What fish when you saw it made you get interested in fish keeping. For me it was the Common/Trinindad Pleco. Most people buy their commons not knowing how big they get, but that’s the fish I wanted. I wanted a bottom dweller that got big but no to big, so I started researching the Commons. Now I have a 9.5” 2.5 year old Trinindad Pleco that lives in a 135 gallon community. So I’m interested to here what fish first got you interested in fish keeping and if you have it, tell what tank size its in.
What Fish Got You Interested In Fish Keeping
- Thread starter Casmine
- Start date
Well it would have to have been the goldfish in my dad’s 300 or so gallon pond when I was a child. I’d look in over the edge and just watch them, even fell in once and was luckily grabbed out by someone lol. Those goldfish started my own fishkeeping but the species that truly got my heart are Wallace’s Shoehead Catfish, when I first saw them was late one night when I was in my early teens like 13 on the diversden of live aquaria. I stayed up all night imagining them and thinking of how beautiful they were until my mom woke up and begged her to buy them which luckily she did and Wallace’s Shoehead Catfish have been my number one favorite ever since.
I used to watch the tv show tanked with my mom and after some begging we got a betta. I was really young so I didn’t take great care of it but he still lived for around 3 years. A while After he died I found this guy called Carson’s aquatics on YouTube and i really liked his cichlid tanks. I kept begging and then after a few years i finally got a 65 gallon tank. Which has now turned into a 150 gallon stocked with bichirs and few cichlids.
The fish that really hooked me in was the common featherfin squeaker. I bought a group of juveniles for my basic 20g office tank, thinking they were the smaller-growing Synodontis nigriventris, and once I realized my mistake I had to return them all... except the smallest, which I took a liking to.
I upgraded to a 55g for that individual fish, and in the tradition of many novice fishkeepers, turned it into a kitchen sink with a bunch of other species I bought on impulse. Thankfully my tastes run towards cories rather than cichlids, so the tank now is slightly overstocked but functional with frequent WCs.
Here's a shot of the syno jetting through the tank - winter is in full swing over here, and he's got a cozy spot next to the heater that he likes to huddle in, but he comes out like a bat out of hell at the slightest prospect of food. You can also see a bit of his exposed gills - I found out later that the reason he was so small is that he's got some gill and mouth defects, including a lack of gill covers.
(Still, a few measly deformities didn't stop him from pigging out so much that you could confuse him for an eggbound female).
I upgraded to a 55g for that individual fish, and in the tradition of many novice fishkeepers, turned it into a kitchen sink with a bunch of other species I bought on impulse. Thankfully my tastes run towards cories rather than cichlids, so the tank now is slightly overstocked but functional with frequent WCs.
Here's a shot of the syno jetting through the tank - winter is in full swing over here, and he's got a cozy spot next to the heater that he likes to huddle in, but he comes out like a bat out of hell at the slightest prospect of food. You can also see a bit of his exposed gills - I found out later that the reason he was so small is that he's got some gill and mouth defects, including a lack of gill covers.
(Still, a few measly deformities didn't stop him from pigging out so much that you could confuse him for an eggbound female).
