How it all Began.

Livebearers are a hobby unto their own. You have to be specific. You can say "Oh, I have several tropical tanks". No.
Livebearers are... addictive. And time consuming. And space consuming. If you choose to breed guppies (ha! Choose!) then you are, after all, making your own fish. Not many other kinds of fish offer you a chance to create patterns, colours, tail and fin shapes. Therein lies the fun - and obsession.

I had a couple of tanks at my place - some goldfish and some tetras. I grew up in a house with lots of tanks, and my husband had been an avid fishkeeper for years before he met me. Somehow, husband got it into his head to start scouring eBay for used, cheap tanks. He picked up a cute little 25l corner tank for something ridiculous, like $8 or something. At around the same time, one of the school mums started chatting to him about a website for her brother-in-law's fish store, knowing that husband is a Web Geek. Well. One cycled-with-goldfish-mulm tank and one visit to that fish store (to 'talk business') later, and I am the proud owner of one male and 5 gravid female guppies. About one week after getting them home, one of the mamas gave birth to between 50 and 60 fry. The rest, history.

Here in my office, I have 2 x 25 litre tanks on my desk, a 100 litre tank behind me, and will soon be setting up a 15 litre tank next to that. All for my guppies. Sure, the big tank (I call it my Chaos tank) has some functional tank-mates (2 bristlenosed ancistrus, and 3 varied corydoras), but this is all about my pretties.

I have lost 2 of the girls to labour (one a very quick shock death, and the other post-birth haemorrhage - I'll be writing about that soon) and have learned that sometimes, this is part and parcel of the game.

Learning, ever.