockpools. It was quite facinating and cheap to set up. The only prerequisite access to real marine water that can be changed regularly and a few hours searching amongst the rocks and pools at low water.
We came back from a 3 week tour to find it had sprung a leak and created a huge clean up operation. Luckily the creatures we had in there where released back into the wild prior to our roadtrip so no aquatic beings where harmed in the event (for all you treehuggers before the hate mail starts)
I did keep lizards too but there ain’t no thread for mudspike lizard owners
Yep sounds about right. He definitely tried to go after the gouramis several times, and he’s definitely gotten way bigger - I’ll get more pictures this afternoon. My wife emailed me this morning to tell me she’d found him escaped from his tank, chilling on the living room floor, late last night. I’d told her for a while I thought it was time for him to get a bigger tank…
Something you might consider …
