Back in the Hobby

[HappyGuppy]

About a year ago I caught some calamanus worms from a trade with someone and it was the most brutal experience I've had in my aquarium hobby ever.  I learned the lesson (finally) of the importance of QT, and a lot about being a fish doctor. 

Honest, I nearly quit the hobby.  I lost a tremendous amount of fish (only a few endlers survived), my beloved snails (even those I got later from Irene - doomed by chemical residues), most of my shrimps, and most of my varieties of plants (from months of neglecting my plants due to being upset with my aquarium hobby).

I have come through the ordeal, completely disease free, but only recently emotionally recovering enough to regain some interest in my hobby once more.

I'm back in the hobby, though with lowered ambitions.  I'm just gonna stick with my endlers tank.  I'm forgetting about linebreeding guppies - too much work, and all my strains died; don't want to re-invest in new strains.  Honestly, I just want to enjoy looking at my tanks.  I can sit for hours just looking at my endlers.  Somehow I find them even more lovely than those fancy guppies - I love looking at their patterns.  I need to bring up my population of shrimp again, and am contemplating trying the yellow shrimp if I can find them locally. Also debating about trying mystery snails yet again (if Irene would let me try another clutch of eggs).  Still debating how to terra form my plants.  Right now my plants are a bit feral, but maybe I'll make it a gardening project soon.

So "hi" to anyone who remembers, me, and "howdy" to anyone new.

[Nerine]

Welcome back! Glad you're back and disease free!!  Quarantine lenth is also important!! sometimes i quarantine for at least 6 months, insane right?? but it not only clears critters of health but also attitudes hehe

I agree with you on the endlers, they are lovely! I have some guppies that are wild strain colours...and I love them so much!!
if you ever want some realllly neat guppies, go to Lucky Aquarium and Frank's (Toronto area) (Frank will give you an OVAS discount!) they have some amazing strains there!!

make sure you post photos of your gardening project!!!!

[sas]

Nice to have you back .

Quarantine tanks are so very important and as Nerine mentioned
length of the segregation period is critical as well.

[ordi260]

Welcome to the board!

[HappyGuppy]

Wow, wrote a big reply earlier today but computer crashed and it never got sent.  So here is a shorter version

Thank you all for the welcome back.  It feels good to be back.

Yup.  Learned huge lesson on QT.  I hope to NEVER EVER EVER go through that or anything like it again.  If I do then I swear I'm out for good.

Nerine, I had a tank of wild type guppies (all died).  I have to say that I actually like them - I like the wild looks of the guppies & endlers (each different but both nice).  I thought about it, that I don't understand why the wild type of guppies get no respect in the hobby (aka feeder fish) considering that they used to be quite popular, and IMHO are actually prettier than many other aquarium fish.  I'm gonna start up another wild type tank of guppies, sooner or later.  Right now all my current tanks (I'm down to three real tanks, and jars of course) are devoted to my endlers & shrimp.  For now I'm done with line breeding fancies - too much work.  I like the joy of enjoying them, not working for them.  Maybe I'll also start a feral guppy tank for the fun of it - start with a couple different spectacular fancies and let the genes just get muddled to see what oddities happen (might be fun too).

I'm still mentally evaluating what my goals with this hobby will be this time around.  I still feel the desire to try my hands on a few things that I wanted before but never got to do.  Already feeling the urge for MTS... must resist... must keep to single digit of tanks this time around.  Furthermore, it will take some time to build back my inventory of cool stuff (lots of plants, and of course fish/inverts, were lost last year).  I used to be a plant hoarder, trying to have a huge collection of different types of plants.  It will be way to expensive to re acquire them, so I'm just gonna be more modest, sticking to things I can get in trades (AND QT FOR A LONG TIME).

Anyhow, I am happy to be back in the hobby.  Here's to round 2.

[HappyGuppy]

Correction:
It was Laura, not Irene, that I got the mystery snails from.  I didn't have the heart to tell her  that the clutch of eggs she gave me all died  due to the chemicals I used to treat my tanks with before.  I guess now it is in the open.   I hope she'll be forgiving.