Probably
my most useless hobby, a suprizing amount of my life is taken up by fish.
I have had fishtanks, on and off, for as long as I can remember. I had tanks ranging from a 5 gallon tank with a half dozen guppies, to a 40 gallon tank with 10" bullhead catfish from the local pond. Fortunately, I was never very successful.
Sadly, my luck changed about 5 years ago. I bought an 8 gallon acrylic hexagonal tank from a local discount store, set it up, stocked it, and the damn fish stayed alive. OK, no problem. Realizing I was about to break my streak, I went out and bought a 2" Oscar. Just for a while, things were back to normal, and the Oscar was eating like a king. But the Oscar thrived, and the little fish had to be replaced with feeder goldfish, and I had to get a bigger tank. (For all you fishheads, I knew I would need a bigger tank before I bought the Oscar, I just didn't realize the Oscar would start eating quite so soon.) Out of storage came my 40 Gallon tank from childhood, and for another year, everybody except the gold fish were happy. Well, some goldfish didn't seem to mind all that much, in fact two of the little buggers turned into big buggers, living mostly off of the scales of other goldfish, and pretty soon started chasing the Oscar around. The Oscar didn't like it, I didn't like it, and the catfish which had sneaked into the picture and passed the 6" mark somewhere didn't like anything. Between the four of them, the fish had decided that I had entirely to much money, and they liked that least of all. After a while, I guess I decided they where right, because I went out, bought two 60 Gallon aquariums, a load of cement blocks, some PVC pipe, and put together my "double sixty" aquarium. I then got an abandoned hot tub, cleaned it out, put some lilies, etc. in it, and made my makeshift pond. Now, at about the same time I was buying hot tubs and cement blocks, I also signed up for my first Internet connection, and I made a horrible discovery. The Reef Tank. (Thank you Jeff Pfohl.) The fish did get what they wanted. I am now broke. Dead broke. On the other hand, I don't need to worry about starving. If money gets too tight, I have an 11" Oscar, two 7" goldfish, and a bunch of other stuff that could make a good stir-fry. It could be worse.
