have you ever kept a freshwater aquarium?

[dwd5813]

wow, i didn't expect this many posts. well, since i started this thread i guess i'll share my experiences up to this point..
my first tank was a ten gallon that my dad had sitting empty in the basement. my dad always took me fishing and before long i was bugging him to let me set up a tank. being a kid, i probably thought i was gonna put some trout in there, lol! anyway, we went off to the fish store, and i was absolutely blown away! until i first saw it, i didnt have a clue how many different fish there were. so, at around 5, i set up my first tank. it had a few danios, a plastic corner bubbling filter, river rocks, and some plastic plants. i had that tank for years. i lost a few fish here and there, and probably put some things in that tank that never should have gone in there, but it was a blast. i've made my share of mistakes in this hobby, but it has been an education. as an example, i once put a jewel cichlid into a community tank that i bought complete from a guy after a long lapse in fishkeeping, and well, yeah i watched that fish rip through my entire tank picking off my new fish one by one. it fascinated me in a way, though. from that point on, i was hooked on cichlids, and researched a lot. my most recent tank was a 55g mbuna tank. i just moved again and now, after a couple years of reading and researching, i'm almost at the point where i can set up my first sw tank. so there that is.


oh yeah, and PAGE TWO!!

[Jareth]

Originally posted by chuppy
How is that so? I find them very pleasing and relaxing to me.... and lazy people that don't like water changes? please... Unless you're going El Natural, a water change per week is a MUST for most FW tanks and they an be very clean .. only people who don't do regular maintenance will get dirty tanks(not pointing at anyone here)

Weekly? Seriously? I havent changed the water in my FW tank for 2 months. Ciclids must be dirty bastards to require that much cleaning.

[richofoz]

Well said guaiac_boy, I fully agree it's very rare to see a FW tank with wow factor. But when you do, it's definitely the equal of any reef tank.

My FW Australian native tank is fully planted and contains some fish with the most personality I've ever owned.
My big archer fish squirts me with a jet of water when he's hungry (Up to 6' away from the tank! the little ones copy him but aren't very accurate
one of my sleepy cod will ever so gently bite me on the finger and let me pull him around the tank! (No idea why but he seems to like it! he does it nearly every feeding time now)

IMO you can become as involved as you want in either, you just need to be more involved from the start with a reef tank.

[crazywesc]

Here is a pic of my old planted discus tank. I gave all my fish to a freind so I could tear it down and start on a reef tank. I kept this FW tank for a little over a year and it takes twice a week water changes for the tank to look really clean all the time (Thats without a UV sterilizer). If I went over a week and a half without pruning or W/C It looked really bad.

I cant wait till I can get the reef finished, I'm so excited to finally start a SW tank!!!!

[jarrett]

i started with a 55 gal fw comunity tank. i now moved the com tank to a 33 and have two 55s one cichlid and the other has a sturgeon, and an arrowana in it getting kinda boring so im in the prosess of setting up a 180 reef.

[coast2coast7390]

i think that everyone should start off with fresh water...its less expensive and teaches you the basics

[fishworm]

I have to change the water in my 150 gallon tanganyikan cichlid tank aty least once a week. the Tropheus and Petrochromis live in the surge zones so they need clean, wekk oxygenated water. lots of water flow are a must for them too.

and the other problem with them is that they doo best when they are kept in large groups. I have 18 petros and 17 tropheus in the aquarium now. I keep the thing filtered with three fluval 405 cannister filters to really keep the water moving.


some freshwater fish can be as difficult to keep and as interesting as saltwater. and the good thing about these tropheus and petros is that when they spawn, I get 2.50 to 5 bucks a piece for the juveniles. they basically pay for themselves after a while.

[01saleen]

Started with fresh, and i actually kept it up with my salt tank, it was an African cichlid tank, they are rad, tons of personality. but now, just my crazy reef tank.

[chuppy]

Okay time for me to share my 1st freshwater tank.. my latest one won't be shown due to some reasons...

A plant..


After a trimming..


Pearling riccia.


And a cleaner skunk FW counterpart! Crystal Reds!!


Lol I ain't braggin but I'm here to share that a FW planted tank is as much time consuming as SW, and well

Jareth.. i ain't keeping chilids... lol...

Drew

[uscharalph]

Do goldfish count?

[guaiac_boy]

So here's a photo to show you my 180g FW tank: It's a different "feel" from the average reef tank, but I think it's plenty interesting all the same:

[chuppy]

Hear Hear!

[ljosh]

I find I have to do Bi-weekly water changes on my FW tank to keep nitrates down. To many fish - To much feeding - No natural denitrification like in SW.

One of the things I liked is that with my reef I could do smaller less frequent water changes.

Given a chance I would convert all my tanks to SW.

[Bygkid]

Well I have to admit that my first tank was a community 10g that my mom and stepdad had set up in our dining room when I was about 10 or 11 yrs old. I remember being facinated by the Loach that we had. Orange and black stripes if I remember. kholi or something like that. I have always had a fresh water tank. Mostly 10g or 20g. tried my hand at planted tanks without much success due mainly to ignorance and lack of reading on my part. I currently maintain my wife's 29 community tank which I do water changes almost every week.

I decided to branch out from the FW because I liked the plants and figured I would try my hand out side about 5 years ago with the round hard liner pond setup you can get at most home improvement stores. 1 1/2 years ago I decided to go a bit over the top and removed the old pond and installed 2 ponds with flex liners complete with new landscaping, waterfalls, water plants and a stream with a bridge, complete with rockscape top to bottom. It needs some fine tuning, but overall I'm pretty satisfied.

OF course, I guess, In the back of my mind I always was shooting for the SW tank which I finally got last fall 2006. I still have the FW and the ponds( of which I want to rebuild next year- same as in SW...always wanting bigger) but I REALLY love the SW tank. The wife, kids, grandchildren and other family and friends are what drives me. I get alot of personal satisfaction playing 'God', But I get more just out of other peoples faces when they see them all.

Scott

[Agu]

When I started most freshwater tanks I saw were the tacky tanks where several species never meant to be together were all in a community tank. I had variations of those tacky tanks for 15 years.

Then a friend into chiclids introduced me to natural biotope freshwater aquariums. I went to his LFS, saw the reef tanks on the way through, and dumped my freshwater tanks in a heartbeat.

[AlexB650]

Yes! I started with a 20 gallon tank that someone gave me 15 years ago. I decided to put a butticofferi and a pink convict (cichlids) in it. The grew to be too large, so I got them a 150 gallon and added more fish. I eventually got tired of them killing and chewing eachother up, so i broke it down and went to salt water (aggresive) with a few triggers, lions fishes and eels. That got boring, so i went to reef. My room caught on fire, so i lost everything (thousands of dollars) and was out of the aquarium hobby for over a decade. I've recently (8 mos.) decided to give it another go. Well, that's my hobby time line.

[fishworm]

I snapped a couple of pics of my current FW aquariums.

here is my 150 tanganyikan tank. it's got some large granite rocks that I drug back home from a creek in Colorado. and a crushed coral substrate.



and this is the 125, which I am currently doing a water change on right now. it's got a fine sand substrate with some driftwood and plastic plants. my green severums are gonna start laying eggs any day now.




those are some beautiful planted tanks! I never tried to set one up at home, but I did keep a really nice planted 55 at the pet store I used to work at.

[Robert H]

I have been in the business of selling freshwater plants to hobbyists for almost ten years, and I write a column in FAMA called The Planted Tank. In my buiness, one of the most common things I hear from my customers is ex reefers converting over to freshwater plant tanks. It has become so common for the last several years, that I have been trying to think of a way to better market towards these people!

Why is it so many reefers are converting? Its not newbie reefers that gave up before they got started. It's seasoned, experienced reefers. I got a call like this from a guy just a couple weeks ago, and I have gotten these types of calls every month for the last nine years. He has been a reefer for 20 years and he is just retireing from his career this year. According to him he is "burnt out" on reefs and thinks a planted tank will be more relaxing!

I am sure different people have their own reasons for going from one to the other, and I know some people that are happy doing both worlds. Freshwater plant aquariums as a hobby has its own llittle nuiances. People who are very analytical gravitate to freshwater plants for the science involved in growing the plants and keeping a balanced system free of algae, (ha!) while others are attracted to the artistic nature of the hobby.

I come to this forum once every six months as a lurker just to see what the other side of the aquaria world is doing. And while I am curious and respectfull of the reef world, I am real happy where I am at!

"chiclids" is gum my friend, and it doesn't do well is fresh or salt water!

I find I have to do Bi-weekly water changes on my FW tank to keep nitrates down. To many fish - To much feeding - No natural denitrification like in SW.

Plants in a freshwater aquarium feed on ammonium and nitrate to the point you have to ADD NITRATE to the water. A healthy plant tank has ZERO nitrate without it being added. Zero!

Robert Hudson
www.aquabotanic.com

[seanndenise1]

yeah i kept and raised freshwater fish my whole life.
heres a pair of red pidgeon discus.

[m2434]

Not sure how to answer. I had a fresh water tank when I was 5-6ish. Does that count as me keeping freshwater, or my parents?

[slimbolen99]

These are my two favorite tanks about 3 months ago...I will update pics this weekend. They line up against the back wall of my livingroom. My wife absolutely "adores" it...not!

Left is 75 gallon South American tank:
3 breeding pairs of angelfish
2 breeding pairs of kribensis
18 red/blue columbian tetras
12 flame tetras
12 corydoras
2 plecostomus
6 otinolusus

Right is 75 gallon reef tank:
3 tomato clowns
1 firefish
2 allen's damsels
3 peppermint shrimp
2 bubble tip anemones
6 red mushroom corals

[McTeague]

I have done a lot of freshwater. Some of my favorite tanks were the all tetra tank I have now featuring the fabulous Congo Tetra along with a bunch of other colorful tetras and a tank I had setup with a rare type of South American shovel nose catfish.

Conga Tetra:


Shovelnose Catfish:

[azrednex]

I kept all kinds of freshwater fish for 20+ years about 2 years ago my Wife asked for a SW. I'm down to a 30 gallon planted tank now. Were in the planning staged of a 300 gallon reef also. go figure.

[spamreefnew]

iv had just about every freshwater fish known to man in the past. i just think saltwater gives you MUCH more bang for the $buck

[WaterKeeper]

When I got into aquarium keeping nobody knew a thing about keeping SW fish. I did have some seahorses, which I quickly killed , when I was about seven but that was it for many years. I've had as many as 11 tanks running at one time all FW but for two.