My Journey into aquatics began approximately 2 years ago. It all seemed to be harmless enough. A
simple walk through Meijer is all it took.
I remember the night it happened, I was walking through Meijer with my wife. We innocently strolled into the fish section, and there I saw him, the most beautiful Koi I think I’ve ever seen. Now I have had a sad looking preformed pond that had been stuck in my front yard some time back, and I was sure this was just what was needed for that little pond. Now keep in mind this pond had to a whopping 50 gallons or so. So, after talking my wife into letting me bring home this little beauty, I decided it would be best to grow him up a little in the house before introducing him to the mean world outdoors. Our daughter already had a little 5 gallon tank, so perfect, he went right in. Well… as most of you know, it didn’t take long and that little fish out-grew the tank and had to be transferred into a 10 gallon tank, then again not long down the road, I was looking for something even bigger. Well, we ended up purchasing our first “big” tank and got a 55, what I didn’t realize was now that he had room, he needed friends in the tank also, surely we can’t have him being lonely in there, and so the journey began.
This time out the journey took me to a real fish store in Grandville, and upon entering the door I knew I was in the right place. They had Koi that I had never seen, let alone even head of, so we picked up a
couple more cute little guys. Of course being in a place like that I decided also, why should I limit myself just to having a tank full of Koi, which are eventually just going to end up outside year round, so we left with an assortment of tetras also, and another tank, and since I cannot stand fake looking plants I had to have an assortment of real plants to try to grow.
My First shot at aquascaping was quite a sight, but it soon started to grow into a jungle. Meanwhile, the Koi are now ready to go outside and I discovered that that my pathetic little pond was not near big
enough, so construction began that weekend to dig something much larger and find a way to keep the
water in it. Who hasn’t been here I thought? Two days of digging and laying out liners, netted a nice pond of what I can best calculate to about 1500 gallons. Now the Koi have a nice place to stay.
Of course now that I have moved the Koi outdoors, I have a 55 gallon tank that needs new stocking with something different. A friend of mine mentioned to me that he had seen on Facebook, something about an Aquarium club in Grand Rapids, and that immediately peaked my interest. You mean to tell me there are other people out there in this world who geek out on this stuff like I do? So I had to check it out. That turned out to be my next big mistake. Next thing I knew I was looking forward to attending a fish auction, never even knew there was anything like this. I attended and left with boxes of stuff I had nowhere on earth to put once I got home, so yup, you guessed it, I had to stop by Petco after leaving the auction to pick up more tanks.
Well this could go on and on, so I better find a way to end this for now, and leave something to be said at another time. As of time of this writing, I am up to 16 tanks of various sizes, and have completely taken over my wife’s living room and all of the counter space in our kitchen. So the next step of the journey will be starting on a fish room to give a bit of normalcy back to our home… Stay tuned for more details.
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