Born at Helensville, dad was in the RNZAF for 30 odd years, lived at Hobsonville, Ohakea & Woodbourne. Left NZ early 80's to follow the family to Australia. Always had a "thing" for animals while growing up back home with the keeping of parrots & skinks & gecko's as well as the family cat & dog. Never missed the opportunity to visit zoos & wildlife parks when possible. Don't remember (getting on in years!) seeing many fish tanks while growing up as the only fish I was interested in was for the pan! A friend of mine here in Oz breeds tropical fish for a living (35 plus years now), & thru him have developed a "thing" for fish. I really love the catfish & currently have a couple of plecostomus & a synadontis eupterus in a standard 6 footer & some clown loaches & a bumblebee catfish in a 5 footer. As you can imagine there's heaps of room to add more. Have kept the more popular species like oscars, angels, rams, tetras etc but have developed a love for the catfish. Have another 6 footed with just some feeder fish in it-which leads me to---REPTILES! This 6 footed used to be home to a freshwater crocodile, but moved him on when he got to big for the tank, & the feeder fish are used on baby venomous snakes. I know I have issues ha ha, my real passion is Australian snakes. I keep around 90 odd snakes of which 80 odd are venomous. Thru the various herp forums I can across the NZHS website which lead me to this forum. Have been impressed with some of the members on here's setups (both reptile & fish) & some of the species that you are allowed to keep over there. OMG! leopard gecko's & land tortoises, both of which are illegal to keep over here, & then I saw some pics of a shovelnose cat & arrowanas again can't keep over here. Be good to move back home but giving up all my snakes is not on the cards just yet. Thats enough waffleling from me Cheers everyone, Good stuff.