For reasons still unclear to me, my husband Evan and I decided to buy our first aquarium 18 months ago. Neither of us ever had fish before, but how difficult could it be? So one rainy September evening, we stopped by a store near our house. The owner was almost ready to leave, as it was 10 minutes after closing, but she was very patient with us. She also sold us a 55-gallon tank, with all the bells and whistles.
We soon had goldfish swimming happily in a watery paradise. At least, we thought they were happy. Nearly a month and a half later, when it was very apparent they were not, back to the store we went. That’s when we learned about water changes.
At that point, with the goldfish happy again, and being the seasoned fishkeepers that we were, (hey, those 6 weeks seemed much longer!), we decided we needed a tropical setup. We picked out a 100-gallon tank, and because we were at a different store this time, we again left with one of every fish product imaginable that somehow wasn’t stocked in the first store. One of the items was a water test kit. We left the store feeling very cutting edge. In 1997, long before we’d heard the term ourselves, our fish were Y2K-compliant.
One day, we introduced 5 clown loaches to our community tank. The next day, they were swimming around madly, in a loop-the-loop/follow-the-leader style. How cute, we thought; they even behave like clowns. It wasn’t until the appearance of white spots that we thought something might be wrong. November was the month we learned about ich. And white-mouth fungus, and pop-eye. We kept an arsenal of fish medications on hand as insurance. We found out that the comical way in which the clowns were swimming was in fact their way of gasping for air. We were remorseful. Each morning brought a dreaded revelation of new problems. Treating the clown loaches for ich stressed the others in the tank, especially the rainbowfish. Treating each new disease caused a vicious cycle of disease in another fish. It was a painful month.
We found out about GSAS through the Internet. In all honesty we wanted to join because of the auction. Waiting impatiently for the auction, which was a whole three months away, we found the GSAS meetings to be fun, and began to learn a lot about fishkeeping from other members. We learned that there were other ways to keep fish healthy, to the point where medications would be rarely used. No wonder our fish had such problems! They were zonked out and overdosed like drug addicts on fish crack. We picked up a few more tanks, invested in a hospital/quarantine tank, and sent the whole community into rehab. We’re talking cold turkey. We installed better lights, and started planting heavily. The pretty bubble-ators were yanked out. Our community tank became a bustling grand central. The five clowns quickly put on weight and established themselves as the mafioso, the Congo tetras regularly dropped eggs, and even our shy zebra plecostomus decided to take up residence in the most visible place of the tank.
Against all odds, (that is, in spite of us), our fish have not only survived, but thrived. We even know a few scientific names by heart! Now, if I could just get Evan to agree to a marine setup...