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Hullo. I'm a veterinary student in California who wants to learn how to take care of the fish she's got better. I've a cat and two chinchillas, and third-lease a horse. I used to play viola, and I spend too much time pretending to study (or actually studying) and don't have enough left over time to do many other things that I want to.

Given that this is a fish-centric forum, maybe I'll introduce my tank...

My fish are something I got into in undergrad (friend in the dorms had a little 2 or 3 gallon desktop tank, and after talking to him for a while, I got one too!), and decided that tank was too small, got a 10, then another 10, then my roommate got me a 29 for Christmas... and then I upgraded that to a 38gallon and gave the 29 to my cornsnake (who has since been given to someone who would spend more time with him). The other little tanks no longer exist (I've moved how many times in the last few years? answer: 5 or 6 times since I got the fish about 7 years ago... and moving fish isn't fun...) but the big tank is the centerpiece of my living room now.

It currently houses 2 angelfish (who have ben periodically laying eggs, so I guess something's going right in there), harlequin/t-bone rasboras, neon tetras, pygmy cats, clown loaches, and my favorite, an 8.5" pleco who has lived through all the abuse that I've heaped on the tank (he was maybe 2" when I got him... yes, I need a bigger tank, but I currently haven't the space, money, or ability to deal with that yet, besides which, the apartment floor would probably collapse, and the people under me probably wouldn't appreciate that Someday, when I'm rich, and have a more permanent living situation...). I'm happy with the size I've got now - easy to take care of, big enough that I could put almost whatever I wanted in, but not so big that it overwhelms me or the room.

I'm now trying to learn about plants - I have anubias taking over the tank, but I decided that it was boring having only one species of plant, so I recently upgraded the lights, and have been spending time talking to a couple of friends who have successful planted tanks to figure out what else to put in there and what else I need to change so that neither the fish nor the plants die.

I will probably spend a while mostly lurking... or maybe that's what I'll mostly do in general I tend to not to try to post unless I have something useful to say, and given that I'm not hugely knowledgable about fish (how come the fish medicine course had to be at the same time as two of the horse classes I had to take?! *grumble*) I probably won't have a ton constructive to say. Which will probably make people happy, I have a tendency to go on and on and on once I get started....

5xevy said:

Wow, you had a nice roommate to give you that!

Click to expand...

Yeah... she's also one of my best friends. She and her boyfriend built the stand, and recycled filters, rocks, light from when he had kept a bunch of fish in high school, got plexiglass cut to size for the cover, and the only thing the spent a much money on was the tank itself. It was great I ended up upgrading partly to give my snake a home (he had grown out of the 10-gal he was in), and partly because it was just a little small - I wanted to have a little bit more freedom in what I could put in it, so I kept the same length/width dimensions (so I could keep the stand and light) and went with the next size up, and I've been really happy with that size for the last three-ish years that I've had it And now I need to get a bigger tank for the pleco, even though I don't really want a bigger tank... *sigh* But that's going to have to wait at least a year - I need to graduate and have an actual job and a semi-permanent place first (it's hard enough moving a 30-40 gallon tank, I don't even want to think about 100+ ....)

my pleco and my mutant (?) clown loach (currently my favorite fish) (the bubbles are because I'd just cleaned the filter and it was getting rid of its air...)