New Members Welcome Wagon post

Aw everyone's so nice! Thank you all for the welcome The job is absolutely fantastic and I'm in love with it. I'm really hoping I can keep it after I get out of school. I'm taking a break and staying home for now but I will go back eventually. I'll just have to be such a great employee that they can't say no once I finish my degree!

Hello my names alex and my girlfriend laura and i share this hobby and shes helped me set up some of her first tanks. We are located in minier. About 25 minutes from pekin,peora,bloomington.

I have kept many community fish over 4 years. Had a reef set up for a couple years.

I now have 5 tanks up and going
1 planted low tech with pencil fish and swordtails
Nano planted with magenta guppies and endlers
20 long with Breeding Hungarian red points
26 bowfront with red point fry
10 gallon temp home for some red jewels waiting for grow out and pairs to form to re tank.

Glad to be around and hopefully make some meetings and meet all of you!

Hi Alex and Laura!  Welcome, I'm looking forward to you joining the group and meeting you both.  

Hi Alex and Laura! Welcome. to our club. What kind of swords do you have? I purchase some swords last summer and I am just now starting to get some fry. I got a couple of males hifin swords and I am breeding them. This gene is showing up in my fry. I have problems telling when they are going to have babies but as they get bigger it seems to be a little easier. You do not see too many people with pencil fish, are they easy to keep? I have a few angelfish that are starting to lay eggs.

Mark

Welcome Alex and Laura! We used to go out to Gill's just north of Miner to eat quite a bit, sad that it closed.

We're a fun group and I'm looking forward to meeting both of you.

Stay tuned to the front page of the website or the forum site for news on when/where the February meeting will be held.

DavidZ

Thanks for all the warm welcomes! As for aome of your guys questions.

I have 6 pineapple swords at the moment. One with the actual sword on its tail so hes got his choice in females!

As for pencil fish. So far so good! They seem to really stick near eachother and swim as close as possible. Its really neat. Ive never seen any pencil fish in any stores but i got my hands on some and they are really neat fish. Really good at hiding if they get separated from the school lol.

Ill be sure to keep my eyes peeled for the feb meeting!

Look forawrd tl meeting yoy all

Hello. Quick question - would someone recommend tropical fish stores (maybe hobbyists who sell from their homes) with healthy livebearers, within 3 hours of 61761? thanks!

Current plan is to establish 6 smaller tanks for a 1-2 guppy trios, platys, mollies, and a betta. This will slowly reintroduce me to the hobby. If my past hobby history repeats, by next winter there will be a large community tank, and a large tank to breed angels. Beginning in junior high up to a career change at age 30, I had multiple tanks and bred livebearers, bettas, and angels. This winter's research, seems much within the hobby has evolved, but not the basics. I'm wondering about the 'sturdiness' of today's fish. In the 70's (yikes), I found the healthiest fish from local hobbyists who sold retail (set up shop in home/basement/storefront) to support their hobby. I favored a storefront on rt 29 south of Pekin, a basement in Hudson, a basement in North Pekin, a Peoria tropical fish store, and a Peoria Zayre store (not all Zayre stores).

Welcome! Several club members have live bearers and we're almost always willing to part with them.

Only a couple of pet stores in town (Premium Pet Supply and Petco), but Champaign has Sailfin and Pekin has Charlies. All are decent choices.

Best first step is to join us at our meetings which are held every second Sunday. Stay tuned to the forum site for location.

Good luck and hope to see you at the meeting.

DavidZ

When you are ready for fish let me know. I have some starts that I could bring to the meeting for you.

I have some breeding pair of angels, I could also give you some small fry from them.

Mark

Hi sklokk and welcome to the club.  Glad you found us, and look forward to seeing you around.

Hi im Adam, 24 and i live in Springfield,been keeping fish since i was 12. I have had Oscars, Balas, Rams, Convicts, all types of tetra, Clown Loaches, Cory Cats, Pictus, Brackish Puffers and Gobies. Not currently Breeding anything at the moment but have had some luck with rams. Currently have a 40 tanks with Silver tips, Bloodfins, Glass rosy Barbs, Colombian Red Tetra, Serpae, and a few neons and glolights. Its a little over crowded my 75 got busted so this is only temporary and will be fixed soon. I prefer Natural looks and keeping mainly fish found in similar regions.

Welcome Adam - Hope you come up for a meeting some time.

DavidZ

Hi Adam, and welcome to the group and forum.  Sorry to hear about your broken tank... that sucks.  I hope it wasn't too big of a catastrophe when it broke!   My mom lives in Springfield so I do get over there from time to time.  I like to stop by The Fish Man when it's open, as it's on my way.  I hope you find some things of interest in the group and I look forward to seeing you around.  

Becky

Hello, everyone!

I live in Mattoon.

I keep a 10 gallon planted betta sorority with five girls and a planted 55 gallon community that has 10 neons, 6 glass cats, 10 assorted corys, and 4 otos.

I don't currently breed anything, but I'm thinking of venturing into something soon.

Over the years I've kept just about all the live bearers and some koi at one point.

Right now I'm content with where I'm at as I'm focusing more on my plants and making a scape.

I'd love to keep cherry shrimp, but I've not had any luck with them in the past (my bettas ate them). I may start a dedicated shrimp tank soon.

I've had as many as 7 tanks going at once. Right now we have three, including my boyfriend's 55 gallon salt that has a single fire fish!

Hello April, and welcome to the group.  Sounds like you've got it going on with your tanks!  Very glad to have you here, and looking forward to seeing you around.

Hi everyone. I have had several aquariums over the years and love live bearers. I currently have a 29 gallon community tank and am raising swordtails. I also have a 2.5 gallon fry tank and a betta cube (he got mean). I am looking forward to learning a lot from the group.

Hi Sheryl, and welcome to the group. I hope you'll find your membership in the group both informative and socially rewarding. Nice to have you here.

Good morning. I am setting up my first SWT and would like some help. I live in Decatur Il and the only LPS that carries corals is under construction. My tank is nearly ready to go and I was wondering if anyone could help me with a local store that isn't too far away and has a good selection. I am wanting to get 5 or 6 corals to starts off with and would rather buy local than off the internet. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

The best store I know of is Sailfin Pet Store in Champaign. It's the best in central Illinois. It has a nice salt water section.

I second Pops' recommendation of Sailfin. Good place.

DZ

thank you for the comments. I will go check it out this weekend. Do you guys know if they carry corals????

I ended up getting some hermit crabs, 2 cleaner shrimp, and 2 turbo snails at the LPS. That's about all they are carrying right now. Reall y want to get some corals added to the tank.

Havent been there is a while, but I think they do.

ok. thanks. I sent them an email yesterday and he just replied this morning. said they have a nice selection of corals. Really appreciate the direction!!!!

Hello all, I'm a brand new fish keeper, but doing my best to be a responsible one. About three months ago we decided as a family to get an aquarium for a good introduction to having pets for our young daughters. We settled on a 55 gallon corner aquarium. I let it cycle for two weeks and initially stocked it with eight Danio rerios. While waiting I spent a lot of time reading everything I could find in books and on the Internet, and found plenty of conflicting information. One thing that stood out was the importance of having a quarantine/hospital tank. After convincing my wife of the merits of having the second tank we put a 9 gallon Fluval in our living room.

I wanted to have the same water parameters in the quarantine tank and the display tank, so I filled half of the QT with water from a recent water change from the DT and let it cycle. Unbeknownst to us, our danios had been spawning. One morning I woke to find about 50 fry stuck to the glass. My wife wanted to keep them so our QT quickly became a fry tank.

Now I still needed a QT, so we got a 13 gallon Fluval for the kitchen counter and actually used it to quarantine our rainbowfish, and my wife liked having it there but didn't like the idea of having it sit empty for long periods of time, so now we have a 13 gallon guppy tank in our kitchen. Currently I have a 20 gallon quarantine tank in my basement workshop.

Unfortunately the more I read the more I understand and consequently the more I want to try. So, next to my QT is another 20 gallon fry tank, which is next to a 40 gallon breeder than I'm breeding Mosquito Fish in to supply the six container ponds I have constructed outside. Next to that is another 40 gallon breeder than is currently cycling. Now I'm in the process of moving all of my workshop stuff into our secondary garage and converting the basement workshop into a fish room. Thankfully my wife prefers that to having a workshop down there anyway (probably because it's more kid friendly).

On the plus side, our daughters still really love our 55 gallon corner aquarium.