Who am I?
Satu, the aquarist.
As I told before: I have always loved nature, water, lakes, rivers, ponds and puddles. I spent my childhood near the water and I loved being in our summer cottage next to lake Kankari, wading in shallow beach water, rowing a boat to a nearby island or just sitting on a rock and fishing. I spent hours like that, going out before others woke up, coming to eat after being called numerous times and going hesitantly to bed. It isn't a surprise that I got hooked in aquariums. I got my first aquarium 17 years ago and the addiction is just growing stronger.
My first aquarium was tiny plastic one with a horrible mix of fish. But eventually I learned more about keeping aquariums and got bigger and bigger tanks. I think I started to be an aquarist when I was about 15 years old. I've always had live plants in my aquariums, and planted tanks are close to my heart. I have bred bettas (crowntails and veiltails), apple snails, Crystal Red shrimp and other shrimp species, Corydoras habrosus, bronze cory, peppered cory, guppies, platies, bristlenose catfish, white cloud mountain minnow and kribs. And these species have spawned, but I haven't saved the eggs: angelfish, discus, Corydoras sterbai, bleeding heart tetra, pygmy puffer and coolie loach. I know I forgot some of the species, but it's not that important.
Right now I don't have any fish, only shrimp, snails and clams with tons of plants. I have two 14 gallon tanks with Crystal Reds and White Pearls + all my plants and a 22 gallon tank with snails, more CRS and some more plants. I think I'll be getting a pair of bettas in the future, but not now, I don't have room or time to take the best care of them. I just recently sold most of my tanks in order to be able to start some new projects.
My hobby is a bit international, I've had bettas from Canada and Thailand, I've got my snails, clams and plants from Denmark, Germany, USA, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia. The tanks are from Finland, also some of the equipment, some of the small stuff I've ordered from Germany. Internet, PayPal and Aquabid makes this world so small, it is easy to talk with people from other side of the world and to send items, fish and snails. Of course sending fish costs alot and it does require lots of dedication to the hobby to be ready to pay a lot for rare species.
I've been interviewed to magazines a couple of times about myself and my hobby. I have also written couple of articles to a Finnish aquarium magazine and another Finnish online aquarium magazine. I am a member of finnish aquarium forum, Aqua-Web, and english forums: Applesnail.net, The Planted Tank, ShrimpNow and Tropical Fish Forums, usually my nick is "rain-". I can also be found from IRCnet.