Yet another new face from Christchurch - I see you seem to be getting a lot of them! I was a Wellingtonian for most of my life, though, so it's not that bad.
I got into fishkeeping after my partner said last year that he'd like to get fish when we moved into our new flat. We went through a pretty horrific die-off before we got the hang of cycling, and had one baby bristlenose commit suicide after, but we've now got a smoothly running (fingers crossed!) 15-gallon with neons, glowlights, and harlequin rasboras. I've got a HOB filter cycling in it right now to go in the 5.5 gallon I just bought, which will soon be home to a betta or two, depending on whether I can build a workable divider.
Meanwhile, my partner was expressing his displeasure at the fact I refused to replace our zebra danios after the first ones died - I discovered our tank was really too short to give them enough swimming room. I told him to just go and buy a suitable tank for them if it meant that much to him, and to my surprise (and, I think, his) he did. We're picking that up this evening, and he intends to stock it, once cycled, with zebra danios, penguin tetras, and maybe a bristlenose - this tank has a lid, so no more suicides!
I'm not really sure how we're managing this all on student budgets, but I decided it was just better to give in gracefully and accept the inevitable explosion of tanks. It still stuns me that less than six months ago I had no interest in fish whatsoever - and now, if an aquarium appears in a scene on TV, I spend more time trying to work out what's in it, and if the stocking's appropriate, than listening to the characters. But I guess you all understand just how addictive this hobby is. :lol:
