As @Fan of Big Tone went a bit off topic ( forgive him, he’s ticking the boxes near the bottom on the age poll now! ????????)

thought it might be a good idea to,start a new thread on this.

I’ve kept a fish tank before and recently tarted thinking about buying all the gear again. ( There’s the first tip Bigtone, when it all goes @#£& up, don’t sell all the gear. Keep it in the loft and pull it out again when you’re ready for another go.)

 

I would suggest you start with cold water fish as your starting point. I remember I had a lot less issues with cold water than tropical, and don’t even get me started on marine!

Great hobby and lovely to sit and watch.

Anyone else on here have, or have previously kept fish tanks? What was your experience?

I've kept them beforehand and ended up with baby mollies and guppies at some point. In the end I just had a sole Plecostomus in my tank until a couple of years ago when he died. Initially I really enjoyed looking after them, but it was a chore towards the end with replacing water and cleaning the tank constantly. I doubt I would go back to it.

 

I’ve kept fish before but as I’ve hot older what with work it’s sort of gone ... my dad has a tank and keeps fish 

You are dead right about keeping your stuff in the loft @hissingdwarf I had one years ago when we first got married but kids and work got in the way so I packed it up and got rid of all the stuff, a few years ago with kids gone, retirement looming and more time on my hands I started up again, in fact I mentioned I might like another tank to Mrs Big Tone and she arranged with my son to get a large tank and all the equipment  for my birthday. We came off holiday and the tank and all the gear was waiting for me to set up, my son had kept it in his garage then brought it round to our house while we were away, it was a lovely surprise.

It’s a great hobby but I agree it can become a chore with constant cleaning and water changes so you need plenty of time. It can also be expensive as I found when I bought some fish which were diseased and it killed all the other fish in the tank.

You’ve got to get the right balance of light too otherwise algae can be a problem, I’ve managed to eradicate most of the algae by experimenting. We’ve just had a happy event of 6 baby white mollies.

I have a pond in my back garden with a mixture of different fishes.

My tip to anyone thinking of having a tank is to spend well on the tank, the filter is important and give time for the mini eco system to develop before you jump straight in. If you rush it, you will only kill them off before they have chance to adapt to their new environment.

We’ve got a garden pond too @Wilfordpie we stocked it with a few tiddlers from the canal that our grandkids caught a couple of years ago now there are loads so they are obviously happy if they’re breeding.

Jake used to have fish until @super_ram fried and cooked them allegedly.

No they died sadly and, we wasn't able to move them into our home with all the stuff we had on and since we just haven't bothered to do it again. Kate wants to get a Gecko though, she used to have one when she was younger but I forget the actual name for it. 

i used to have some gold fish when i was younger but once they die, i think you end up not bothering. i do like seeing colourful fish mind.

I used to have two tanks, one in my living room and one in the conservatory. I also have a pond but there's no fish there but sometimes I do get ducks visiting on occasions.

My parents used to keep fish but I think the attraction died off, I was never bothered about them. Tanks can be a lot cooler these day tho.