Aquarium Confessions

I’m a broke aquarist. Most of my aquariums and equipment came from people who know I love fish and simply gave me all their equipment in order to get it out of their house. Both of my 60 gallon set ups were given to me for free because friends or associates got in over their heads, gave up then gave the tanks to me. This is also how I came into possession of my 90 gallon pond which is currently sitting in my closet waiting to be set up after my move.

Like many on this site, I’ve got a fish room. My fish room happens to be my dinning room which means beside my aquariums I’ve eaten tilapia, salmon, frog legs and other aquatic life. Tonight I’m having roasted turkey.

I’ve changed out one of my 60 gallon tanks a good 4 or 5 times because I wasn’t satisfied with the feel of the tank. There was ‘something’ I was looking for that I couldn’t get with several earlier choices. I came to realize that hyper fish, aggressive fish and tiny little things were not my style. I like the dance of molly fish but they weren’t for me. I loved the schooling of black skirt tetras but an element was missing with them that I was unable to identify. That tank later became the rainbowfish tank.

In with the frogs were two beautiful goldfish. My fish room was perfect. In an earlier blog entry I talked about taking the goldfish out of the frog’s tank which left me without goldfish. Well, my first fish love is the goldfish. The absence of them has turned my fish room into a place with which I am no longer completely satisfied. I need that beautiful 13 cent fish because it brings me joy. At this time I do not have a goldfish tank which means I’m going to have to get one. I may be about to purchase the very first tank ever in 6 years of fish keeping. In six years of fish keeping I’ve never been without a goldfish, until now.

Faith

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Comment by Robert Jango on February 5, 2013 at 1:56am: If you've got private property you can set up a goldfish pond outside. Just dig and lay down an EPDM liner which you can order online. Goldfish come from wild carp - the same carp we catch in lakes and ponds all over the world. They are NOT tropical fish but temperate creatures which means they're wired to live through winters. In fact, they benefit from it.

In April, as soon as the water hits about 60F and right about sunrise, you'll see the full females flanked by males spreading eggs around the ponds perimeter onto vegetation. They then turn around and eat as many eggs as possible. Isn't that romantic! But in May and June its hard not to spot baby goldfish near the shoreline.

Unfortunately these beautiful fish revert to their wild bronze color in short order. I'm guessing the colorful babies are more easily spotted and eaten by predators and parents alike. So unless you are able to cull them, you won't end up with all "goldies".

The most beautiful fish I ever saw in my life was a 10¢ Comet that grew up in water that was so green it looked and felt like pea soup. That pond received 10 hours of direct sunlight a day and contained an unlimited supply of live food for the fish. I remember netting a fish from that pond and placing it in an aquarium. "Wow" I thought to myself, "It looks like its made out of gold". Only then did I see the logic behind the name - as opposed to say "Orangefish".

Removing that magnificent creature from her paradise and selling her off for aquarium use was probably the cruelest thing I've ever done to a fish. She appeared to be in shock and so out of place in the ugly glass container. But the pond was being filled in so I had no choice.

Indeed, they can be beautiful fish. Dustin, this sites curator, is a huge goldfish fan.

Comment by Faith-Magdalene Austin on February 5, 2013 at 10:37am: The 90 gallon liner I have is one of those hard, plastic liners. I did a guppy pond inside the house at one time. :-) I just did an above ground thing in my dinning room with landscape rocks and the whole nine yards, plants, all of it. At that time I had 2 sixties set up as well as 2 twenties and several other size tanks totaling about 9 tanks at one time. It was too much water for a 700 sq foot apartment.

I know that goldies do best outside. I was hoping to move to a ground floor apartment with a small backyard or something. That would be wonderful.

Dustin is actually the one who got me into rainbows but goldfish have always been my first love.

Comment by seth roach on February 6, 2013 at 11:08pm: aquarium confessions are my favorite topic!!!! lets hear more from everybody!!! I originally got a fish tank to grow bonsai trees....i dont even have a true bonsai tree....

Comment by Faith-Magdalene Austin on February 7, 2013 at 6:37am: i like confessions too.

my next confession is that i can't seem to keep my hands out of my tanks. i tend to want to rearrange rocks and stuff. this rock would look better over here. i don't like how the light bounces off this rock here so let me put it there. i rearrange things.... a lot.

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