Adventures in fishkeeping
My father built my first aquarium for me I was 5 years old. We made it from old window glass and bathroom caulking and it had a wood frame. I would say it was about the size of a 29 gal tall. Filtration consisted of a small box filter powered by a tiny diaphragm pump we ordered from the sears catalogue. Since there was no lfs in ft. Mac in the 70's my livestock consisted of whatever I could catch with my net in the creek and pond behind our house. I kept minnows, sticklebacks, newts, tadpoles, and mudbugs of all kinds. My dad taught me to catch daphnia with a nylon stocking on a stick as a food source. I got very good at keeping things alive in that little tank!
Later in the early eighties a lfs opened up and I started keeping regular tropical fish. I was content with that till we moved to Red Deer in 1985. I had to leave my little tank behind.
Once in Red Deer I found a lfs and was introduced to FAMA magazine. I saw pictures of all the beautiful saltwater fish and knew I had to have some! I bought a used 55 gal at a garage sale with my paper money and started to plan. Back then Berlin systems were just coming in and nobody knew what a skimmer was. I knew about live rock and so I ordered some from a Florida company called Tampa bay saltwater. I think I got 25lbs. It cost over $350.00! I set that first system up with an undergravel filter with a powerhead, an aquaclear 250 filter and a heater. Salt was IO and I had a floating hydrometer. I had various coral skeletons I had collected as decoration. Gravel was dolomite. I learned to keep a few different animals in that tank. I remember having a yellow tang, a regal tang, clown fish, damsels, featherdusters, hermit crabs, etc. I tried an anemone once but it didn't last long. All that time I used no test kits and fed the fish flake food! I had that tank till I was diagnosed with leukemia in 92. By the time I got home from the hospital 14 months later everything had died. I didn't venture back into the hobby again until 2007.
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