What Inspired You?

[Saban2013]

I thought it might be an interesting thread to find out what inspired everyone to get their first aquarium. Was it a freshwater? or saltwater?

For me, I remember going to Sea World with my family and seeing a Nurse Shark in a large living aquarium there. I don't remember how old I was, but seeing that amazing fish fired me up. Every book report I did in school was on different fish and their habbitats. Even got in trouble for "repeating story lines" and not changing topics. I did not care. When I was 14, my parents allowed me to get my first saltwater aquarium. I had a few damsels and lace rock in a 30 gallon. I was never happier. My dad reminded me of just how much work it was at the time. He was right, but I did not care. Wow, how times have changed over the years. Now I have nine aquariums and a Koi pond. Everyone knew I'd end up this way. My parents were convinced I'd be a marine biologist. Never was good in school..LOL

[ScottFish]

Freshwater, 2 1/2 gal. tank with a green lid, and a goldfish. I don't remember when I asked my parents for it. I moved on to breeding guppies, bought a 10 gal. and when my Tiger Barbs made little "cubs" --I was hooked!

[Crazygar]

When I immigrated from Scotland with my Family back in the late 70s we happened to visit a Mall which had a Pet Store inside. I was totally blown away by the colorful fish that you could keep at home. While I had owned Goldfish in Scotland, I never realized that other forms of Fish existed to keep. I came from a small fishing village on the North Atlantic. Pets = Dog, Cat or Budgie.

I was mesmerized with Guppies to the point that my Parents bought a 10GAL tank for the living room. I stocked it Guppies, Gourami and the occasional catches from the Creek (Minnows and Dace). It took a Science Fair project when I was 9 to seriously get involved.

For my project, I wanted to selectively bred a color strain of Guppy. Half black, half white. While I never managed to ever get that color, I got awfully close. This lasted until I was 14, by that point, I had discovered Girls (which will be the death of me, but not complaining) and my interest in the hobby all but disappeared.

It took 14 years for me to return to the hobby in 1998. By then my life was somewhat settled, still having my love affair with Women though.

Gary

[Saban2013]

Great stories, keep'em coming..!! When I set up my 200 as a FOWLR tank, my wife said we were not doing another salt tank, they were too much trouble. I looked at her and smiled (Thinking, the tank is trouble). Oh, did I mention my 200 salt tank I look at every wonderful day?

[lou zello]

as i said before in another post i got started over 50yrs ago when one of my paper route customers let me in to see his living room---4 walls of guppies,platies,and mollies tanks on top of tanks that's what did it for me!!!!!!!

[fishgirl]

When i was very young i was excited to just have a goldfish. Every year at the fair the first thing id look forward to was throwing the little ping pong ball into a small bowl of water and winning goldfish. That used to be the coolest thing ever. I had a 1 gallon octagon fish tank and i thought it was the greatest thing ever. My brother was the one that really got things stirred up. He bought me my first "sucker fish" while i was away one weekend and i can home and was so excited. I started to get more into the hobby but i was limited to this 1 gallon tank. I had my dad buy me the fish i liked at the pet store that i never even considered being possible to own and things started to get a little cramped. My aunt offered me her 10 gallon and its supplies when she got a 30 gallon and i convined my parents to let me have it. Then i had a new "toy"! It was the biggest tank ever in my eyes! A few years later it got a small crack while i was doing a full cleaning. It was a new door unlocked! My brother had a 20 gallon and its supplies that he had after getting a 35 gallon and i got to have that since my tank cracked! It was kind of a nice thing that it cracked because i wasnt getting the 20 just to have a bigger tank! And thats basically it! I might be getting a 50 soon for my larger fish because now I've gotten to the point where my parents like having the fish around too!

[Freshwater Tropic]

Well, I started just like a lot of the Aquarium Junkies. . . I started with a 10G Freshwater tank. I put a few zebra danios in there and got addicted. Next thing I knew, I bought a 72G Bow-front. About a year from there decided to go SW. My first SW tank was a 92G Corner tank. Than, About 6 tanks later(36g, 150g, 135g, 180g, 17g & 75g***All SW***). Here I am today with a single 20g Nano tank. I live my MTS(Multiple Tank Syndrome) through the customers I maintain tanks for. That keeps the wife happy! LOL

Eventually, I will turn a room into a complete reef!!!! One HUGE tank surrounding the room. LOL ***Sigh*** One Day, One Day!

[Schmidtsie]

My daughter at the age of three with her eye's swelled shut like Mike Tyson just laid a whooping on her after visiting my brothers just after my sister-in-law got a cat. That was my inspiration.

She wanted a pet but cats where definately out, despite my wife's willingness to have one. With my wife being a cat person dogs were veto'd.

So when my daughter got a few years older we told her she could have a fish tank as long as she took care of it. Listening to my brother who kept fish for a number of years and is an artist/designer we bought a fluval edge which still resides in my living room today.

20 months later, I now look after all the tanks (they're all dad's tanks now) as MTS has fully manifested (six are set up and there's two waiting to be setup) and I have a hobby that helps me destress after a crazy day at the office.

I've tried to sell a couple of the smaller tanks but my daughter won't let me.

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Schmidtsie
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[Crazygar]

Now that you are a part of the Saskatoon Aquarium Society, they'll fuel your addiction even more. Glad to have met you Schmidtsie.

Yeah, I had 10+ tanks at one time, now one. As others, I live my MTS through others.

Gary

[Schmidtsie]

It's like you are speaking at my wake.

We were away on vacation else this past weekend, else I would have wished you farewell at the last SAS meeting in person. That's if you made it there yourself.

Best of luck in Winterpeg!

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Schmidtsie
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[clipclop]

My mom bought me a 10 gallon tank with goldfish when I was 4. I thought this was way cool. I never quite figured out why she indulged me. It hadn't occurred to me to ask for one. In my very limited experience I had never met anyone with a tank at home. It just seemed like keeping fish in the house was not something people could do. I kept the tank going throughout my childhood, adding the occasional replacement fish acquired as prizes at fairs.

I later found out I came by my interest honestly. My sister was sorting out some of the stuff from my grandparents' estate. She found a box of pictures my dad took with his first childhood brownie camera. Shot after blurry shot of fish from a visit to a big public aquarium, LOL.

[meh]

I fell in love with fish when i was very young because of my dads 55 gallon chicld tank and it was awesome then for my birthday i got a ten gallon and loved it then about 5 yrs later i was given a 40 gallon tank by a friend for free.Then bought a twenty gallon and filled it.3 out of 4 tanks are still alive.The ten gallon died

[Crazygar]

Schmidtsie, I was at the meeting, had to say farewell to the gang at the SAS.

Gary

[hoythero aquatics]

i started out with goldfish when i was 3 now i do live plants and finding nemo because i was young

goldfish is 5 yrs when my new goldfish attacked and killed him but theres my inspiration finding nemo

[C. Andrew Nelson]

My grandfather is the one who got me started in this hobby back when I was about 10 or 11 years old. He loved keeping freshwater fish. Back then there weren't that many resources where you could find out information about how to properly maintain a tank. We had one book on Goldfish and one on Bettas. Most of what my grandfather learned was from talking to shop owners and using his own common sense (of which he had copious amounts of).

He started me out with a very large goldfish bowl. I'm not sure where he got it as it was something he had before I was born, but I've never seen anything like it before or since. It was a true glass globe, completely spherical, with (obviously) an opening in the top. My guess is that it probably held around 10 gallons of water. It came with it's own specially shaped stand. The bowl sat in a cradle on the tabletop of the stand and a shelf wrapped around the top of the bowl in a half-circle. Very funky, stylish 1960s piece of furniture that would not be out of place on a show like Mad Men. My grandfather, who by trade was a metal spinner, crafted an aluminum lid for it on his lathe so the fish couldn't jump out. That was my first tank.

My grandfather had a 10 gallon tank in the living room (what he upgraded to when he gave me the goldfish furniture) and followed that with one of the first acrylic tanks I had ever seen. It was a beautiful tall thin 18 gallon show tank that he set up as a community aquarium with special preference given to Guppies and Neon Tetras. A couple years later I inherited from a neighbor a very sturdy, but rather ugly 15 gallon tank with thick chrome framework holding the glass in place. We kept building from there. My grandfather added a 2.5 gallon tank to breed Bettas. I added a 20 gallon tall (very much like the one you see in my journaling topic here) and a 5 gallon quarantine tank. My grandfather had owned a lighting fixture company and after he retired and sold the business he still had quite a few clear acrylic cubes that had been intended for use as housings for outdoor light fixtures. Of course, when I found them in the basement they became tanks.

We went all over the San Francisco Bay area looking for new and interesting fish stores. We had a blast with the hobby. My grandfather passed away in 2001 at the age of 89. If he were alive today he'd be absolutely thrilled with all the advancements in the hobby, even within the last decade. No doubt he'd be driving my grandmother crazy with nano tanks all over the house. I miss sharing this hobby with him, but I'm truly thankful that I now get to pass along the fun we had together and share it with my kids. I still keep a bit of him with me in this hobby because the stand that my current 20 gallon tank sits on is one he and I built together, and I still have those two books that we read over and over together.

That's what inspires me.