Magnus from Raleigh, North Carolina

[Magnus919]

Hey everyone. I'm excited to be here.

I've been an aquarist since I was little. I probably had my first aquarium, a 2.5 or 5 gallon-ish sized slate-bottom, around 1977 or '78. It quickly progressed in the late 1980's to tanks filling my bedroom. In the 1990's I may have been one of the first people captive breeding pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus zosterae) and in large numbers. For a short time in the early 2000's it seemed like I was supplying angelfish to a bunch of the pet shops in the Philadelphia area. I just seemed to get overboard with it.

Well I'd gone through some hardship and fell out of the hobby for a bit. But for the last year my wife has been keeping reef aquariums, starting with 5 gallons on the kitchen counter, to the 73G Red Sea Reefer that's in our new kitchen now. The envy was too much. I had to get started again.

Today I picked up an Aqueon 65G combo from the LFS (not a big box store). I'm just watching it now for signs of leaking but so far so good. I still had an Eheim 2215 in storage from before, and a heater, so I'm set there. I'll pop by the LFS tomorrow for some other supplies, some live sand, and some starter fish to cycle the tank with.

This tank is likely to be stocked with a bunch of nano freshwater fish.

It seems like a lot of cool new stuff is in the hobby now compared to what was hot when I was coming up. It's like under-gravel filters dropped off the face of the planet. LED lighting is a really welcome "new thing". It was still all fluorescent before when I had to leave the hobby.

 

[Rbishop]

Welcome to AC!

 

[dudley]

Welcome to AC and back to the FW side of the hobby!

 

[tarheel96]

Hey Magnus919 . I'm in Durham/Chapel Hill. It's always good to hear from experienced fishkeepers like you but it's great knowing you're local. The LFS in Durham closed several years ago and I believe the closest LFS is probably 'The Fish Room' in Raleigh. I've kept different tanks since around 2012 when I got back into the hobby ... planted only, planted with fish, small and large cichlid tanks, but never saltwater. I've been active mostly on MFK .. not so much here .. but wanted to mention how important it is to the hobby that experienced fishkeepers like you post to forums like this one. If it were up to the Petmarts to bring people into the hobby then no one wouldn't change the water .. they'd just change the fish.

 

[Magnus919]

Yes, tarheel96 I'm a regular at The Fish Room, both their Raleigh & Cary locations.

I also like Fintastic in Cary, but they only cater to saltwater aquarists.

I've tried going to Aquarium Outfitters in Wake Forest a few times and left horrified every time (most recently yesterday, where I didn't even make it into the front door). For so many reasons, I can't recommend it. This one is really sad to me, because they could really be so much better if they just gave a darn.

The LFS options have gotten scarce. Even the big box stores seem to be thinning out a little.

You know, with some of us trying to treat this global pandemic seriously, you'd think aquarium keeping would be undergoing a renaissance. This is the perfect hobby for building up something beautiful at home with your family. And you can do really well with it without having to shell out a lot of money, if you don't want to. The stuff that worked for us 40 years ago will still work today (the fish haven't changed). I'd love to see more people give it a go.

 

[the loach]

The stuff that worked for us 40 years ago will still work today (the fish haven't changed).

Yes they did due to unscrupulous mass farming, many fish are just a shade of what they were both in color, vigor and hardiness.
Welcome, I have been keeping fish since the 70's as well.

 

[Magnus919]

Yes they did due to unscrupulous mass farming, many fish are just a shade of what they were both in color, vigor and hardiness.
Welcome, I have been keeping fish since the 70's as well.

Maybe! Just maybe!

But when it comes to color... you know what else has changed a lot? Our lighting. We're not seeing fish the same way we did back then in large part because the color spectrum of lighting we're using is VERY different than what we started with. We went from tungsten to fluorescent lighting... and then during my hiatus there was a shift from fluorescent to LED lighting.

And, yes, the fish in the shops look worse. The pet shops themselves have changed. And freshwater fish don't seem to have the kind of market they once commanded.

Such a shame! I think this pandemic would be the perfect time for people to set up a nice family aquarium in the living room.

 

[the loach]

We have better lighting now, why does that make the fish look less colorful.

 

[Magnus919]

We have better lighting now, why does that make the fish look less colorful.

It's better lighting but it's a different color spectrum. You can see this difference a lot with coral reef tanks. Tanks with strong actinic (blue) lighting reveal a lot of colors in the corals that you'd not see under typical freshwater lighting, where everything would just look olive or brown.

 

[the loach]

You're wrong about that, I've experimented for 40 years with different lighting, and you can still get the same as 40 years ago if you wanted, it has nothing to do with lighting. (not claiming anything on actnic lighting though as I never had marine)
Also unscrupulous mass farming causing weak and washed out fish is not my opinion but a fact...