Aquaria Saga
I first enjoyed the aquatic enviroment when i was 10 years old. When my family moved into a house with a built in fish tank. Now my parents didn't really know that much about fish or saltwater tanks that much before, however since this new house had one built-in it became something that we all needed to learn about. At first they hired a man named Keith Brocket, well he did know quite a bit about fish tanks, and he did do some work for us that did help us along with the proper stuff. For instance he had built a glass tank instead of the old acrylic one. Now the old acrylic tank we did have was, lets say horrible... It had one yellow-tail blue damsel that ws only visible about 30% of the time and there was a mountain of rocks that was filling up most, and i'm serious most of the tank. Now after the whole new tank and the new tank, Keith kindave just dissapeared. Out of the blue GONE, with no hint of ever comming back. So what did we do?
Well i started to take care of the tank myself. With the help of my parents and my sister, I pretty much took the tank from what state it was in to one that was fairly stable, and okay with maintenance. Now I am not saying I never had a crash, because I had quite a few. I have to say one of the most depressing ones was when my parents were having a Christmas party, and the Salinity tester for the tank had broken and I had done a water change in the tank that day. Well when I put the water back into the tank, it ended up not being the right salinity. It was oh... about 1.35 or so, about .12 above where it should be. It was high enough that we lost several, and i mean ALMOST THE ENTIRE stock of fish in that tank over the course of that evening. Not realizing what was wrong we brought the water straight to the store the next morning and they tested it, well yeah that was the reason why they didn't do too hot that night. Anyways after goign through many different "crashes" and recovering the contents of the tank or just flat out having to bring in some new ones, there came another branch in the family quest for an aquatic spectical in the frame of the Living room and Breakfast Nook.
Now my Dad and Mum were kindave getting fed up to all the crashes and failed attempts of maintaining the tank. So they called the Dallas North Aquarium, and set up a monthly maintenance service. This service was basic stuff, they rescued our tank and established a system that allowed us to proceed very nicely with our aquarium for a decent period of time. Now during these visits that the Dallas North Aquarium people came, I was very eager to learn all I could. I did not intrude (to the best of my knowledge), but I did finally get myself to the point where I felt really comfortable with maintaining the tank myself. Now with my new found knowledge my parents decided that it would be a good experience for us to break away and start maintaining it ourselves. Now we did and for that I ended up maintaining it, with my sister's help (alternating of course) untill I left the D'ville house for College Station.
With my time at Texas A&M I didn't have any pets for the first two years there, not that it was a bad thing, but a good thing. I learned to appreciate pets, and my friends on the Team started to show interest in Fish tanks. Now I was over here thinking... you know what I know I could have an impressive fish tank if I wanted to, but I didn't know how much I wanted to get back into it. I knew the upkeep was high, and the time commitment was more regular as well, something that a Swimming college student didn't have that much time for. But I also knew that if I really wanted I could make it Amazing. Well after a period of time, and Tia's help, I came into the possession of a 29 Gallon tank and filter. With that BAM! I was pretty much hopelessly addicted to a habit that I still suffer from. This habit is one that I know, and love and will for an extended time in the future.