Matsyendra

I still remember my first fish tank so clearly, with fondness and a pang...

I was in my second year of Uni, living on my own in a furnished one bedroom unit, and paying rent that was WAY too high. I could not afford to have a phone, I did not have a television and the radio was my only form of entertainment. I lived on salads as I didn't even have the gas connected. To earn a bit of extra income the landlord would give me little jobs to do... mowing lawn etc.

Across the road from where I did my grocery shopping was a very busy little pet shop. I would often go in there, wander around and look at the fishes. I don't know why I was drawn to fishes... maybe it was because they were the only pet I could have living in a unit but I just loved watching them swim around.

What I thought at the time was a VERY cool , hexagonal aquarium kept taking my eye... One day the owner saw me checking it out and when I asked him how much it was, it was pricey... the tank alone was $120 and way too much for me on my tiny student income. He could tell I was hesitating that I really wanted it and he wanted my sale.

He offered it to me for $100 bucks and he would throw in a tiny filter, a couple of fish, gravel, one or two plants and one of those resin "logs" with a hole at each end and in the middle for my fishies to swim through (I still have it) ... I really couldn't afford to, it meant I was going to have a lean week, but I couldn't resist and I walked home lugging this quite large tank with me. No light, no heater.

The two fish... this really gorgeous TINY, baby comet gold fish... it looked like a miniature Koi, one of those white speckled ones, black, white and orange, like a tortoiseshell cat... and a white cloud mountain minnow. They were the best of friends. The gold fish eventually got way bigger than my mountain minnow... they stayed friends though.

As I read books about fish keeping, they always made it seem so hard, you needed to measure this and adjust that.... make sure the temperature was in the right range... blah blah blah. I did absolutely NONE of it, I changed 25% water every week and that was it. I remember thinking that keeping fish was way too easy... and for me... it was.

I lit the tank from off of one side with a little incandescent study lamp. It was SO beautiful to look at, simple and yet profoundly tranquil.

I spent hours watching my little fishies swim about. A few weeks later I bought a couple of Rosy Barbs, lucky me, without knowing anything at all I selected a male and a female... I was always really particular which fish I bought, I would watch them all for at least 10 minutes and select the very specific fish I wanted, even if it was neons which all look pretty much the same. The owner always had to get the exact fish I wanted, any other would simply not do. It would be an odd tail marking or something similar that would catch my eye and I knew I had to have it.

At the same time that I bought my Rosy Barbs, I also bought a "Sucking Catfish"... oh man he (she?) was awesome, he would sit on or in his little resin log... and sort of wink... one eye only... I remember thinking that I could train him to wink at me whenever I wanted. I spent hours looking at him, making my eye wink in the same way he did his.. with a little bit of a tilt... and amazingly... within a few days... if I winked, he would wink back. It was AWESOME... I used to show friends and they would be amazed. It was THE most beautiful tank I ever owned... I miss it.

I kept reading and learning... yet I did not one thing the books suggested. I cared not for hardness or pH or ammonia...ppm? do you think I could be bothered? I still think that most of the hoo haa over fish keeping is overrated. I mean here I was keeping a goldfish with tropicals in a cold water tank, no heating, no special care and they were thriving... my Rosy Barbs eventually tried breeding... but then ate the eggs. I was living in Adelaide, South Australia, winters were COLD... yet my fishes were full of life. I even had glass catfish in my tank. Too many fish for my tank, it didn't seem to matter. Hatchet fish.. I had TWO of those. I mean most of these fishes come from completely different parts of the world...

I knew a bit about fish keeping, diseases, needs. Even though I knew what to do, I did whatever I wanted and everything seemed to just swim along.

I became one of the pet shops best customers... and about a year later I told them that they had to employ me, and they did. I became "The Fish Guy". All sales of fish, tanks and paraphernalia, care of tanks etc... all of it ... through me.

As I look back, how innocent and naive I was.

Because really... I had NO clue.

I have kept fish tanks for years now... all types of fish, rarely anything too exotic.. I know my limits and they all do well, I have never paid too much attention to doing anything special for them... keeping fish seems too easy. I still do not have a water heater.. but now I live in the tropics.

Then one day,, I decided that I wanted the damn plants that I bought ... to well... stay alive...

It was the end of innocence...