hi everyone!

[vanimal]

hi everybody!  I stumbled onto this website by sheer luck and I am absolutely BLOWN AWAY by your awesome community of fish keepers.  I am starting out a 55 gallon freshwater tank and really would appreciate your advice.  Never did keep a planted tank successfully before, with the exception of the backyard pond I had growing up in Vietnam as a kid - and man that was a beautiful pond with all kinds of plants, rocks, fancy guppies, mollies, angel fish, snails, even some watersnakes and so clear you can see the bottom.

anyway i am starting from scratch with nothing but the 55 gal aquarium and would like your input as to the types of plants, fish, where to buy them, etc... and if any of you have them for sell or give away please let me know as well.  i am at vhn7r at yahoo dot com

thanks. - van, midtown houston.

[Ellen]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome!  

Ellen

[eklikewhoa]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome to the site from a fellow vietnamese! Lots of people here who know there stuff hopefully they will be along to help you out.!

[Mzungu]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome to HFB!! Glad you stumbled in! If you want, you can start a new thread or two dealing with some specific questions you have, or just to get some input. We'd love to help!

[PhishPhreek]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome from a native Houstonian.

[guppymax]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome, and good luck with the new tank.

max

[daisymac]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome! I have a fairly new 55g and I have a peaceful community tank - Danios, tetras, clown loaches, zebra loaches, cherry barbs, plecos and a couple shrimp. My favorite place to go is Village tropical on Sheperd by 59. They have great stock of fish and plants.

The people around here are very helpful and probably can help you out to begin with. I was scared of a planted tank, until Mzungu guided me and now I have a 60% real plants and 40% plastic plants. The real plants are doing so well that I will be taking out more of the plastics as I go along.

One of these days I will get some photos in the gallery, but just got back from vacation, so . . .  

If you are midtown houston, then you can't be too far from me. I'll help however I can.

[HFBfounder]

Re: hi everyone!

Hi, Welcome to the Box! I'm glad you found us. You can find a good selection of plants at Village Tropical. They are relatively close to you.

[logan5]

Re: hi everyone!

Hmmm... water snakes...

My wife's Vietnamese ... so I guess that makes me Vietnamese by marriage.  How long ago did you come here?  A co-worker of mine has some scary stories of the '73 evacuation and my wife remembers vividly her three weeks on a boat and subsequent year in a camp waiting to enter the US as a 7 year old in 1980.

Me ... I'm just a transplant from Hawaii ... never understood why people keep reef tanks when all you had to do was go snorkling back home.

Logan5

[jbicb3]

Re: hi everyone!

Welcome vanimal!
You might want to take a short drive up to Huffman this Saturday for the LAH Swap-n-Sell. There are always plenty of plants, fish, and good conversation!

Jerry

[vanimal]

Re: hi everyone!

Thanks for all your input!  I will pay a visit to Village Tropical to see what they have to offer.  Unfortunately the Saturday trip to Huffman won't happen for me this weekend...I got to work then.  But I will have to try and make it to some events soon.  Definitely love to see aquarium and fish on display.

Yeah I'm from Vietnam originally, spent the last 13 years in Virginia, and have been in Houston only for 2 months.  Thanks for making me feel so welcomed.  I hope to eventually contribute to this wonderful fishkeeping community.

Van