Hello from Southwest Washington
Hi, everyone.
I'm a new TAS member and 3rd generation aquarium nut, now working on getting the first member of generation #5 successfully indoctrinated. :) I've always loved angels, and always wanted to try raising them, but never had the time or space to really seriously consider actually doing it. Life has settled down a bit for us in the past couple of years, though, and when a couple of silvers in my community tank decided to pair off and start spawning, something inside me gave way and I kind of went over the edge.
We just bought a house last year, putting an end to a decades-long nomadic lifestyle that had limited my ability to fully indulge my aquarium passion, and I kind of went a little bit crazy with all the new-found permanence and stability. By the time the aquarium count got to 5, my (incredibly indulgent) husband had started making humerous remarks to our friends about my tendency to become obsessed with my interests, and worrying about the floors collapsing under all the water weight. Then when I started talking about angelfish and decided the latest aquarium (#8) would be an angelfish breeding tank, he started teasing me about having progressed to full-blown addiction.
As a mental health professional, I'm supposed to practice self-awareness and stuff, so the other day at work, just to make sure I wasn't *really* in need of an intervention or something, I discussed my "addiction" with a psychiatrist coworker. I confessed that I had already purchased tank #9, had been poring over angelfish breeding and genetics articles, and even found myself lying awake at night pondering whether I could successfully incorporate an angelfish room into my aquaponics greenhouse without them getting too cold in the winter.
He listened to what I had to say, and then sat there looking thoughtful for a long moment while I waited to see what he would say. Finally, he said, "You know, the wind blows a lot in the winter...I bet with some PVC and a couple of ball bearings from the auto salvage, you could build a vertical wind turbine that would provide enough power to run a small heater..."
So I'm taking that to mean I haven't gone too far off the deep end quite yet. Or else, if I have, at least I'm not alone there. :cool:
Meanwhile, the afore-mentioned angel pair have spawned in their new breeding tank, and sometime tomorrow I should know whether they're going to raise babies or eat them. And then we'll see where it goes from there.
And with that, I should quit browsing angelfish forums and sleep, since I'm supposed to work tomorrow.
I'll be back!
-Ruth
