Through my adolescence and early teens I always kept a fish tank. I never really knew how to keep fish but I loved having them and the prettiest plastic plants I could get a hold of lol. I never understood the nitrogen cycle or for that matter even knew that there was such a thing to be learned and understood. I thought I just had to clean the tank every couple weeks. Now by cleaning the tank I thought it meant removing and sanitizing everything but the gravel - this would include all plastic plants, decorations, and last but not least, the filter media. When I vacuumed the water I did heavy gravel vacuuming as well. I never understood what I was doing wrong and why my fish always died.

Fast forward 20 years we decided to get a fish tank for my son. I always loved fish so I got almost as interested in getting the tank as he did. We bought a starter kit from the big box pet store, gravel, plastic plants, decorations, the whole kitten kaboodle. Once we got it stocked I still found issues with water changes. Whenever I'd vacuum the gravel the tank would be just filled with poo floating in the water for a couple days and the fish would seem to not be so healthy afterward. In fact it wouldn't be uncommon to lose one or two in the week after a cleaning, which was done monthly (though I did not remove and sanitize the plants this go-around since our algea eaters do a great job).

So I started doing some reading online and from tons of reading on this site I learned some much needed information, most importantly about the nitrogen cycle. I learned that as a child I was completely re-cycling my tank every time I cleaned it. I learned that whenever I stirred up the gravel and changed the filter in my son's tank we were going through a mini cycle. I learned about the advantages of real plants for a tank. I had tried them as a child but the pet stores never had anything but anacharis which quickly died or got eaten.

Over the last 6 months since implementing many changes to our practices, we have lost zero fish, and the tank looks as healthy as ever. We are now even on our third set of healthy fry in the last 3 months. The fry are doing so well we are probably going to have to start giving some of them away to the LFS. I will admit, our algea eaters are Chinese ones which are quite discouraged on this site, though we have had no issues with them being aggressive to other fish and they are proficient cleaners. I never have to clean anything inside the tank, including the glass. Our new plants are also doing exceptionally well and spreading nicely through the tank.

Anyway, like I said this site has been very beneficial to my broadening of general aquarium knowledge, so much so that I now have greater aspirations. I want to do a 75 gallon dirt planted tank but since I'm really now just getting the hang of this I'm forcing myself to start slow. I bought a 10 gallon kit and planted that one. For me this will serve two purposes. It will not only provide a testing ground for what works, what doesn't, and what I can learn from, but it will also hopefully be a good propagation center for getting more than just a small scattering of live plants when I'm ready to start the 75. So far I've had the 10g going for about a month and it's just starting to take off. I was freaked out when all my crypts melted away, but like everyone says they came back. It has so far been a very good learning experience indeed so I'm glad I started small.

Thank you all for being here and hopefully I can begin to participate in the discussions and share things I have learned (probably more failures than successes lol).

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http://s1050.photobucket.com/profile/TheReefingMadness

Glad you found us, Welcome

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90 gallon, 1 Iridescent shark, 2 Pleco, 3 Goldfish, 5 Cory cats, 2 Nerite snails
5 gallon hex, Blue Crowntail Betta, 1 nerite snail,

hello and welcome

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What happens if you get scared half to death, twice?

welcome!

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

Welcome to the forum.*

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Help those in our hobby to exceed beyond their expectations.

Logistic Aquatic Engineer

Great story...very inspiring. I'm new to the forum too and taking notes on saltwater stuff and learning lots! Welcome!

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