[bsmurray]

It all started out with a simple birthday gift from my girlfriend. A marimo moss ball.

This wasn't enough, as I grew curious and researched more into larger tanks and bettas. Soon enough, that little jar turned into this:

As I delved deeper into the hobby, I realized I wanted a challenge. So, I decided to try my hand with shrimp...

Unfortunately, my research was not complete and there was several things I overlooked. Therefore, the shrimp project was a failure, so I went back to bettas:

He did look lonely and cramped in that 2.5g aqueon nano tank. So I decided to give him a nice upgrade and purchased a 10g home for him:

As we all know, a serious aquarist has multiple tanks and advanced setups. Mine was too basic to call myself a true aquarist. So one day, I happened to find myself at the local petco during a $1/g sale. And bought myself a 20g long. Several visits to fish stores, a co2 tank store, and several amazon.com orders later, we find ourselves with a setup that would make any aquarist proud of.

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[bsmurray]

There is still much more work to do. But I feel that my time is not wasted when I work on my fish projects. I feel relaxed and both challenged at the same time. Keeping fish tanks is like solving a puzzle that is constantly changing. Trying to get your tank to be perfectly balanced and looking great is a worthy goal. The cost is a lot of time and effort, but the results when done right are worth it. I'm glad I found this hobby.


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[kobeBean]

i totally agree. great job with ur tanks.

 

[cowmilkcandy]

i started out with a 40g last year. Got a 90 few months ago. Also a 10 gallon underneath my 90. So i got 3 tanks within a year. YOLO.

 

[Shaumei]

Started out similarly with me as well. This hobby never gets boring and it also puts a lot of your creativity to work :icon_smil !

 

[Fishumms]

Wow, very cool. I wish my first few tanks had looked that good. Haha. Live and learn. What happened to your shrimp? I found once I got them going I was almost as hooked on shrimp as I had been on aquariums to begin with.

 

[bsmurray]

Shrimp are very particular about copper in the water. I didnt know that. For future reference I'm not going to use tap water with cherry shrimp, even if it's treated. I'm out in AZ and there is just too much copper in our water system.

That's funny you say YOLO, because when I'm at a fish store or petco and I'm deciding on whether or not I should purchase an item for my tank, after about 5 minutes of debating myself inside my head I finally just say, f it, YOLO!


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[bsmurray]

Discover loves me.


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[omgwhiskey]

Awesome, this hobby is addicting isn't it? I started with one of those all in one tank kits, 8 months later two fully planted tanks with co2 in my living room, sheesh.


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[philipraposo1982]

I started not to long ago either, but like everything I do I don't baby step it.

less than 20 days old:



No c02 though. i run low tech

 

[bsmurray]

Snail wars!

10 gallon:

20 long:

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[RWaters]

Wait a minute - your girlfriend bought you a marimo moss ball as a birthday present???! That's hilarious. A bit of a strange gift for someone who wasn't already into aquariums, but it's great that you got hooked based on that simple item.

I think your tanks look real nice!

 

[bsmurray]

Actually I've had tanks when I was younger and in high school. I just stopped doing it since college started.

But now I'm back into them. Haha. You can take the tanks away from the fish hobbyist but you can't take the fish hobby away from the hobbyist.

Or something like that.




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[jrman83]

Keeping tanks will keep you ever evolving. I have had hi-tech planted tanks going on 4yrs and I get taught lessons nearly every week. Extremely rewarding hobby (if that is what it is considered) and at the same time extremely humbling. Good job with your tanks.

 

[bsmurray]

New aqua scape, comments appreciated.

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