# Is this an addiction? Like crack?



## Revernance (Aug 20, 2007)

I cannot stop buying new plants, equipment, fish for my tank. 

This hobby is like a drug. 

Discuss on your addictions. 
Mine is: plants, and my magazine subscription!  Oh and stupid tiny items @ Wally World.


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## TimboJones (Feb 29, 2008)

This is a very relevant post. 

I've just ordered stuff to re-scape my 10 gal after telling myself 3 months ago that 'I'll just keep it simple".


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## Mud Pie Mama (Jul 30, 2006)

Don't worry! You don't have it bad until you set up a Tank Rack!


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

Sounds like you've only just seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's kind of like the old potato chip commercial that said 'bet you can't eat just one'...with planted tanks, it's 'bet you can't have just one tank'.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Yeah. It's a disease. Once you get the hang of growing plants you'll feel a strong desire to set up "a nice display tank".

That's all fine and good until you realize that you're not going to need all of those plants you've been collecting. Besides that, you come home from your local club swap with five or six "very cool plants" that don't really fit, but they were "free". Then you find a couple of plants that "you've always wanted to try" on the Internet somewhere.

At this point, it's really obvious that you'll need a "second tank", just to be the "plant farm" for the nice display tank. Of course, you'll have some fun tinkering with it, and someday by accident it will magically transform into the "second display tank". About this time, some exquisitely rare fish will decide to spawn in the tank, and for no particular reason you'll decide its time to get into the "fish hatchery business".

This of course necessitates buying a "hatching tank" and a "growout tank" since it just wouldn't be right to keep them in the "display tank" or in the "second display tank". By this time you'll notice that the "second display tank is too full" and you'll be thinking about a "plant farm" tank for your two display tanks.

Of course, your wife or kids will see the cool tanks and want one of "their own". You'll set up a little 5 gallon nano, "just for them", which in due time will become a third "display tank", which the kids are no longer allowed to touch.

I could go on, but I don't want to keep too many good and reasonable people out of the hobby. Besides, this is only what happens during the first 6 months or so. What happens beyond that is a carefully guarded secret by those who have tried it. It's carefully guarded because it's difficult to explain to one's family why it is that you've dropped out of college, a job, or a serious relationship to keep fish tanks.


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## ingg (Apr 8, 2007)

Eery, Bryce, just eery...

Couple of years ago, my daughter brought home her kindergarten science "biotope" - some guppies, anacharis, duckweed, and pond snails....

Now, I have a 180g display, 75g display, 30g cube display, 33g fbh growout/endler breeding, 26g bowfront growout/endler breedout, 30 long shrimp tank, 2.5g nano....and am looking for another tank!


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

LOL!!!!

I didn't just make that stuff up you know.


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Lets see. The only freshwater tank I have(out of 6) that is NOT planted belongs to my crawdad. It isn't that I haven't tried to give her the oddball plants(read: cuttings) that there isn't room for in my other tanks, it's just that she thanks me for the snack and goes back under her rocks again. 


I've only. . . "only" got 7 tanks. The omly 2 that aren't planted are the reef tank and the crawdad's tank. And of course I technically have 8, but once I get the cash to set up the reef nicely, one of those will get to play sump instead. . .

60- goldfish and hardy plants
29- future home of my reef
20- planted display
2X10- split, 1 with 2 bettas, 1 with 3.
10- crawdad!
10- future sump, current reef
5- a betta
2.5- out-of-the-water aquatic plants 
tupperware bowl- amazon sword.

Plus a conure, 2 parakeets, 4 rats(who are going to be the last unless I find a "special case" they don't live long enough and that makes me sad )
one is handicapped(somehow she's missing 2 legs, and has a HUGE hole in her neck from where the store let it get infected and rot her skin away. . . She was a freebie.) and the other 3 are just old(well, middle aged.) and I'll probably end up using their old house as a bird cage one day. Just need to wire it so I can have something in it. My boyfriend would shoot me if he heard me talking about getting More of those annoying loud things, lol!

edit: of course I'm out of money for tanks and wouldn't have the room even if I DID get another one. I JUST NOW got all of them onto a stand as it is!


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

BryceM - "I could go on, but I don't want to keep too many good and reasonable people out of the hobby. Besides, this is only what happens during the first 6 months or so. What happens beyond that is a carefully guarded secret by those who have tried it. It's carefully guarded because it's difficult to explain to one's family why it is that you've dropped out of college, a job, or a serious relationship to keep fish tanks."

Haha!!!! Thats it in a nut shell.

Lets not forget about the inevitable venture into saltwater - "It can't be all that different from freshwater."


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## cs_gardener (Apr 28, 2006)

I set up my first planted tank as a low light tank with hardy plants and I was happy with it. But then I saw all the cool plants I could have with a bit more light and I "had to" have them. But I didn't want to give up my lovely low tech setup. Hmmm, there are some cheap aquariums I could get second hand, perfect for a new setup. Then, as BryceM said perfectly, there are a few too many plants in the tank to really look good and I still must have that new plant posted on the FS/T Forum (definitely an enabling mechanism for MTS), and "Hey! Petco is having its dollar per gallon sale, I can pick up a nice new tank for cheap!" Happily forgetting that the tank itself is a minor cost in a planted tank setup. Repeat (with variations on the reasons) until I have 7 tanks. 

Currently, I'm thinking I'll upgrade my 10 gallon shrimp tank to a 20 long because the tank is under a 29gallon so I have the space for it, I have a light I can use and the shrimp are breeding to about the limit of the 10. And since that will take a tank out of circulation it doesn't really count as another tank, does it? Right?!?

I would have laughed about "the inevitable venture into saltwater" but the only LFS nearby is more oriented to saltwater with some cool, less common freshwater fish (only a few desultory plants). So I go in to look at the FW fish and I find all the SW fish & assorted critters soooo fascinating. I haven't caved yet but I can see that it will happen some day.


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## TWood (Dec 9, 2004)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268126/quotes

From the movie Adaptation:

John Laroche: Then one morning, I woke up and said, "F*** fish." I renounce fish, I will never set foot in that ocean again. And there hasn't been a time where I have stuck so much as a toe back in that ocean.
Susan Orlean: But why?
John Laroche: Done with fish.

I renounced "aquascapes" some time ago. Now I just have a fish tank with some plants. And even then, only the plants that grow without a lot of fussiness.


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## Revernance (Aug 20, 2007)

TWood said:


> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268126/quotes
> 
> From the movie Adaptation:
> 
> ...


tell me your secret!


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## TWood (Dec 9, 2004)

No secret, I proudly live in the USA where any hobby can be turned into a competition in order to sell stuff. After a while, you either succumb to it or numb to it. 

I enjoy my tank exactly the way it is.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Step one of the 10 step process to MORE tanks -

Group sitting in a circle. Tex Gal stands up.
Tex Gal, "Hello my name is Tex Gal and I'm a aqua-holic"
Group, "Hello, Tex Gal!"


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

> Lets not forget about the inevitable venture into saltwater - "It can't be all that different from freshwater."


 I dunno. So far coral for me is easier than keeping algae out of a planted freshie tank, and freshwater fish rarely die on me, though I haven't had much luck with saltwater fish. Hopefully in the 29 I'll have more luck with them?


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## Afyounie (Aug 10, 2007)

I started out with a 10g with a few mbuna cichlids, then realized I had to upgrade. Upgraded to an old 20g but didn't cycle. So I started over and made a nice planted tank with aponogetons from wally world, and put my angels from the 10g into it and got a 55g for cichlids. Then I got another 10g and the 2 10g stand. Got tired of cichlids and saw a book by amano and thought heck I can do this. So I converted all the tanks to planted. Then went high tech with my 20g. Then I went high tech with a 10g. Then I thought I don't have enough room for another med tank so I'll get a nano. Bought a 1.5g and decided to scape that. Now I have a 55g, 2 10g, 20g, 1.5g, and a 55g sitting in the garage cuz it was a good buy and I am not allowed to set it up. So since I can't expand in my house, my girlfriend has a 36g bowfront for cichlids and a 10g that she wants to scape with my help of course. Also I "gave" my mom a 10g that I take care of and plan to scape that as soon as I have finished the 55g. I don't want to do saltwater though since I will go broke if I do. There really is no stop to this sickness, I have had quite a few failures and threatened to give up, but I'm still going. What is it that makes this hobby so addicting?


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

It's "relaxing"?
It's peaceful?
It's creative?
It's something you can watch grow with time?

I'm sure there are plenty more  My salt tank wasn't so bad. I had the tank, got the lights secondhand(aka CHEAP) I got mostly dead rock instead of live rock, which costs a lot more, I price-matched a lot of my equipment while the petsmart near me was still price-matching. So I didn't turn out so bad. Of course the fish and corals add up, but if you get frags of coral they're somewhat cheap, and none of the fish I like to the point that I'd keep them in my tank seem to run much over $20, instead of the people who buy $100+ fish.


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## Morbida (Aug 15, 2005)

It's an addiction worse then crack! This isnt illegal! 
I am proud ( or disapointed) to say I have only one 5 gallon nano running at this time. Little to no maintenence , one onry betta girl and a mismash of plants. All very very happy. 
I want a shrimp tank tho.


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## xandert (Apr 29, 2008)

*Definitely an addiction. Just 2-3 months ago, I didn't have ANY tanks. I now have 4 set up and running. 5g in my office, 10g tank in my bedroom for housing extra plants until I get them put into their new permanent homes, 30g hex tank in my living room for swordtails (primary focus but not sole occupants), and a 50g tank in my bedroom for the axolotls. And I've got a 55g tank waiting in the wings for a new top trim piece that will be setup as an angelfish tank, and a 20g tank I haven't figured out what I want to do with. And I keep buying plants.  Not buying so many fish as I don't have much available to me here that I actually WANT, which means I need to either go way outside town (which I'm doing the 28th) or order them online and have them shipped. I'm watching the weather to see when it will cool down enough for me to feel comfortable shipping fish. It's blasted hot right now.*


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

It is an addiction!

I started with a single 75g high tech planted tank and a low tech 10g tank. Over the next couple of months I added a 30g softwater tank for Tonina species, and two 55g tanks as growout/experimental tanks. When all of those became full, I found another 75g tank and made it into a grow out tank also. The second 75g came with a wrought iron stand so I purchased a 50g (same footprint as a 75g) for growing out mosses and anubias nana species and placed it underneath the 75g tank. 

After my daughter was born I downsized back to the original 75g tank and sold most of the tanks and equipment to fellow SWOAPE members. Since selling everything off, I have set up a shrimp rack with twelve 10g tanks, a 125g Tanganyikan tank, a 75g Tanganyikan tank, a 29g Aequidens 'Atabapo' breeding tank, a 29g Crystal Red Shrimp tank, a 5g saltwater tank for rearing Amano Shrimp (unsuccesfully at this point) and three 2.5g tanks for holding berried Amano Shrimp. All but the 5g and 2.5g tanks have plants in them though I don't consider them "Planted tanks". 

Now that the Tanganyikans are getting larger, I am either going to have to get rid of some of them or set up some more tanks. Since I have 2500 sq ft unfinished basement (about 1000 sq ft is my woodworking shop), I figure why not set up some more tanks and try breeding a couple fish and maybe growing more plants again. If my plans become a reality I will eventually have nearly 1500 gallons worth of tanks in the Fish Room (plus 200+ gallons of display tanks upstairs) with about 500g dedicated to plants...of course all of the tanks will have plants in them...It really is a sickness


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## Robert Henry (Jun 13, 2005)

I have five tanks set up now, four others empty and a desire for more. At some point you'll start lying about how much you spend on this addiction ...I mean hobby ... and sneaking aquarium related items in the house when no one's looking. You too will become an aqua-junkie.


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