Just thought it would be funny to summarise my last couple of years since being on here and i've got a feeling 1 or 2 others might be able to relate...
- Trip to a chain LFS to buy an off the shelf all in one tank because i didn't want something 'bulky' with external filters while thinking this 60L tank I now have is massive
- Buy a bonsai
- Plan a tank with a 'path' of some sort
- Buy 4 plants and thinking I have a heavily planted tank while struggling to fathom how to 'fit them all in'
- Buy a couple of rocks and am shocked at the price of them as well as wood
- Buy an off the shelf all in one fert while questioning the need for EI as my tank is doing great because my plants are surviving after 1 week
- Dosing ammonia and using a test kit that gives varying answers 10min apart and getting confused and frustrated that a tank doesn't automatically cycle just because it has water in it
- Questioning why all of this is so hard these days because of the time I won a goldfish at a fair and dumped it straight into a tiny bowl when i was 5 and it lived 'ages'
- Plants start to show deficiencies, read up on EI, get confused, dose more all in one ferts with eyes closed and fingers crossed
- Tank cycled, eventually.....choose random fish which should be in a bigger tank and not ideally be kept together, but i'm oblivious so all is fine
- Sit watching my tank for hours admiring my new found 'aquascaping' skills
- 2 months on, MTS hits hard and I upgrade to a bigger tank
- Decide I am going to do things 'right' this time, buy cheap, buy twice and all that
- Decide to go high tech, co2, external filter, EI, the lot, exciting times
- All the gear and no idea, have everything at my disposal and all the brand names under the sun, but no coordination on how to make it all sing together
- Buy stupidly expensive rocks and manzanita prices are the norm and now fully justified in my head after refusing to pay more than £5 at the start
- Choose the hardest plants i can find to grow and get frustrated when they struggle since I am now a pro with all the gear
- Algae fest
- Buy a Chihiros Doctor but still have algae....confused but power through blaming everything else
- Give up and rescape after a few months, but....
- Finally start to realise that the best things in life are the simplest and unless you have a vast amount of time on your hands then chasing the 'show tanks' you see will unlikely happen
- Finally start to understand and not over complicate everything
- Realise that i've only been doing this for 2 years and to take my time and learn and enjoy
- Buy a python water changer and now do water changes for fun
- MTS hits again and buy a bigger tank
- to be continued....