AJ Maaa: 3 : Something New ...

My New Angelfish

Yesterday an exciting new foam box filled with fish arrived on my doorstep, inside my new Angelfish was packed beautifully and raring to go. My first attempt at keeping an Angelfish was two weeks ago; the tiny little fellow, who initially appeared so cute and full of life, unfortunately didn't make it. My new Angel is a lot larger and is already making much more of an impact in my lounge room tank. I already have several fish in this tank but you could be forgiven for taking a quick glance and presuming it was simply an aquascaped tank.

Before I set up my first tank I carefully researched the many different aspects to the hobby, I have continued to enjoy researching along the way. It's amazing how involved fish keeping actually is, learning how the nitrogen cycle works for aquariums has been just one of the many fascinating and essential lessons. There have been some steep learning curves, however, I'm sure there would have been many more issues if I had not had the opportunity to research each step first.

My angel fish is a beautiful dark marble colour and looks magnificent at centre stage in the tank. It's virtually impossible to tell whether Angelfish are male or female, it won't matter as I intend on keeping it as a single Angel in the tank. Angelfish are omnivores and can easily devour smaller fish, they are part of the cichlid family which are known for aggression amongst their own kind. Therefore, due to tank size this will be the only Angel for the tank, the other tank inhabitants are mostly also from the Amazon and enjoy the same living conditions. Angelfish are also known to become very familiar with their owners, just like my butterfly ram pair in the same tank that greet me each day wagging their fins like puppy dogs. If kept healthy and conditions are right Angelfish can live for over 10 years.

Keeping fish is such a unique hobby, you can't ever get to hold your pets but you are able to interact with them and care for them in more ways than you could have imagined. I hadn't anticipated how addictive this particular hobby could become. The internet has shown me a world I didn't even know existed, there are so many other people addicted to fish keeping, sometimes to the extreme. I don't have a huge interest in particularly becoming a groupie of the fish keeping world, I just want to enjoy my fish and learn as much as I can along the way.

Keeping fish brings with it sadness and frustration at times, it's hard when you find your fish suffering from some awful illness or disease. There are a huge range of medications available to help, but more often there isn't much that can be done. Sometimes to reduce their suffering you need to euthanise them. This, again, wasn't how I pictured myself as an aquarist, yet it all comes with the territory. You do become more attached to some fish than others, the more I get involved the more I find the challenge of keeping difficult and unusual looking fish the most appealing.

Here are some pictures of my 'empty tank'...