An Aquarist's Journey

[wesleydnunder]

But each time I looked at that empty bowl, my resolve strengthened. Finally, the Gods of all things Timex relented and Saturday dawned. I was at Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy's front door immediately after breakfast (Cocopuffs, this time). It had taken a few minutes of struggle to get the "mower" next door; its movement being hampered by a healthy coating of rust and the fact that the handles were level with the top of my head.

Six hours later, I finished the front yard...sort of...mostly. Mr. Kennedy said I could come back tomorrow to do the back yard. I was able to drag the wretched thing back home...just. Everything hurt and I'd lost about five pounds. As I went in to eat lunch, I didn't hear Mr. Kennedy's own mower fire up behind me next door.

Sunday afternoon I finished the back yard and Mrs. Kennedy said I did such a good job! She gave me a whole dollar! Mom said she was proud of me and we'd go to Fins and Feathers after she got home from work Monday. Now we add another adjustment to the space/time continuum; the thousands of hours between when mom says we can go to the pet store and the actual trip to get a new fish. No one understands the patience required of 8-year-olds! Well...the Dalai Lama, maybe...

Monday at school was interminable...and I got in trouble and had to stand in the corner. Mrs. Golightly felt that approximately two dozen interruptions during the morning to tell the whole class about the upcoming trip to the pet shop was a tolerable maximum. Two dozen and one, wasn't.

By the time mom parked in front of Fins and Feathers I was positively manic. Whose Idea was it to put all those stupid stop lights up, anyway?! Walking into that store was like entering the front gate at Disneyland. Immediately the ears are assaulted by squeaks and squawks and chirps and...wow! There were hundreds of aquariums(actually around 30) with millions of different kinds of fish (again, the reality was far fewer). There were birds and hamsters and even snakes! This was the coolest place ever! As I turned in a slow circle, mouth open, a man came over and introduced himself. He was Mr. Peterson and he and his wife owned the shop. Mom explained that we were there to buy a fish and about Mr. Goldfinger's recent demise. Mr. Peterson asked if we'd used dechlorinator when we'd filled Mr. Goldfinger's bowl. Mom's negative reply, accompanied by a blank expression, prompted Mr. Peterson to explain about chlorine in the water and the necessity for its removal.

[wesleydnunder]

Unknown to us, I'd doomed Mr. Goldfinger the second I opened the valve on the kitchen faucet the afternoon we'd brought him home from the fair. We followed Mr. Peterson over to a shelf from which he plucked a small, plastic bottle. After determining from mom's description that our bowl was about a half gallon, he said we needed to put a couple of drops of this dechlorinator in the bowl as we filled it. "Swirl it around in the water with your finger," he said, "then give it a minute or two to work. Then you can put your fish in." The price on the bottle was $.59 cents. Yikes! Over half my money gone and we didn't have a fish yet!

Then Mr. Peterson picked up a small can from another shelf with the words 'Tropical Flakes' on the label. He told us that we should feed a very small pinch of this once a day. Once a day!! Everybody knew that you had to have three meals a day. My opinion of Mr. Peterson fell a couple notches. He was still high on a pedestal for being the owner of the coolest place ever; just on a slightly shorter pedestal. I saw the price tag on the food... $.99 cents! Vision tunneling again. Mom didn't say anything as she added the small can so I kept my lip buttoned.

Mr. Peterson then led us to the biggest aquarium I'd ever seen. It must have been hundreds of gallons (a standard 55, actually). It rested on the floor beneath shelves which held smaller tanks and contained hundreds of small, orange fish. A small sign taped to the front glass read, 'FEEDER COMETS $.05 ea.' I was both encouraged and disappointed by this 8 1/2" by 11" declaration. I was happy that the fish were being fed but dismayed by the fact that he took us to the wrong fish. We wanted a goldfish, not a comet. *sigh* Down another peg, Mr. Peterson. As Politely as I could, I began to explain to Mr. Peterson that I wanted a goldfish, not a comet. He smiled and told me that comets are goldfish. I was dubious. They didn't look like Mr. Goldfinger. They were orange, not his flashy, metallic gold. But mom said she thought they'd be fine. He quickly netted and bagged one. At checkout I found myself almost a dollar in arrears. Mom smiled, added a dollar to the one I'd laid on the counter. On the way out she said I'd make it up to her. I found out later that settling a debt with mom involved washing a 1959 Ford Galaxy 500 station wagon; then washing it again when she'd declared that I didn't do a good enough job the first time. Lesson learned.

But shortly after arriving home, Comet was swimming happily in his new home. Mom had taken charge of feeding. I'd named him Comet because, really, a fish called a comet named itself. Plus it fit in with my waxing interest in the Apollo space program and astronomy.

As I sat there appreciating my new best friend, my little sister walked into my room, dragging her latest doll behind her by one leg. "It's just a stupid fish," she declared after a few moments, "and besides, I heard Mommy tell Daddy that you killed the other one cuz you didn't put the klormamater in the water". With that she turned and flounced out. I let her live. Honestly, there are few things as irritating as little sisters, and most of those require salves or lotions with the word 'soothing' somewhere on the label.

[wesleydnunder]

He lived with us for a little over two months. The next time we had to visit Fins and Feathers Mr. Peterson explained about water changes.

Over the course of the next four years we learned from Mr. Peterson. Our bowl graduated to a larger bowl and, finally, to a metal-framed, slate-bottomed 20 gallon with its own top and a blue incandescent light bulb. Financed by a burgeoning lawn business, our tank's inhabitants changed also. Stocking went from heavy to overstocked to,"Hey! If all of y'all swim in that direction at the same time, I can shoehorn a couple more fish in there." Fish deaths were a regular occurrence and I'd learned to accept them as a normal concomitant of having an aquarium.

Water changes were performed in the same way as the bowls, just not as frequently. We didn't need frequent cleaning. We had a filter; a little plastic box filled with floss that sat in the corner and bubbled. When the layer of black gunk resting atop and within the multicolored gravel got too thick, I'd dip a couple cups of water into one of mom's Tupperware bowls, net the fish out (that's right, I had my own net now) and syphon all the water out into the yard. This was followed by the removal of all gravel and tank decorations. Tank and accoutrements were scrubbed clean and new floss replaced the black floss in the filter. The tank was refilled with fresh water and the conscientious addition of dechlorinator drops. The fish were returned to their sparkling clean home. Deaths inevitably followed.

Mr. Peterson had never detailed a partial water change regimen for us as we'd never asked for complete step by step instructions. We were doing what we'd done since the early days of Comet's successors.

The years passed. By my senior year in high school in 1977 we lived in Texas and had a 55 gallon on a stand in the den which housed a huge plecostomus and a tiger Oscar named Cassius. He'd grown into a massive 12" bruiser on a diet of feeder comets (yeah, I'd finally learned what that sign meant and why they were so cheap) and something called cichlid pellets. Usually, Cassius ate just the comets and the pleco ate the pellets. By then, we'd learned about partial water changes. I'd become an expert at syphoning and usually managed not to swallow too much water.

I'd also compiled a pretty complete, or so I thought, library of aquarium books. Among them was Axelrod's 'Handbook of Tropical Aquarium Fishes' and William T. Innes' 'Exotic Aquarium Fishes'. I was officially a fish geek.

[wesleydnunder]

A year later I was married, enlisted in the Navy and had had to leave Cassius and his roomie behind with my parents. The following year he succumbed to H.I.T.H. and my parents never kept another aquarium in their home.

I, on the other hand, got another at the first opportunity...which turned out to be shortly after arriving at my first duty station in Japan. One of my shipmates was nearing transfer and I bought his 55 gallon Oceanic setup complete with fish, top, light and HOB filter made by a company called Hagen. He also did me the biggest favor that one aquarist ever did another. He took me to a small LFS in a nearby city named Yamato and introduced me to it's owner, Kenjiro Mizuno.

Kenny was a quiet, very intense but good-natured man. He spoke a little English and I eventually learned a little Japanese. He was 30 years my senior but never condescended; treated me from day one as an equal and fellow traveler. I learned so, so much from Kenny and spent as much time at his shop as duty and my young wife would permit. He taught me biofiltration, fish compatibility, stocking, water chemistry. His were the first real planted tanks I'd seen and he had a couple of them connected to a carbon dioxide system! And the plants! OMG! You never saw such plants! Well, yeah you have but I hadn't...not in 1979. He also taught me the rudiments of fertilization. I soaked up everything like a sponge and happily worked alongside him for free on my offtime doing tank maintenance, helping him unload shipments of fish and any other grunt work he'd let me do around the store.

Kenny had one large tank in the store; around 150 gallons. Within were the first live discus I'd ever seen; eight large adult wild browns. The tank was simply outfitted with a couple large pieces of driftwood and white sugar sand substrate. He filtered it with the first wet/dry I'd ever seen. These discus were his pets and not for sale. I was immediately in love and vowed to keep these remarkable fish some day.

[wesleydnunder]

Those three years in Japan passed too quickly. The final year my wife had gotten lost on the way home from shopping at the commissary at Camp Zama, a nearby Army base. She wound up on the Tomei Expressway, a super highway and couldn't figure out how to get off. By the time she did she was in Tokyo, over 40 miles away. She eventually made her way to a side street where she found a Koban; a five man police box. Once they were able to determine that she was a Navy wife and lived on Atsugi air base, (by then we'd moved to base housing) they radioed for a car and she was escorted the entire way to the front gate of the base. It freaked her out so badly that she and our kids flew back to Texas two weeks later.

I spent the last year in Japan living in the enlisted barracks and hanging out at Kenny's shop. When I went off duty, I'd ride my bicycle to the Seya train station, take the 15 minute hop to Yamato and walk six blocks from the train station to Kenny's. Often when he closed for the day he'd invite me up to the small apartment over his shop that he shared with his wife, Kasumi. After removing my shoes I'd walk in and give her a huge hug, lifting her off her feet (the first time I did this she was mortified, but eventually grew to accept my barbaric display of affection and, I'd like to think, looked forward to it). Then she'd cover her mouth with her hand and giggle as she welcomed me to her home. She learned about a dozen words of English during those three years and though we couldn't really talk I'm convinced that she was the kindest, sweetest human on the planet. She'd cook us a supper of yakisoba and tempura or sukiyaki and we'd have a few strong Sapporos (kampai!!) then sit in the tiny living room and discuss and argue the merits of this fish vs that, filters, lighting, you name it.

He introduced me to the works of Jack Wattley, Bernd Degen and Eduard Schmidt-Focke and some of the amazing discus strains they were developing. By now I'd learned more Japanese and he much more English and we wore away hours in happy discourse and alcoholic brotherhood. It was often after midnight when I got back to the Seya train station where I'd mount my bike (unlocked-you could leave your bike unlocked at the public rack for a year and it would still be there when you got back) and weave my way down empty streets back to the base.

Those were some of the happiest days in my life though I didn't yet have the wisdom to know just how fortunate I was in finding my friends, Kenjiro and Kasumi.

Shortly before I transferred to the Seabee base at Gulfport, Mississippi to join NMCB-62 I sold my 55 gallon to one of my barracks buddies and introduced him to Kenny.

My departure was tearful as I kissed and hugged both my friends. I felt wretched as they dropped me at the front gate of Yakota Air Base where I was to catch my hop to Biloxi Mississippi. I never saw them again. They would be in their 80s now. I still think of them and each time I do, I turn to the west, tap my chest lightly with my right fist, twice. Nothin' but love for y'all Kenny and Kasumi. Domo arigato gozaima****a.

[wesleydnunder]

In 1984 I was honorably discharged from the Navy and returned to Texas. I was soon teaching electronics theory at ITT Career Training in Houston. I was tankless and not entirely happy about it. One day on the way home from work I hit a traffic jam the likes of which only a New Yorker, a resident of L.A. or a fellow Houstonian can imagine. At the first opportunity I cut over to Highway 3 at Ellington Air Force Base and turned south. As I passed Bay Area Blvd. I caught a sign out of the corner of my eye that read, 'University Pets'. There I met Bill Wimmer and his wife, Sharon. Bill would teach anyone and everyone. He had a vast knowledge and helped further my education in aquarium husbandry. He hammered biofiltration, water chemistry and treatment, osmoregulation and anything else I'd sit still for into my thick skull; expanding and adding to things I'd learned from Kenny, Mr. Peterson and my own thumb-fingered experiences.

After a year at ITT I was offered a tenure-track full professorship at a local community college. Woohoo! No more commutes to Houston! The new job and concomitant salary increase allowed me to buy a new 55 gallon setup...followed by a 75...then a 90. Yep, I was in dire need of an intervention and a 12-step program. My wife and I had reconciled and I was spending money that was truthfully needed elsewhere. I was teaching a full load so I took on overload classes to feed my addiction.

Then I got my first discus; five quarter-sized Schmidt-Focke Hi-fin Brilliant Green #5s. Since they had been spawned and raised in our local water I was spared the expense and hassle of manipulating TDS and ph which, at the time, I understood was necessary for keeping discus. I brooded over those fish like a mother hen. As they grew they were moved from a 20 high to a 55 and finally to the 75. One died inexplicably but the remaining four grew to a full 8 inches long from mouth to tail and almost as tall. Chrome green with just a few maroon striations on face and dorsal. Hands down the most striking fish I've ever kept.

[wesleydnunder]

Fast forward 30 years to the present. I see I've left out more than half of my experiences. Nothing mentioned about the year I deployed to Guam with NMCB-62 and the hundreds of hours spent snorkeling and diving on one of the most beautiful reefs in the world.

Also, the failure to detail the different phases through which I evolved; my SA cichlid period, My Malawian cichlid phase, My Tanganyikan cichlid stretch. Did I ever mention my obsession with cichlids? And always discus. They are still my favorites. I've kept other species...many others, but seldom for their own sakes, more as dither and/or target fish for the current cichlids I was keeping.

My tanks also evolved...from multi-colored clown puke substrates and little air driven treasure chests and divers to planted tanks with more natural scapes.

The information available now about our hobby is light-years beyond what was offered when I started. This can be a double-edged sword, as I'll explain directly.

[wesleydnunder]

...a little ranting...

LAZY PEOPLE SHOULDN'T KEEP AQUARIA

...or any other pets, for that matter. Successful fishkeeping takes work...period. If you're not willing to contribute the physical labor involved, find something else to do. Hopefully the something else doesn't involve the care of another living thing. I've seen people expend more thought, effort and time trying to figure out how not to do the work than it would take to just do the maintenance on their tank(s) in the first place.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm all for making aquaria easier to maintain. When I used my first python back in the late 80s I was turning cartwheels! Improvements in equipment have made the whole hobby much more enjoyable; for me, anyway. And how did these advancements materialize, you ask? The same way the washing machine did...by taking a chore that had to be done, and making it easier to do. For those folks with the wherewithal, (the brains, imagination and drive to invent) who continue to make life easier for us and ultimately better for our charges, I'm ecstatic that they are part of our world (read, hobby). For the rest of us, let's use all of these wondrous inventions to the maximum of their potentials and then roll up our sleeves.

We keep our captives in these very small, artificial environments in which they must continually live in their own waste products; an admittedly unhealthy condition in which to exist. So we filter the water...we learn that there are necessary mechanical and biologic processes which help us to keep the water unpolluted and our fishies healthy. Unless we're keeping a Walstad system, and very few of us do, our wet pets need for us to replenish their water with frequent replacements of fresh water. Remember...in nature the vast majority of fish are living in systems where their water is constantly replaced. The pollutants normally present in aquaria are so diluted in natural bodies of water as to be nonexistent.

[wesleydnunder]

So how do we know how much water to replace and how often? In the early posts of this thread I described how I was doing water changes on my first 20 gallon. Each time I completely emptied the tank and scrubbed everything down I was essentially doing a complete system reset. The inevitable fish deaths which followed were a result of the tank having to go through a cycle each time, as well as other reasons I'll get to. It can be hard to determine how much water to change and how often, because we're dealing with not only the end result of the nitrogenous compounds which naturally occur from fish waste, expelled ammonia and anything decaying in the tank (uneaten food is a big culprit here), but also with things we can't see or really test for called dissolved organic compounds (DOC) and some fish even emit hormones which, in our closed systems, can build up to unhealthy levels.

If all these things accumulate at roughly the same rate, we can use something we CAN test for to gauge when to do our partial water changes. We can use a nitrate test. OK, so how much nitrate (along with the rest) do we allow before we do our partial. Here opinions vary. Some say 10 ppm is the max threshold, some say 20ppm. Factors in the equation include stocking density, the presence and density of live plants (these will consume nitrate so the rate of increase ratio between nitrate and DOCs becomes less linear) and the presence of nitrates in the source water. It quickly becomes difficult to know just when to do and what to do, especially for someone new to the hobby who is diligently researching and willing to learn how to keep their new friends healthy and happy. I try to always keep in the back of my mind, when making this decision, that the best case scenario is continual new water; or, zero nitrates and DOCs (in a perfectly pristine body of water), versus polluted conditions; say, 20ppm and up. If we keep an upper limit of 20...wait a minute! in the other forum where they grow plants in tanks they said it was ok to add nitrate all the way up to 20 ppm. True...but there's a difference in artificially adding nitrate until 20 ppm is reached and nitrate rising naturally in the aquarium, ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE to 20 ppm. But 20 ppm may be an arbitrary number...I don't know and don't have the empirical evidence myself to know if 20 ppm is a low, acceptable value, a middle, less acceptable value or a high, completely unacceptable value. I know that what I was taught by the knowledgeable aquarists that I've had the privilege to learn from that 20 ppm is an upper permissible limit. If I trust them that this is ok, and my fish seem to agree (by not showing signs of trouble, like death), then anything kept below that is ok...right?

Here the lack of more formal training rears it's ugly head...for me, anyway. If someone can present the experiments and results that define this value for us, please do.

Meanwhile if 20 ppm is the acceptable upper limit, we need to test for nitrate often to see how long it takes to accumulate that much. If it takes a week, we know we can do our partial water change at least weekly. For me, I'll do a 50% partial which will drop the total nitrate to 10 ppm and also cut DOCs and everything else in half. Then, I'll test nitrate and track the rise until it reaches 20 ppm again. It's only risen 10 ppm in this time span but it has reached the threshold. If a week has transpired since the last partial, then I know that a weekly 50% partial will keep my pollutants below threshold levels provided that no changes to my tank occur. Partial water changes in my tanks involve vacuuming substrate, cleaning glass, cleaning prefilter sponges, filter maintenance, etc.

It takes work, weekly, which I owe to the inhabitants of my tank.

[wesleydnunder]

Once again, let me reinforce that I don't consider myself an authority on anything...except maybe the janitorial services required by the inmates in my 125 gallon.

Your cat needs its litter box scooped, your dog needs walking, your fish need fresh water...git bizzy.

Mark

[wesleydnunder]

DISENGAGE THE AUTO-PILOT

So many of us stumble though life somnambulistically unaware of the world around us. Our sole conscious act during our day may be the effort we put into taking the perfect selfie...then desperately posting it on our favorite media outlet(s). I understand; how else are the people from Planet Look-At-Me, Look-At-Me supposed to combat anonymity?

This is, however, not the way we must pursue our hobby. For the seriously addicted; and you know who you are; we must disengage the auto-pilot and actively employ that knot in the end of our spinal cords. I urge everyone to learn everything they can about fishkeeping. Heck, make a life's work out of it. Become marine biologists and come back and dispel some of the myths under which we toil. But think...always. Ask tons of questions; then, challenge the answers you receive (maybe not too publicly before you acquire a basic understanding and some personal experience to go along with it) and make the respondent think as well.

And don't get itty bitty feelings because you didn't receive the response you wanted when you ask, "Am I over-stocked?" Often we learn more from information we DON'T expect because our brain unconsciously (or consciously in a very few cases) chews this cud somewhere back there in a dark recess and indelibly ingrains itself in the gray matter. Before you know it, against all effort to the contrary, you've learned something...and so have others.

Learn...research...and learn some more. Soon some of the cause and effect aspects become memory. If "A" happens, "B" usually follows.

If I fully stock my new 20 gallon the first day without cycling it, deaths will usually result. So, I come to an aquarium forum, ask questions, learn and don't make the same mistake when I set up the next one.

And all it took was some active thought...

[wesleydnunder]

Ok back to the rant:

"Water changes were performed in the same way as the bowls, just not as frequently. We didn't need frequent cleaning. We had a filter; a little plastic box filled with floss that sat in the corner and bubbled. When the layer of black gunk resting atop and within the multicolored gravel got too thick, I'd dip a couple cups of water into one of mom's Tupperware bowls, net the fish out (that's right, I had my own net now) and syphon all the water out into the yard. This was followed by the removal of all gravel and tank decorations. Tank and accoutrements were scrubbed clean and new floss replaced the black floss in the filter. The tank was refilled with fresh water and the conscientious addition of dechlorinator drops. The fish were returned to their sparkling clean home. Deaths inevitably followed."

In a previous post I described how I was doing water changes in my 20 gallon. This was the wrong way to do things for at least two reasons. The first was the fact that it caused a complete reset of the tank and killed all beneficial bacteria, so the tank had to go through a cycle full of fish. The fish were subjected to ever-increasing amounts of ammonia and nitrite until lethal levels were eventually reached.

The second reason was osmotic shock from something called OTS (old tank syndrome). This is a condition that usually happened to older, poorly maintained aquaria. At that time I was doing the tank resets every 4, 5 maybe 6 months; whenever the clouds of disturbed detritus took too long to settle or mom threatened to throw the whole thing out by the street. During those 4,5 or 6 months I just did top-offs; a pitcher or two of water with a few drops of dechlorinator added. A week later I'd top off again. This succession of water additions to offset evaporation caused the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the tank to gradually increase. By water change time the TDS in the tank was probably 3 or 4 times the TDS of the source water. OK, why does this matter?

It has to do with something called osmoregulation; ahs mo reg yoo lay' shun. This is the mechanism by which fish maintain homeostasis in their environment...another $25 word; ho mee o stay' sis.

[wesleydnunder]

Homeostasis is the balance of water and salts in a fish's body. Osmoregulation is the way fish keep that balance. In a freshwater fish, its blood is much higher in salts than the water surrounding it. Nature wants to strike a balance. So osmosis causes water to move from a solution of lower concentrated salts (the water the fish lives in) to dilute the solution of higher concentration (the blood). This means the fish's body is constantly being flooded by water through its skin and gills. Meanwhile, diffusion is trying to pull salts out of the fish's body toward the solution of lower concentration. To combat this, freshwater fish drink very little water, they don't need to, and they urinate very dilute urine...a lot of it. Their gills pull salts from the water and they have an organ which scavenges salt so it isn't lost in urine.

So, for a given species from a given water source, it's body and kidney are adapted to expel enough water to maintain balance.

In a saltwater fish the process is opposite. The water is saltier than the blood so osmosis tries to pull water out of the body while diffusion tries to push salt in. They drink large amounts of water and urinate a small amount of very concentrated urine. This is a gross simplification of how fish osmoregulate and doesn't apply to all species. Some fish, like certain coastal killies, flounder and estuarine species can adapt to move from full fresh to full marine and back.

So how does this tie in with the way I was doing water changes and why I shouldn't be doing them that way? Well, as I kept adding top-off water and it kept evaporating, it was leaving the solids behind and the TDS of the water was steadily increasing, slowly. Gradually, as TDS increased, the difference in TDS between the fish's body and the water was decreasing; osmosis wasn't pushing as much water in so the kidneys weren't needing to expel as much. By water change time the difference in TDS was reduced significantly; so significantly, in fact that when 100% of the water was replaced, at a greatly reduced TDS, the amount of water that the fish were able to expel was much lower and when they were suddenly immersed in an extremely lowered TDS it shocked them. Water flooded their bodies and those whose organs couldn't keep up, bloated and died.

I didn't know this at the time. I just thought fish didn't have very long life spans.

[wesleydnunder]

Stocking-

Stocking has also been the basis for more argument threads than just about anything else. It's very subjective and has many variables. The thread title, "Am I overstocked?" is ubiquitous on just about all fish forums. Water volume, filtration, fish size and number, presence of live plants and plant density and maintenance regimen all combine to determine a reasonable stocking density for a given tank. ..."reasonable"...hmmmm...according to whom? Now we add another variable; opinion. Each of us has a different idea of what reasonable stocking density in a given set-up is.

Also, the internet gives us a large number of aquarium websites to ask the question. So some will keep asking the question until they get the answer they want. Since those folks are going to do what they've already made up their mind to do, this is not for them. For the rest of us...

Mark

[wesleydnunder]

When I was new to fishkeeping I wanted my tank as full of color and movement as I could get. I had no concept of biofiltration. I'd never thought about how the population of the tank could be its own demise. Over the years I learned.


Stocking is one of those subjects that is so huge that I find it difficult to find a starting point. So, for lack of a better beginning, here goes:


When someone first gets into fishkeeping, regardless of the circumstances which led them to it, there is an excitement that some of us old-timers forget. Like a kid on Christmas morning, we can't wait to get the presents open; or in this case, the tank filled and stocked with some of the beautiful fish we see at the store. Almost inevitably, our appetite exceeds what the plate can hold. We want this one and that one and a few of those! In no time the 10 gallon or 20 gallon we've purchased is holding more fish than is healthy for those fish. Earlier in the thread I briefly touched on the subject of biofiltration.