Why Do It?

[Rhiannon]

I have had many set backs but I keep going and havent handed in the towel and dont plan on.

This is my hobby, one of the only things that have kept me sane while being heavily pregnant and I love it.

 

[Captain Retardo]

I personally enjoy how much I have managed to make my tank better ever since I started keeping fish about a year ago

 

[fishkers]

Fish are amazing and beautiful creatures. I had a whole tank of Platy's that all got nitrate poisening because i was young and dumb. I back with more fish and I know better. It truly is an obsession. Money pit kinda! Its just a great hobby.

 

[girl4God81]

I never cared whatsoever about fish like I do now. Good question! It only started last year when I asked my husband to buy me a betta (I've had them years back), and then I realized a little half gallon bowl was horrid and cruel, so after about a month, I bought him a 2.5 gallon. That was fun and exciting, then I found a pregnant girl betta and decided to mate them, and bought her a tank. Not long after my new obsession, I decided to buy some platies an dmollies (I also had them years ago), and bought a 10 gallon (my new obsession). I love studying about them, learning behaviors and what they mean, where the origionate, and trying to help them when they aren't in their healthiest state. Like having little children! My husband and I actually had a borderline argument once about my obsession, he didn't understand why I loved it so much and while he's glad I do, he was worried I would keep buying more..he pointed out that we have limited room! Little does he know I plan on asking for a much larger aquarium for Christmas!

 

[Dr. Bogger]

I have invested over $400 into this hobby within the last 4 months. This hobby CAN be a cheap one, if you want it to be. But of corse, i want the best of everything.

One of the problems, and the reason why people quit this hobby, is the lack of knoledge about fish.
Lets take my friend for example, she thinks i am nuts, just because i test my water for ammonia... i think she's nuts for NOT testing it.
And she wonders why all her fish die within a month of purchasing them. Not to mention, she dont even know how to do a water change the right way, and clean the tank properly - What she does, is she takes the fish out of the tank, and put them into a bucket, then she removes ALL the water (100% of it), and she lituraly cleans everything in the tank using tap water - including the gravel. then she fills the tank with tap water, using the water conditioner, then she puts the fish back in the tank.

That is a big no-no, by doing that, your not giving your tank a chance to cycle, thus ammonia keeps building up, and too much ammonia will kill your fish - its not *if*, its *when*

If you do research about fish keeping, and some basic water chemistry, you will be very sucessfull in fish keeping.


It's all a matter of doing stuff the *proper* way.

 

[Amunet]

Ever since bf said he wanted a tank last year.. and ever since we found out that he was getting on for Xmas...
I've been obsessed.
Before.. I was one of those people that would've just put the water into the tank, put the fish in right after and left it.
But thankfully I decided to research a little and have learned so much.

I was one of those people that saw fish as "Just fish"

But now.. I see them as valuable and as loveable as any of my other pets.
I'm still in the newbie stages of this hobby so am still going through alot of stress dealing with alot of problems, but I know my efforts are going to pay off and we're going to have a beautiful healthy tank full of healthy happy fish

 

[Misfits204]

I keep my tank because i just think it is so cool to watch them swim around!

 

[Fate2006]

Emoitional attachment to my babies, even after having them for like a week lol

 

[doresy]

When a bloke hits 50 he starts to collect things.....like wood off-cuts, jam jars of nails and screws etc. etc. .......Tropical fish just seems a lot more satisfying! Hey, and us oldies just keep on going when they get their teeth into something worthwhile

 

[vinylman]

These days, with sites like this and with so much good advice, there's really no reason that newcomers to the hobby should need to give up after a few months. Preparation is EVERYTHING. When I started up again three years ago (my first time with tropicals) I had a gap of around three weeks between getting my tank (bought from someone at work, who was going to take it to the local tip the following weekend) and setting it up. So I used the three weeks to read . And read. And read some more. Result?. Never had trouble with algae, stressed fish or any kind of disaster. The amount of people who've seen my tank usually say the same thing: ''Oh, I used to have one. The water went green. It used to take too much time, so I just cleaned it out when the water went dirty''. I usually reply ''How much work do you think my tank is?'' (it's a 4ft, very well planted). Visitor's reply: ''God that must be hours every week, I don't have that much time''. My reply: ''It takes me about an hour every ten days, if I take my time''. And they just don't believe it. All the information about the basics is here at the touch of a few keys. Some LFS don't help, selling a customer a tank, equipment and fish at the same time. I'm just glad I didn't rush into it at the start. I spend more time watching my piscine pals than I do the goggle box.

 

[Naughtygirlrlw]

Pure self enjoyment I find that there's nothing like the satisfaction of sitting back and watching your fish, knowing that they are healthy, growing, (maybe even making some babies ) and although I hate to apply human emotions to an animal, they even look happy. When my tank is well maintained, it just gives me a sense of happiness.

 

[discodave]

I had tropical fish when i was younger and because i didn't care much for them my mum gave them away Looking back at that now i realise the variety of fish i knew of was quite limited plus i didn't know much about fishkeeping either! Only last week i bought my new tank and i'm gonna give it another go! I considered my real pet to be an angel fish that i kept for 4 years but it died after eating all the neon tetras. Now finding this place i'll have a fishy paradise This shall be fun

 

[Teri]

I've had a few set backs, and for a while soon after I started I really regretted getting a tank, but now I absolutely love it, all the different fishies have their own characters, particularly the loaches, I could watch them for hours. And as for the baby guppies, !!! I just love them.