Age when you started

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 22 Jul 2005, 17:58

I wanted to start a topic to see what ages everyone on here started collecting pleco's and catfish and started breeding them. I was 13 when I started, and now I am 15. I have become addicted to it, like most people on this site have. They are just so amazing and beautiful. And people that breed more than 10 species, is it just a hobby of yours or is it your job.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 22 Jul 2005, 18:22

I got my first pleco, Hypostomus Plecostomus, when I was around 15-16 or so, so about 25 years ago. I then replaced it with another one (both died, probably from malnutrition due to not get enough veggie stuff). I kept fish until I moved to England in 1995, but the last few years before I moved, I wasn't particularly active.

I then went back to fish-keeping thanks to my fiancee getting two small goldfish two years back. We've still got one of them, the other died after a few weeks (probably during tank-cycling, as I didn't quite know much about it at that time). After we moved house, I got "Gus", the female bristlenose. And got another tank, and then another one. I've now got two tanks stored away because there's no suitable place to put them...

I haven't bred more than one specie of catfish so far, and it's definitely not making more money than it costs... Which means that it has to be defined as a hobby. By the way, working with computers is much better paid than breeding fish, unless you do some really extensive breeding...

--
Mats

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 22 Jul 2005, 21:06

I started about three years ago. When I was 37.

A pain management physician recommended this hobby in particular to me. Around the same time, my brother and his family moved and just happened to leave their 15 gallon tank in my care.

dlrzrwlf · Post by **dlrzrwlf** » 22 Jul 2005, 23:50

It all started for me when I was 30. My 3 year old son won a goldfish at a local field days. My wife and I bought a five gallon tank to put it in, and it lived for about 2 months. Left with an empty tank, we decided to buy a common pl*co, and an irridescent shark on the advice of a large chain pet store. Three tanks, a new LFS, and two trade-ins later, we now have a 55 gallon tank with several small breeds of catfish and an angelfish. That was about 4 years ago. I owe most of the knowledge about raising catfish from this site.

a7oneal · Post by **a7oneal** » 23 Jul 2005, 00:54

I was 8 when I started keeping fish (the first were head-and-tail light tetras), and my first catfish not soon after that was a Pimelodus pictus and then I got an upside-down cat.

I was 12 when I finally found a Synodontis angelicus. I had that fish for 10 years.

So... I'm 26 now, so a total of 18 years.

djw66 · Post by **djw66** » 23 Jul 2005, 05:01

By the way, more than 30 years in the hobby.

ClayT101 · Post by **ClayT101** » 23 Jul 2005, 17:21

My father had a 55 gallon when I was about 7. It had some fancy goldfish and a pleco. I loved the pleco because it looked like a shark. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that I even knew about fancy plecos. I'm 30 now.

Rense · Post by **Rense** » 23 Jul 2005, 22:31

I started when i was 4(some platys en guppies

) and with 6 I got my first cats, otocinclus and corydoras pygmaeus

MDOU · Post by **MDOU** » 24 Jul 2005, 03:13

i was born into an aquarium family - no chance of escape

which is sad because everyone around here who is into aquaria knows me (or at least think they do)

pictus_man_77 · Post by **pictus_man_77** » 24 Jul 2005, 21:05

i was 13 when i got mine.
The date : 30th May
the time : 2:00.
he was let loose in my tank
my life has not been the same since.
because it's BETTER!
i might be getting rid of him ( common pleco) in favour of a more peacefull, smaller pleco

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 24 Jul 2005, 22:28

Might I suggest the following, L066, L260, L15, L134, L260. These are usually easy to obtain.

DeepFriedIctalurus · Post by **DeepFriedIctalurus** » 25 Jul 2005, 00:11

Wow.. I thought I'd be the only one who got caught up in all this as early as 8 years old, so it's been 18 years here too! Minus a 4-5 year break in my teenage years tho.. Anyway those 1st catfish I had were young black bullheads, I caught those w/ a smelt-dippin net in the ditches around the fairly rural house I grew up in. Of course these were all tossed into a kids' molded blue plastic pool alongside the frogs, sunfish, mudminnows, tadpoles, crayfish & turtles.

The next year mom got a couple 10Gs from a friend & it was all downhill from there.. The 1st aquarium catfish I convinced her to get for me was a 4-line pim (P.clarias) that came from a Perry drugstore, and I ended up having it for 7-8 years (even thru a heater failure that killed everything but him & the ple-cos) until I temporarily got out of fishkeeping at 16 or so.
I'll always love Pimelodus because of that fish, but now I just keep a few aberrant pictus since they're alot more space-effective...heh

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 25 Jul 2005, 13:34

Sounds like my nephews backyard at several times during his childhood!

I'll never forget when his little sister tried to go swimming one day......

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 25 Jul 2005, 15:11

Sorry, my last post was for somewhere else, I have no idea. I was out of it, didn't know what I was doing. One of those moments, you know. Thanks for your info everyone and keep it coming. At least I know I'm not the youngest one into cichlids and catfish. My parents say I'm addicted to it. But I say there are far more worse stuff to be addicted to then fish.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 25 Jul 2005, 15:23

laurab5 wrote:My parents say I'm addicted to it. But I say there are far more worse stuff to be addicted to then fish.

Yupp, far worse. To list a few that I'm into:
Motorcycles, beer, photography (if you think fish-tanks are expensive, check out some of the Canon lenses at http://www.bhphotovideo.com).

Then there's of course the really bad things to be into [just to clarify I'm NOT into these], like alcohol, drugs, guns, "gangs", etc, etc.

--
Mats

kev · Post by **kev** » 25 Jul 2005, 15:40

i started when i was 12 and then by 16 i had 10 tank's and was working at an aquatic shop, i dont think it will ever end

.

Kev

Sescil · Post by **Sescil** » 25 Jul 2005, 16:51

Great topic !!! I got started at 4 ... Through my teen years my parents had a hard time with the 10 tanks in the bedroom ... I went through the same thing with my wife ... At first she couldn't understand why I had a garage full of Catfish ... Now she loves to take a few hours each day to enjoy the tank room. Hopefully I can pass along the joys of this great hobby to my kid which is due next week ...

catfishgrrl · Post by **catfishgrrl** » 25 Jul 2005, 17:26

My parents bred bettas for a while, but I was too young to remember them.
That tank was then used for my first goldfish when I was about 5.
I had them until High School with the occasional common pleco.
I never could figure out why they never lived very long.
No wood, no algae tabs, just what ever was in the tank.

When I got my first apartment in college I dug out my tank from my Mom's and set it up again.
This time with corys and live-bearers.
It wasn't til a few years ago that I stumbled onto L-#'s and hopped immediately online and found this site.
I've been hooked every since.
I'm now 25 with several more tanks.

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 25 Jul 2005, 18:09

Congragulations on the baby. I hope it runs in the family. I have 5 tanks, 3 10 gallons, a 20 long and a 75 mbuna.

pturley · Post by **pturley** » 28 Jul 2005, 05:29

I am actually a third generation aquarist.

My grandmother on my Father's side used to BREED Angelfish in the 1930s during the great depression. She paid $12.50 for her first pair of fish (then that was a tremendous amount of money!). My grandfather used to attribute the fact that my family even made it through the depression was from her breeding and selling these fish (that and to her running "numbers"!).

She stayed in the hobby through the sixties. That's when my mother caught interest.

One of my earliest memories is actually of straining on the tips of my toes to look into my mother's fishtank. It used to be so high I could barely see the fish at the bottom back of the tank. I also remember it as looking like a HUGE tank.

Turns out after all these years it was a 30 inch tall angle iron stand my dad welded together and the tank was only a 20 high! I still have the stand, but it's in storage. I use it on occasion when I need to shoe-horn in an additional tank.

Yeah, I figure I'm a lifer... With any luck, my three boys (or at least one of them...) will be too.

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 28 Jul 2005, 14:09

$12.50 American in the Great Depression was like hitting the numbers!

That was no small sum of money. To show you what an "upside-down" world it was during the Depression, my grandfather made more money doing odd handyman jobs than using his civil engineer's license. It worked to his advantage for the rest of his life. He truly became a master of many things. When times got better, he could design a house, engineer it, and then build it all himself. I miss that man! I can hear his scowl. There are a few of my cousins he needs to whack upside the head and set straight.

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 28 Jul 2005, 14:57

MatsP, I particlarly liked your list of things you WERE into such as beer, and those you WERE NOT into such as alcohol.

To list a few that I'm into:
Motorcycles, beer, photography

really bad things to be into [just to clarify I'm NOT into these], like alcohol, drugs,

that made me chuckle.

anyway, i started keeping fishkeeping at about 8 years old. i had a white goldfish (called jaws obviously!), a weather loach (escaped from that tank, and survived many times covered in carpet fluff!) and a common plec that used to "holiday" in the water butt at the end of the garden for the summmer!!

simon · Post by **simon** » 29 Jul 2005, 06:57

I started to get into cats a bit more seriously wen i was about 18...i am now 29...in that 11 years i have worked for 3 different aqua centres all around australia...i am only now getting really serious bout cats as i hav, with my partner set up our own breeding shed...its been along time commin, but we are having a ball....catfish are very hard to come by in australia, as our quarantine laws are very strict....so we do, wot we can do, to get these fantastic looking fish more common down here and educate a little on the way so none of these great guys get into our own waterways....

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 02 Aug 2005, 14:10

Well, this topic has slid down and I want some more responses. I love seeing that I was not the only 14 year old addicted to plecos and African Cichlids. When some of you post, can you answer my question. I am thinking about putting a gold nugget in my Mbuna 75 gallon. Tons of rocks, do you think this would work.

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 02 Aug 2005, 14:21

No.

Goldnuggets are all wildcaught and should be kept in a soft, neutral to acidic tank with lots of bogwood; it has NO business in a Malawi-tank; best get a Bristlenose for algae-cleanups.

these are captive-bred, adapt easily to the hard, alcalic water and graze all the time. The Goldnugget is more of an omnivore and will be outcompeted for food by the voracious Mbuna. if it's not nipped to death, it'll starve to death.

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 02 Aug 2005, 14:33

Yeah, I have bristlenose. Ok then, I got off topic with this gold nugget so let's just here about when you started.

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 02 Aug 2005, 16:12

me?

I was 9 year old when I took over the community tank from my dad, and my first self-bought fishes were 1 Corydoras aeneus and 1 C paleatus.

that was in september '74.

It went downhill from there

Post by **corybreed** » 02 Aug 2005, 21:55

I first started keeping fish at 9 or 10. I wass fortunate to grow up in an apartment building with a few old time fishkeepers. I got my first tank and equipment, stainless steel and piston pumps from an older German fishkeeper who got out of the hobby. My first fish were a Kissing and a Blue gourami. Later on I kept guppies plants and snails which were given to me from a biology professor who lived on my floor. By the way her husband was a Nuclear Physicist who worked on the Manhattan project. I guess I have been keeping fish for 38 years.

Mark

FuglyDragon · Post by **FuglyDragon** » 03 Aug 2005, 03:44

Started with Gold Fish when I was maybe 10 or so. At high school I got together with a friend and we spawned Brown Discus in his garden shed to earn a bit of extra money. Worked in a LFS 'The Goldfish Bowl' while I went to college (we call it university). Got my first pleco about then at age 18 or so, and as someone metioned earlier it just went down hill from there. Now im 36 and obsessed with everything pleco. I know Im obsessed because I know that Pseudacanthicus means 'with false horns' a reference to the little stumpy spikes all over my Pseudacanthicus Leopardus. This is not something a person not obsessed with plecos would know. or care to know for that matter.

TalenT · Post by **TalenT** » 04 Aug 2005, 22:38

I'm also a third generation aquarist. My dad have told me that my grandparents had a small aquarium at home when he was a child, but he was really impressed when he saw a large aquarium one time when he followed my grandad to an office in town (must have been in the 50's). In my early childhood, my dad had some aquariums and sometimes I got to choose some new fish to purchase for our tanks. My first catfish(es) were two of those fish, one was a dark-coloured loricariid (probably a common pleco or maybe a female ancistrus) and an albino cat which I, after all these years, only can guess was an albino channel catfish (at least it's the most similar looking catfish according to my memories, could you find channel catfish in Swedish LFS in the late 70's? perhaps)... Been stuck ever since.

Have been working all day today, fitting a "tanganyika rock"-background in my new 540 litre tank.