iamdieter

Ok, so I have been in the aquarium hobby for 31 years now, started when I was 6 years old with a tank of livebearers (obviously with my parents help). I took a five year break in actually keeping a tank when I lived and studied in Germany in the mid 90's, but still I could not walk past an aquatics store without looking at their stock. Man they have amazing stores there. Tidy and orderly, as one would come to expect.

My setups have ranged from colourful community tanks sub 100 litres, large South American cichlid setups of 500 litres and various Koi ponds, currently 22k litres. I've bred a variety of cichlids (Oscars, Severums, Convicts (breed like rabbits), Southern Mouthbrooders, various Malawis, Angels, - but nothing too complicated, i.e. no Discus etc.. Also bred various barbs, tetras and of-course livebearers.

I've always liked odd-balls, finances permitting, i.e. had several Silver Arowanas back in the early 80's (they were super scarce then), and even a Zebra Pleco (Hypancistrus zebra) in the early 90's. Have not seen those for sale in ages. My setups have mostly been geographicaly true, i.e. I'm quite obsessed with combining only naturally cohabiting species in a single tank.

Have never had much luck with plants, although I have messed around with a Denerle system and a DIY CO2 system based on a soda-stream cylinder. Just never got plants to grow as nicely as I would like. Think I need to give this another attempt.

Aquariums, Koi, 4x4, Motorbikes, Technology