About

Hey, hi!

They tell me I need to say a little about myself here… I’m not really all that into the ‘me’ thing, but I guess I should say something. My husband Greg, and I have been keeping fish together since 2002… before that, he had kept fish since he was a kid, and though my family had one of those metal-framed slate bottom tanks back in the 70’s with clown puke gravel and plastic plants, and that weird green Penn-Plax hang on the back air-driven filter plus incandescent lighting (and a rather unpleasant odor), I had exactly zero interest in captive fish until I became an adult. I got my first cichlid, an angelfish named Hark the Herald Angelfish (yeah, I know…) sometime in the early 90’s, and while surfing the new-to-me internet for information on keeping him healthy and happy, I stumbled across a text-based chat on a MUD platform called Fishroom. All kinds of super-addicted fish heads frequented that talker, and I made some excellent friends that I’ve kept to this day. After speaking to the cichlid geeks in this chat, I decided to take the plunge, and purchased my very first African cichlids… a trio of then Neolamprologus multifasciatus (now exLamprologus multifasciatus) from Caroline Estes at Amazonia Aquariums in Austin, Texas. I. Was. Hooked…. line… and sinkered.

At some point, I started working for a cichlid importer/wholesaler maintaining their website and their tanks, which taught me a LOT about African cichlids and catfish in general, and the opportunity to purchase many different species, as well as getting to meet and become friendly with several fish geeks crazier than I was.

After my husband joined me, we Brady Bunched our kids and our pets, including the fish. We set up a small fishroom in the garage, and for the most part kept African cichlids and Synodontis catfish. Soon after, I relinquished much of my tank space to him to take care of my dying parents, my small children, and the demands of a full time job I had to drive over and hour each way for. Over the years, though, I’ve kept my hand in it, and finally about two years ago I developed an interest in livebearers and invertebrates. My husband gave me a row of smaller tanks in the fishroom, but I ended up encroaching on his fry rack anyway, and he finally built me a fishroom in the house, in a bedroom vacated after one of the kids grew up and moved out. I spend a lot of time in here… the temperature is comfortable, and I can sit in a big chair in the middle of the room and watch the fish do their thing without knowing I’m there. I take a lot of pictures (mostly with my phone), and a little video, and friends often ask me about my hobby…. my insanity that keeps me sane. Since many of them are from away, I decided to build a sort of virtual show-and-tell.

And so here we are… welcome to my world.