# The Start Of My Fish Years Journal



## Kornel351 (Mar 8, 2016)

When I was younger I was always around animals every where I went. My dad was a farmer himself and sergeant police officer. We had chickens ,birds, ,cows even green banana trees.I grew up on a small island in the West Indies called Saint Lucia. Where life was difficult to make ends meet. The time I really fell in love with fish was when I was maybe around 5 years of age . A young boy who me and my twin brother knew walked into my fathers farm with a bag fill with fish that resembled glow danios. I was immediately hooked but of course I could have never kept a aquarium at that time because of my families circumstance. Later, on in life my cousin's bought around 8 fish one of them being a "shark" and had place them in bath tub. Thinking about it now really saddens me as they all died from chlorine in the water. I remembered how staying hours and hours steering at the fish movements and observing there behavior. I knew that putting them in a bath tub wasn't right but who was I back then to tell anyone who was way older than me what to do. I was taught to follow authority and so I did. I used to go by the river and watch the crayfish and other fish jump out the water amazed by how high such a small creature could jump as high as me. I used to watch the crabs climb the pieces of bamboo at the sides of the river. I was always sadden when I past a pet store looking at the fish but knowing that fish cost a lot in EC. Later on my mother became very ill and was diagnosed with kidney problems and that the medicine costed too much I my home land. She was sent to the U.S for treatment .I went years without seeing my mother so many years that when I finally got to see her I didn't even recognize it was her and then thinks got back worse and she was sent back to the U.S and discovered she was also diabetic. In 2010 at the age of 10 when I was about to be 11 my family moved up to the U.S. My primary language was broken French creole and patwa. I was bullied as I couldn't have spoken good English in school. I needed something that understood me .Something tangible. Something I could have helped to take care of. One day I begged keep a aquarium to this day I still have this very aquarium running. My first tank was a ten gallon. I used to past my the stores and see these beautiful animals all around me but there was one in particular that caught my eye. It was a cheap but adorable baby red ear slider from Petco. The Petco employee failed to inform me about their needs and instead gave me turtle food. She never told me that they needed heat lamps and UV bulbs or calcium bones nor did she even remember to tell me about water conditioners. Me of course at this time next even knew such thinks as water conditioners existed. When I went home with the turtle I remembered setting up floating docks and putting the turtle in tap water. Every day I would jump out of bed to see him .However one day I realized something wasn't right I decided to investigate!. I went through mostly every single article I could find out about turtles and aquariums but nothing that fitted my situation .The turtle seemed to have had swollen eyes and not to very active. I went back to the store and described what is was experiencing with the turtle the store employee told me to buy a water conditioner saying it was affecting there eyes instead of telling me to get a water conditioner and turtle eye drops. They never even told me what cycling was as I saw the term everywhere on the internet but never got what it actually meant. The turtle it self however never made it. A couple days later I won a goldfish from a festival and fed him almost religiously. The Goldfish I felt understood who I was it felt me. I fell in love with it. I bought him friends as I thought he was lonely and most of them I had are still living today. I did research and research started saving up my pocket money just to improve my little 10 gallon aquarium and the life that was in it. One day I was buying goldfish food I happened to stop by a betta female that caught my eye with its amazing colors. I saw potential in the fish and my guts told me that the poor betta was in these small plastic cups full of nothing but dirty water. That very they I rushed home to learn about this new species of fish that I have never seen before in my life. The betta was full with personality, beautiful, very tolerant for beginners but yet very small making them a perfect fit for me. I saved up all my lunch money to get this fish until I was abled to get it a home, a heater, filter, food and but it self.


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