I was beginning to see that my homepage for Northern Lights Aquatics was getting filled with more and more general information about me and my fishroom, so I decided to build a page that's devoted to my fish and fishroom, exclusively.
I moved to Alaska 12 years ago. In the beginning here as before I'd moved here, I worked with angelfish breeders, as well as blue acara, some discus and a few assorted pairs of Central and South American cichids. After a few years I sold most of my breeders and kept the offspring, as I got interested in guppies. In a short time I went from about 20 tanks, mostly 10's and 29's distributed around my house, to about 200 tanks. I moved all my stereo, home theatre and exercise equipment out of my rec-room and turned it into a fishroom. It's evolved a lot over the years, and still is, as I remove smaller tanks, to replace them with large tanks, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I really got into breeding guppies in 1998, and over the next 4 years it became my focus. I bred my guppies, mostly with success, developing a decent line of Yellows, and a few good crosses. I showed my fish over a 3 year period from the 1999 through the 2001 season, with IFGA, at sanctioned shows. I was pretty proud of my fish, as they placed well, and I got hooked on the rush of competition and victory.
In late 2000, I decided I HAD to have some cichlids again, since I'd sold or given all mine away to concentrate completely on the guppies. This time I wanted to try my hand at African Cichlids. I'd always been a bit fearful of them, due to their rough reputation :). As I always do everything, I went into it full steam ahead, damn the torpedos.
I have replaced over 100 of my 10 gallon tanks (now stacked in my garage) with large tanks. I am breeding mostly Tanganyikans, but also some Mbuna, as well as some West Africans. I love these fish. Their antics and strong family units never cease to amaze me. The way they form complex social orders is fantastic. They form colonies of different species in one biotope that for the most part, co-exist and thrive together, in some ways complimenting each other !
I have no doubt that like the rest of my fish-related life, this is part of a constantly evolving love for my fish. I haven't been without fish more than a few months of my life, since I was still a toddler. My father had a fishroom all through my childhood, and gave me my first two tanks for my 2nd birthday. A lot has changed over the years in fishkeeping. I'm still as fascinated and entranced with my fish today, as I was with my first tanks.
I have had a lot of people ask me how many and what size tanks I have, and instead of being lazy, I counted them all and categorized them by size. I recently added more (and more) large tanks and removed quite a bit if my 10's to make room. I have redone my count, to reflect this.
Be sure to check out my newest page. I have added a Remedy Chart, Unit and Volume Conversion page for those who need assistance in identifying diseases, finding cures, calculating and converting.
Due to some health issues, I have deleted some lines and reduced my tank numbers. I have listed here my African Cichlids that I am working with.
