My hobby

 As this is the general chit chat thread, I thought I would throw something different into the arena, currently non- Spain related .

As you will see from my username, it would appear I like fish, keeping them though!! I thought I would share a few of my little pics for my new aquarium which has just been set up, then over the months I will update it so you can see how it progresses. Of course, there is an ulterior motive . From an earlier thread I was gauging interest in the fishkeeping fraternity for an upcoming project .  So here we go:

This is the new tank. It is a 2 foot cube which will hold just over 200 litres of water. The tank below is a sump and is where all the equipment will be housed.

This is how the aquarium looks once the reverse osmosis water and marine salt have been added. The rock is live rock, which basically means it has bacteria living within it that will break down the fish waste and act as a filter.

This is what the sump looks like once it has the equipment within it. The water overflows from the main tank to the bottom where it is met by a protein skimmer (to remove some of the waste), then it flows over some algae (provides a breeding ground for food sources for the fish and corals) before finally being pumped back to the main tank.

My first coral and a pair of clownfish were introduced yesterday. Over the course of the next 12 months or so, there will be many more additions to the fish and corals, so this is just a taster .

Mark

I dabbled with a fish tank once. I loved having my little catfish and neon's. I was told I could keep a Siamese fighter in the tank as long as I only had one. I had a beautiful red one for about 4 days, in which time he trebled in size and ate all but one of my other fish!

The fish got returned to the pet shop and the tank got emptied and sold. That was the end of my dabbling with fish - way too stressful.

I have a two cold water fish and a snail.

Hi Mark,

I've kept tropicals and cold water fish. Never a salt tank. I do think they look great, but lots of work I think.

Now (and for the last 6/7 years) I have Xenopus Laevis, African clawed frogs and Hymenochirus Boettgeri, African dwarf frogs. The clawed are cold water, the dwarf are warm water. I love my little froggy guys. In fact I have to travel over an hour to buy the food for them! Mind you, it is at a garden centre, so I don't mind too much!

I've seen the clawed for sale here (in Spain) in the pet shops at Carrefour. Tiny little albeno things, the shops give very little info on them. I worry that people buy them, put them into a mixed tank, not knowing how big they get. They will eat any thing (alive or dead) they can fit in their mouths and get about as large as your palm.

Do please keep us updated re. your tank. I for one am interested.

Regards, Febe