BCSS - Forum

Perhaps not an obvious link, but over coffee at our BCSS branch meeting this week, talk turned from the succulents of Ethiopia to tropical fish. Every member present either kept tropical fish, or had previously had a tank.
When on a recent Scottish Continent trip I recall that many of those on the coach also shared these two interests. How about at the Forum - is this unique to our locality or do many others also keep fish?

I wonder if it goes the other way - do fish keepers also have an interest in cacti or other plants?


Since this is my first post, I guess I should also introduce myself. I live in Peterhead and am Chairman of the Grampian BCSS branch. My own collection is very mixed but in recent years I have allowed my passion for variegated plants in the garden to influence what's brought into the greenhouse. I have a reasonable number of Haworthias and recently started with Agaves. Living on a cold and exposed location near Peterhead, the greenhouse certainly can be a great place to retreat to when it's too cold/wet/windy outside.

Hi Stephen

Welcome to the forum.

Well I haven't got any at the moment but for many years I kept both tropical and marine fish.

We are thinking about starting again admittedly on a smaller scale than before, one of our tanks was 6' by 2' x 2', had to re-enforce the floor to hold it.

Its pretty common. Tortoises too

Hi Stephen !

That's lovely pink kissing gourami, and another gourami in your tank,
they are native to my country Thailand.

So do I, I have one cichlid, but yet a giant Alligator snapping turtle, one fly river turtle, and a folk of tortoise.
In fact, I use to keep a lot of reptile, tarantula, scorpion etc. years ago,
but had to give up, as my mom didn't like them crawling around!

So, I have to keep something as weird as enough, caudex plant and xeric bromeliad.

Hi Stephen and welcome, yes i kept fish also and know of others in our branch who have done as well..

Hi Stephen,
Welcome to the forum,
no fish here, but plenty of rocks & minerals!! ;-)

Hi Stephen, welcome!

I only have a few plants, but as a child I loved my parents' tropical fish, and would be upet of one died. We had a huge purple catfish called Jaws as it would regularly get out of the small holes in the lid and skip around the carpet, and draw blood from anyone who caught it and threw it back in, carpet fluff and all. It ate small fish and so we stopped getting more fish. Eventually we ended up with some huge ciclids and the catfish, and a huge angel. We gave them to a pet shop to rehome.

As a teenager I got a small tank and kept shubunkins and fish-shaped goldfish - not those poor puffy-eyed fat things that struggle to swim. But when I went to Uni it was hard to caretake them and so the one remaining big one got rehomed to a friend's pond, where he grew bigger still. Since then I have been too transient to keep fish, but someday I may again. When I get bored of disappearing with a rucksack. If I ever do... which I can't imagine. I have to fight the temptation to fill my room with plants.. so I don't lay awake in a tent or hostel worrying if they are OK.

But I always look at the fish in garden centres. Marines are sooo gorgeous.

And I also collect rocks. They are low maintenance and I can leave them with my parents withough worrying if they will be OK.

my uncle was a BCSS member, now he has some tropical fish, i dont know what sort though but i think he has a catfish somewhere, and he still collects cacti. i have ended up with his greenhouse which is older than me..

Welcome Stephen.
I kept tropical fish many moons ago but have no intention of restarting, one hobby is enough and I would not have the time or money to resume.
Incidentally...Whilst living in California some time ago I noticed all of my Cactus and Succulent friends also kept reptiles and belonged to various herpatology societies some also collected seashells (Conchology).

Hi all

Yeap , we have two tropical fish tanks, tortoises X2, lizards X5 & a dog,
Plus two teenagers.

So more than enough for our collection :@)