re: Who here has aquariums?

I had one growing up. Actually we had 2 or 3 in the house at one point, and a big saltwater tank at dad's office.

He had a 55 gallon in his office for years, and when he moved out of a rental space and bought an office, he upgraded to a huge saltwater tank. At least 100 gallons. I got the 55 gallon to put in my bedroom. Freshwater. Had a huge variety in it over the years. Even a freshwater orange/red colored crab at one point. I woke up one morning on the weekend and there was a dead goldfish, and the crab was holding it with his big claw and picking the meat off of it with his small one and eating it. A few hours later there was a head and skeleton floating at the top. As a 12 year old, this was pretty cool to watch.

We also had some small eels and Sicilian worms that would burrow during the day, but come out at night and swim around.

I had some of those swordtail fish at one point, and they started breeding like crazy. There was a huge oscar in the smaller tank downstairs. I think it was a 35 or 40 gallon size tank. When there were too many babies for the big tank, we'd scoop out like 15-20 of them and put them in the tank downstairs and watch him eat them.

I'd like to get another one some day, but I don't have a good place for one right now. I wouldn't want anything huge, but it would be nice to have a few fish to watch.

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I have never seen one catch and eat a fish...eat on a dead on yes but never catch one

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Tell that to my daughter. She's still pissed off at those things. We had two of them and I think they ate 3 of our fish.

Sorry, I just read the thread. Not trying to bump. Would like to add to the banter. Long time ago I had multiple aquariums.

Fascinated by the subject thread. I never did graduate to 55 gallon or larger aquariums. I had a blast nonetheless.

Largest I had was 30 gallon. I had (at the same time) usually 6 aquariums. A 30 gal., 2 - 20 gal., 1 - 10 gal., and 2 - 5 gal. aquariums.

In my large "show" (ha ha) tank I had several Cichlids (silver ones with the large whiskers), several Neon Tetras, some sucker catfish to do maintenance on tank algae and others.

My favorite memory is of breeding Fancy Tail Guppies.

These fish are fairly common. Fairly inexpensive. Common guppies are totally local in ditches, lakes, bayous, backwaters, etc. Transplanted species many, many years ago:

Wiki "Fancy Tail Guppies"

I would purchase several beautiful males and a couple females. Let them do their thing. They are live bearers & females would typically produce 30 - 50 very small fry swimming in the aquarium. Young were subject to cannibalism, so separating them in a small 3" x 5" x 3" high plastic container with holes in bottom mounted in aquarium was important at birth.

I would then move them to their own separate 5 gal. aquarium & let them grow. Beautiful males I would keep selectively & breed. Silver sided females were pretty drab, but I kept many for breeding.

You get the drift. Loads of fun. I would get some beautiful Fancy Tail Guppies.

Never did I know which magnificent, beautiful tailed male would result from the breeding. Very suspenseful process. Time after time.

Never forget my years of experience with these remarkably beautiful fish.

Just got my silver arowana in the tank and he's a pretty cool little guy. Only measures 3" from tip to tail but he will grow quickly. He's currently in my 55 gal by himself.. Once he gets big enough he will go in the bigger tank with my other fish.

here's what a bigger one looks like just for reference

Can a aquarium be put outside on a covered patio? I live in NOLA.

Not a full blown aquarium, but I do have a question you guys might can help me with. My wife has been wanting a Beta Fish for a while so my daughter used her valentines money to buy her one (I know, she's so thoughtful). We have a round bowl and a plastic tank that we switch it back and forth from about every week. Both have their own rocks. We have bought two snails to help keep it clean, use water conditioner, and use filtered water to refill after cleaning/swapping bowls. We also thouroghly wash the rocks each swap. The problem is, no matter how hard we try, after about a day & 1/2 -2 days the water becomes cloudy and develops almost like a pond scum on top. When it first started happening, I tried cleaning/swapping bowls 2x/wk. but that didn't seem to help. It hasn't seem to hurt the fish other than the fact that he isn't as colorful as he was before the problem started. Any idea what it is, and what can I do to fix it?

I guess I should clarify, I was initially doing partial exchanges. I only completely changed the water when this cloudy junk showed up and have been chasing it ever since. I didn't start with 2 tanks, I bought the 2nd tank and 2nd set of rocks to kinda start over.

If I change 15-20% weekly and use the conditioner, should the cloud eventually go away? Did I overreact the first time with the full swap and start a cycle I haven't been able to break?

ETA: when I was doing my partial changes, I was cyphoning. After stirring up the rocks, should I cyphon from near the top, bottom, or does it matter?

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pond scum on top

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it's because the water is stagnant. buy a small air pump and put an air stone in the bowl/tank and that will help move the water around which will get rid of the scum