I'm not entirely sure, but I think I got my first aquarium for my 12th birthday, and it became the beginning of my fascination with the aquarium hobby.
Before I got the aquarium, I had, of course, also tried sticklebacks, mudskippers, frog eggs, and tadpoles in buckets and jars, but with the aquarium, I was now ready to try exotic fish like guppies and platies.
The aquarium was a gift from my mother and father, and it was bought used, just in case the interest didn't stick anyway - it had happened before that I couldn't quite maintain a new interest. The size was 60x25x35 or 53 liters and was not unlike the newest models with an aluminum frame, which was relatively new back then compared to the previous models with a steel frame and iron base. All in all, a decent aquarium, but as the interest took hold and grew stronger, it quickly became too small.
The first fish
Like so many others, my first fish were guppies. They were fancy guppies, and they could barely keep themselves upright, and no fry appeared. It was a big disappointment that there were no fry, but it could not diminish the interest, and instead, I bought other fish like platies and mollies, and eventually, fry did arrive.
Knowledge is also needed
At the same time, I borrowed stacks of books from the library and read about how to set up the aquarium, care for the individual fish, and indeed how to get fry from the various species.
One of my favorite books back then was a book written by Jes Trøst Jørgensen: "Leg med akvariefisk" (Playing/Spawning with Aquarium Fish), and the title should be understood doubly - both the aquarist's "play" with the fish, as well as how to go about getting the fish to spawn ("lege" in Danish). It was from that book I learned two of my favorite maxims: the first, that an aquarist is not something you become, it is something you discover you are! and the second, that there are no fixed rules for how you should or must do things within the aquarium hobby. All the rules and methods you can find on the internet and in books are at most guidelines and a description of what worked for the person who wrote it.
The next aquarium
The next real aquarium I got was a 150-liter one, which I bought used at Lilletorvs pet shop in Ringsted. It must have been in one of the first three months of 1978 that I had agreed with Bodil, the shop owner, that I could be an assistant for my 14-day work experience placement, where I would look after birds, fish, and rodents instead of being in school.
One of my tasks that I particularly remember, perhaps because it was winter, was that I had to wash aquarium gravel in a cement mixer. It was an extremely cold pleasure, but quite fun nonetheless. I think Steen, a younger man who worked in the shop and whom I had often spoken with while pressing my nose against the aquariums in the shop, got a cheap laugh at my expense - it was normally his job.
Another thing I learned during my placement is that chimpanzees are quite strong - the shop had one in the back room, and one day when I was going to feed it, it grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go. I was quite frightened, and although Bodil's husband eventually got it to let go, I didn't go near its cage again for the rest of my time there.
When the placement was successfully over, I received 300 kroner for my efforts, and I spent half of it buying one of the shop's old silicone-glued aquariums (1 kr. per liter), and the other half went towards a heater.
My first aquariums
In the following years, I bought several aquariums; I believe the aquariums I had were as follows:
- a 53-liter aluminum aquarium
- a 6-liter plastic aquarium
- a 150-liter silicone-glued
- a 40-liter steel aquarium
- a 75-liter steel aquarium
- a 16-liter silicone-glued
- a 24-liter silicone-glued
I had 7 aquariums in my room, which was no larger than 5-6m², as well as 5-6 canning jars of 1 and 2 liters.
Fish I had in my childhood
I can't remember all the fish I had in the early days, but based on memory and my old photos, here is a list of most of the fish I kept from when I was 12 until I was 19:
- Guppy, Poecilia reticulata
- Black molly and Lyretail molly, Poecilia sphenops
- Sailfin molly, Poecilia velifera
- Platy, Xiphophorus maculatus
- Green swordtail, Xiphophorus hellerii
- Dwarf gourami, Colisa lalia
- Angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare
- Small mouthbrooder, Pseudocrenilabrus multicolor
- Julidochromis ornatus
- Kribensis, Pelvicachromis pulcher
- Zebra cichlid, Archocentrus nigrofasciatus (back then it was called Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum)
- Zebrafish, Danio rerio (Back then Brachydanio)
- Tiger barb, Puntius tetrazona
- Rosy barb, Puntius conchonius
- Harlequin rasbora, Rasbora heteromorpha
- Scissortail rasbora, Rasbora trilineata
- White Cloud Mountain minnow, Tanichthys albonubes
- Black tetra, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi
- Glowlight tetra, Hemigrammus erythrozonus
- Pretty tetra, Hemigrammus pulcher
- Flame tetra, Hyphessobrycon flammeus
- Black neon tetra, Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi
- Serpae tetra, Hyphessobrycon eques (Formerly H. callistus and H. serpae)
- Neon tetra, Paracheirodon innesi
- Pristella, Pristella maxillaris
- Kuhli loach, Pangio kuhlii
It is a long list, and in fact, there were quite a few more, but I am not 100% sure which species they were, so I have omitted them. I must admit that there are certain similarities between this list and the list for the past 3 years, not least the length and the variety.
Strategy and action plan for aquarists
It is an old complex of mine that I want new fish all the time. A tip for people like myself is to make a plan for which fish you want to keep and what alternatives you could imagine keeping. The plan should be written down and function as a prioritized list of the fish and projects you wish to undertake within the next year.
In this way, there is a possibility to reduce impulse purchases if you get into the habit of looking at the list before buying or planning anything. It might sound a bit rigid and stiff, but it is better than making several impulse/wrong purchases that you regret afterwards.
The end of Phase I
I had many ambitions about how I should have an aquarium basement with morning light, but I had no basement and also no money to buy aquariums, so when I started at Haslev Gymnasium, a couple of the aquariums were sold, and the interest declined as the interest in parties, sports, and girls grew.
When I moved away from home, I had only 3 left: a silicone-glued 150-liter, a silicone-glued approximately 16-liter, and my first 53-liter. That was the end of Phase I of my aquarium hobby.
Buying a house was the start of Phase II
They were allowed to stand empty for a few years until I bought a house in 1986 and set up my 150-liter aquarium in a room. I built an aquarium stand out of some planed rafters and a plywood board, but it is not recommended to build a single aquarium stand using that method; the table became far too wobbly and was not actually particularly cheap or easy to make. Despite the price, I would clearly recommend using Porsa or similar profiles when building a table or a rack.
In the aquarium, I had lots of guppies and valisneria, but I didn't get around to taking care of it, and it quickly became a disgrace. After a short time, it was taken down and put in the attic. Phase II was quite short-lived - at most a year or a year and a half.
An "intermediate phase"
In 1997, I dug myself a garden pond of 5,000 liters, and that led to my good old 53-liter being set up for goldfish fry. It led a very low-key existence, and I concentrated mostly on the pond.
A couple of years later, in 1999, I was going to remodel, and during the cleanup, I found my old 16-liter and 150-liter, which were both thrown out, and my 53-liter was emptied because there was no room for it during the remodeling. The aquarium was left empty until the middle of 2000 when the remodeling was finished, then goldfish fry were put in it again.
I became a father and shortly after Phase III started
In December 2000, my wife and I had our first daughter, and in 2001, we decided to cover the pond so as not to become "front-page news." All the fry went into my old 53-liter aquarium, and all the adult fish, primarily goldfish and crucian carp, went over to my father-in-law's garden pond.
During a shopping trip to Næstved Storcenter, I saw a 250-liter Effectline with accessories for 2,000 kroner, and it set certain thoughts in motion. I suggested to my wife that we should buy a larger aquarium, but it received a somewhat cool reception, and it required another week or so to persuade her to try.
After that, I started hunting in Den Blå Avis (the local classifieds), because besides the aquarium interest, the idea of used equipment had also taken hold. I quite quickly found my 430-liter including table and lamp in Virum, and once it was bought, it was set up in my office and populated with a good and typically ill-conceived mixture of fish.
Phase III expands
Then I remembered my childhood dreams, a basement filled with aquariums in racks, and even though I still don't have the basement, I built an aquarium rack. It started with space for two aquariums 60 cm in width and three 35 cm in width and eventually one 100 cm on top. The rack stood with the five aquariums for a good six months, then I rebuilt it into the current one, partly because I stumbled upon 3 aquariums, my 153-liter and two 75-liter, and partly because I wanted to move the rack to my office where the 430-liter was. Finally, I also wanted to have some larger aquariums, which normally don't require quite as much care.
My 63-liter was replaced with a 128-liter and my three 20-liter went on top. I noticed that if you turned the narrow end out on all three 20-liter, there was 31 cm of free space next to them, and initially, I bought a 16-liter (40x20cm), but then there was still a gap of over 10 cm. It ended initially with me buying two 12-liter (30x20) and setting them up instead.
In the spring of 2003, I replaced my 430-liter with a rack with two 325-liter tanks, in the expectation that I should have a large corner aquarium in the living room, but that last part I have had to postpone indefinitely.
In the late summer of 2004, I replaced the five small ones with a 100-liter aquarium with custom dimensions, and now I have four smaller aquariums of 54, 25, 25, and 12 liters next to the rack, which I use for spawning and fry. They are not set up permanently but are only set up when I need them.
At the beginning of 2006, I sold my large rack with the two 325-liter aquariums, so now I only have the small rack and the 4 loose aquariums left. In the small rack, I replaced my 153-liter with a new custom-made 148-liter. I don't expect any further changes in the near future, although I would still like a large corner aquarium at some point.
