i've been in the aquarium hobby since i was about 12. And the one thing i will always remeber was my first venture into this hobby.
It all started with a comic book. i bought my comic at the local comic shop and always looked it over with glee before i purchased it. Once i got the comic home , once again I would look it over a few more times. For a few months now I had been looking at the same advertisement in the back, no not the X-ray glasses. What caught my eye was the advertisement for a pair of "JUMBO" Seahorses. I was enthralled in this ad, and saw myself having a take full of these jumbo seahorses. It didn't help that Aquaman always rode around on a giant size seahorse either. here i was faced with the dilema of saving my pennies or buying next months comic. with a strange determination i headed for the library and read all i could on seahorses, which at that time was two thin pamphlet size books which i had to read at the libraray because they were too fragile to loan out. I was there every other day reading the same two books.
The day finally came when I placed my order for two "jumbo" seahorses. Off i went to the mail box to mail my order. As i awaited the arrival of my seahorses, I setup a 20 gallon aquarium with all the things recommended in the books i had read. With the setup ready, I waited everyday for my package to arrive. Finally, almost 6 weeks later, my package arrived. I could not contain my excitement when the mail man called on the intercom to let me know we had a package. i quickly ran down the stairs in leaps and bounds until i reached the mailman waiting in the vestibule. There he was waiting for someone to come down, as he gave me the package he said," Florida would be a nice place to be right now". In all my excitement I had forgotten the snow fall we had been having for the second day in a row. He gave me the package and I quickly ran upstairs and sat in front of my tank setup. As I sat there contemplating opening the box, I realized what i had in front of me. Here was a small 5" x 5" box with a pair of "jumbo" seahorses in it waiting to be opened.
I remember thinking," Wait a minute how is the seahorse aquaman rides on going to fit in this box" ?? I opened the box, Inside was a bag of water smaller than the box. As i looked inside the bag for my jumbo seahorses, I found nothing but water. I kept looking. Inside the bag was a tiny blob in the corner. Could this be my order ? I took the bag and placed the bag in the tank to float. Once I was satisfied that the temperature in the bag was the same, I quikly dumped all the contents into the aquarium. There in all its glory was my order......... Inside my tank, as it dropped from the bag was what i would later learn, a pygmy seahorse. but not just one seahorse, what I had been sent was a pregnant pygmy seahorse. I was amazed, It didn't matter that this was barely 2" in size. what mattered was that I had one.
In the days that followed, the seahorse gave birth and my siblings and I where able to witness this occurence thanks to the snow,which had kept us home from school.
This was my Noob experience, great memory. BTW that seahorse lived for about 4 months.
Thanks to folks on here who helped me figure out my very easy fix (but nooooob) problem.
