An Introduction

      Also, how it all began I suppose. Well first off... I got this blog because my friend told me to :) Soooo. That was easy enough. Next up.

What is this blog about?
Well, that's actually a very good question. I'm going to put out there that as of now this will be a blog that focuses mainly on fish. The ones I own (there are quite a few and growing, in size and number) the ones I've read about. The interesting facts, or theories surrounding them, their predators, their environment, and heck, maybe even how they're cooked (fish do make for good eating) So yeah. I hope this covers a wide range of fish experience... and possibly the meaning of life. Because I'm convinced they're related somehow, so I'll tangent on that once in a while too I'm sure.

Where did the obsession begin?
Well, When I was young, my father once had a big (To a four year old. It was only about a ten or fifteen gallon tank) tall, Hexagonal fish tank, it had some fake plants, and pink gravel and that's all I really remember about it at the time besides the catfish. I loved the catfish. He had what I believe was a Pictus Catfish (I was four, give me a break I'm trying to remember). I just really remember it had whiskers, like an actual cat and I thought it was neat.

There were some other fish in this tank of course. not many, but I always watched the catfish. These particular ones were jumpers, so I'd always watch when they were fed, because I'd have to save them from my actual cats if they jumped out. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where the interest began, was watching those catfish.

Years later we moved and my dad set up the tank again (at some point, the catfish died and weren't replaced and the tank went into storage for years). This time dad picked up some different fish. Zebra fish, which I believe were zebra danios but they may have been a type of tetra. He did have a small school of neon tetra, another type of catfish, I think an upside down catfish, and a few random others.

A while after the zebras died, a friend of ours said how she was getting rid of her tank and needed a place for her remaining two angelfish. Now, I LOVED angelfish. But we'd never been really successful keeping them. despite this, we took them in. A small white one, that I so originally named Angel. And a huge, beast of a black and silver, which I lovingly called Daemos. This thing... well, he sort of ate some of the smaller tetra (we didn't think they were too small I mean, they were at least an inch, and he wasn't much bigger than three really) but he survived long after all the other fish died. And the day he finally bit the bullet was actually a very sad day for me. Dad put away the tank again after that, and I'm told it eventually was given away.

Years would pass that I didn't get a fish, but whenever I was in the petstore, I'd always wander that way. I couldn't seem to help it. And one day I finally gave in and got a betta. Kept it in one of those betta vases. And I was so happy. I don't remember much about that first betta, but I remember getting him in a period where I was extremely depressed, and somehow that little fish made it all better. Unfortunately about a year later, my cats would decide that one day at work they wanted to see this fish, and knocked the bowl over...
I did get some more bettas through the years, and some died of unknown causes, some of unfortunate accidents (ok by some I mean 1 and 1). My last betta before giving in and getting the whole aquarium experience again, actually survived a number of broken bowls, and out of water incidents before finally giving in to a final spill...

That was the last straw. I got another betta. And a 5 gallon tank, not huge. but big enough a cat couldn't push over. Well, unfortunately the filter was too much for his fins and I had to put him back in a bowl... on top of a very high shelf, but now I had an open tank... and OH the possibilities!

From that small tank I've expanded now to have four (soon to be 3 again but I'll discuss that later) tanks and a small assortment of freshwater fish (one day I'll take on saltwater). And this will follow the happenings of those tanks... and you know. Other random facts and fun.

Hopefully something in this will be as interesting to someone else as it is to me.