Today brings the next step in establishing Atlantis Aquaria as a living aquarium, and not just a really nice water feature...
In a torrential downpour, I hit the road, determined to find the aquarium store I frequented with my father when I was just a kid. I wasn't sure if it was still open, but I hoped it would be, and after taking only a few wrong turns I found it.
The place is called "Paul's Aquarium Store" or something like that, and it's located near King George Highway in Surrey, in probably one of the least likely areas to contain an aquarium store ever. It's surrounded by warehouses, furniture outlet stores, and a "brew your own beer" place. There, in the middle of it all, is a blue sign that looks several decades old - and yes, actually, it is. "Paul's" has been there for 35 years, as I found out today. It's been about six years since I was there last, probably longer... but it hasn't changed much at all.
Walking in to "Paul's" was like stepping back in time, back to my very first experiences with aquariums. My dad bought me a 20 gallon aquarium when I was in grade two, possibly younger, and together with my sister and my mom we picked out some fish for our first community aquarium. We had blueberry and raspberry tetras, glowlight tetras, zebra danios, two Chinese algae eaters (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri), and an angel fish. I fell in love with the aquarium and the fish, and only a few years later at a garage sale I found a ten gallon aquarium for $5, complete with all kinds of supplies, and, being a very convincing child of ten years old, I talked my dad into buying it for me (I have much to thank my father for... he has been the one encouraging me in this hobby the most).
Once that 10 gallon aquarium was set up, my dad took me back to "Paul's" and I entered with a mission. I'd been doing a lot of research, reading all the aquarium books I could find, and one day in my elementary school's library I found an old, small, battered book titled "Fancy Guppy". Intrigued, I borrowed it and read the whole thing three times in a row. I'd reach the end then flip back to the beginning and read it again. I was in love. I would stare at the photos and admire this small, beautiful fish... Soon, I was searching libraries for any books that even had just a few pages about guppies, and within a few weeks I was nearly an expert in all things guppy - or, well, I thought I was. Quite knowledgeable for a ten year old, anyway!
So my plan, as a nine year old, was to get a guppy and start my own little breeding operation. My dad was cautious about this, so he only let me get one male and one female guppy. This first acquisition was not particularly successful - the male didn't live very long, but the female did; after about a week I noticed she was growing rather large, and I told my parents that she was pregnant and would have babies. Neither of my parents really believed me... until the day we found several tiny fish swimming in the aquarium.
And that's how it started.
I convinced my parents to let me get more guppies, and from then until about six years ago I always had at least one dedicated guppy aquarium with guppies of all ages; I wasn't inclined toward controlled breeding - hey, I was a kid, and preferred to let nature do what nature does best. Also, after reading about all the different steps involved in proper breeding, I decided that that was just a bit too much work for a kid. When I was twelve my hobby had expanded to three aquariums, where I experimented a bit with separating strains and removing the young ones when they were a few weeks old from the breeding tank and putting them into their own aquariums. When my guppies were old enough, I would take them to local fish stores and sell them - made a nice amount of money from that, too. Through these years I slightly inadvertently ended up with my own guppy strain, of which I was quite proud. I searched guppy strain databases online to see if this coloration was unique, and as it turned out, it was. My guppies were mostly red, but with a snakeskin-like design on their bodies in shades of luminescent yellows, greens, blues and purples, and their fins (particularly the tails) were mottled shades of red, yellow and purple. They were amazing - or at least I thought so. The males were perfect - slim bodies, huge tails and long fins; the females were nicely proportioned, their bodies in shades of pale yellow and grey, with slightly larger than usual vibrant red tails. I had never seen guppies like them before. Eventually, however, life intervened; I hit high school and discovered the stress and time consuming madness of classes and homework, and at the same time my parents decided to start major house renovations. There was no longer any room for my three aquariums.
It was a sad day when I packed up all my guppies and took them to the aquarium store called "Fishworld", which had opened recently up the street from my house. I had sold guppies to them before and so it made sense that the rest of my stock should go there. It was tough, giving away everything I'd been working on for so long... but I knew, some day, they'd be back.
Less than a year later, I seized the chance to bring my guppies home. I had been out for a walk and happened to stop in to Fishworld, and to my surprise and great happiness, I found several guppies in an aquarium near the back of the store that were identical to my beautiful red strain. I remembered that nearly half the guppies I'd sold to Fishworld were still only a few weeks old at the time, and so it made sense that here, hidden at the back of the store, were my guppies - grown up and stunning.
It didn't take very long for me to decide that they had to come home.
I bought a small 5 gallon aquarium that I set up in my room, and once that aquarium was up and running, I went back to Fishworld and bought back my guppies. I have been keeping them in my room ever since, adding a few to keep the gene pool healthy, selling a few; a couple years after this first small aquarium I acquired another one, and for a while had two operating. Soon, however, problems started showing up: the aquariums were too small (which is why I bought the second one, but even then there wasn't much room), it was very difficult if not impossible to find replacement filter cartridges for the specific filters for these aquariums (which led to me buying new filters instead of new cartridges - not the best plan financially), and despite being small the aquariums were in awkward positions to clean, and maintenance was a problem.
When I first saw my guppies in Fishworld after so long apart, I made a plan. Having the small aquariums was the first step in the plan of re-establishing my guppy hobby, but the long term goal was to retrieve the 10 gallon aquariums from their places in storage and have them back in operation. This is what I did last week - fighting off giant spiders and all kinds of other creepy things, I moved one of the aquariums from the garden shed, made sure it was still in good condition, cleaned it out (no soap, of course), set it up, and started this blog.
Today, I went back to "Paul's".
It looked nearly the same as when I was last there, more than six years ago. They had set up new tanks and now have a larger selection of fish, but the general atmosphere of the place is the same. I thought it was quite fitting that I should go back there at this, the new beginning of my guppy hobby. I browsed the tanks, seeing the familiar labels; I chatted with the lady working there, and told her I remembered the place from years ago. I was pleased to find the quality of the fish was just as good as I remembered, if not better, and I left with four julii catfish, four female guppies, two males, and a nice plant - photos to follow.
These fish will be the first occupants of Atlantis; within the next day or two, once I'm satisfied the water quality between Atlantis and the old aquarium are close enough not to shock my old guppies when I make the transfer, they will join today's new acquisitions in a nice, bright new home. The old 5 gallon aquariums will be decommissioned and join the others in storage, waiting for the time when I'll need them again - whenever that might be.
Now, if you made it all the way to the end of this long, long post, you will know pretty much everything there is to know about my history with guppies. If you follow this blog (I promise, this will be the longest post! I won't ever write this much in one go again! It's too much!), then you'll know the present and the future of my guppies, too.
Here they are, the new additions! Three bags, ten fish, one plant. Close up photos of the guppies coming soon, plus names. Any suggestions?
