Greetings..

[Cyberkinetic]

I'm a father of 2 boys who started this hobby several months ago after my elder son(2yrs old) pointed excitedly at the fishes in a LFS. Yes, a case of impulse buying as my wife put it... hehe..

Plenty to learn and while my boy's interest seemed to have died down... I'm left with continuing the responsibility to care for the living fishes.. much to the displeasure from the missus who feels I should spend more time with my sons... what an irony...

[Marlinsons]

welcome to AQ.

Like all kids, the interest is only momentary. After that, the old man will need to carry on.

You will find having fish an enjoyable and relaxing as well.... keep it going...

Cheers

[Cyberkinetic]

Thanks.. my dad used to be very into this hobby.. i remember we used to have 3x 6feet tanks stacked on a metal rack... always hated it when he calls me up early on a sunday morning... for the routine tank cleaning and water change.. take us up till lunch time usually. lol.. he gave up the hobby when he was retrenched and changed job which took up much more of his time. Talk about that, it's almost like 25yrs ago.

To think I'm stepping into his shoes now. After I got my new 10gal tank, i volunteered to give the 10L current tank to him once i'm done transferring the fishes so he can kickstart his hobby again. He just diverted the topic and talk about something else. haha...

[Marlinsons]

you will find that the technology have advanced to a stage and actually there is not that much work on cleaning the tank. The external filters are of great help. I only change 10~15% of the water every week. No hard cleaning needed.... just water change and top up after that, I am done. It takes me 15mins work with a hose long enough to pull it to the toilet...

Check out the forums. You will find lots of tips and help from AQ members and are all very willing to help with any issues and offer some advice.

Enjoy.... and welcome.

[Cyberkinetic]

Yes, I was just sharing with my dad recently on what I've learnt from the Web, he was actually very amazed at the developments. Our conversation goes in the tune of "Dad do you know there's this thing now which blah blah blah"... and he goes "In my time, we don't have ***, we do it ***"...

I think I'll try to stir up his interest and get him back into the hobby, I mean, he's retired and plentiful amount of time to spare. lol

[tetrakid]

I guess during your dad's time, there wasn't much need to do so many types of water tests too, and many of them, like my old uncle, could simply rely on their noses to tell the condition of the water, lol. And there's much to learn from them.

Yes, I was just sharing with my dad recently on what I've learnt from the Web, he was actually very amazed at the developments. Our conversation goes in the tune of "Dad do you know there's this thing now which blah blah blah"... and he goes "In my time, we don't have ***, we do it ***"...

I think I'll try to stir up his interest and get him back into the hobby, I mean, he's retired and plentiful amount of time to spare. lol

[VSGenesis]

Keep it going especially the part of getting your dad back into the hobby. It can be satisfying and as Marlinsons mentioned relaxing.

Like for myself I get my niece, mom and girlfriend involved. Not the water change part of course. Testing water parameters. Helping me measure fert dosage. Recording it onto excel file Etc. The water testing seems to be the best thing to get my niece jumping and running around the house shouting "It's green!! It's green!!'

Cough*Cough...I'm still young. Not even 31 yet. Coughs. Back in those days, I remember going down the "longkang" and catching fish with nets. Finding snapping turtles. Keeping guppies which bred like crazy. Those days add water, add castle, add air stone and add guppies. Poof. That's it. I was young then, water changing to me was removing every single drop of water from tank and add new water. LOL.

Well good luck mate.