Bobby: here's the story.
I was always interested in the lesser animals in general. While I wasn't much of a fan of dogs and the like as a kid, I did really enjoy things like bugs, amphibians, and yes, fish. My first memories of fish involved a few goldfish in a ten gallon tank. Before long, I had managed to persuade my dad to build a pond, and they went into this pond-along with other critters liked crayfish, and a few frogs.
When I was around six, my Grandma set up a 20 gallon(old steel framed tank...still in service) with a group of swordtails. Whenever I was bored, I would watch and feed the swordtails. I remember the day when after she bought them they had fry. Dunno how accurate my memory is, but some of these fry had vertical stripes like those on a tiger barb...they were from a blackish female. The female also threw tuxedos, lyretails, and blacks like herself. We killed most of them(all the tiger striped ones) by putting them in a ten gallon upstairs...prolly do to ammonia spike cause they died off quickly after a week or two. The line went on for at least 7 generations and the ancestors are still at my Grandmas house-though they are now red or red wagtail swords-due to all the other traits purging themselves out. I remember lyretails, a highfin, and a male that lived only one day with us that was a highfin lyretail I'm quite sure. The babies were cute and kept me amused-I remember when I was bored I would set a trap, bait it with food, and remove some for fun. My grandma always had to dump them back in as I forgot about them and they ended up sitting on the table in a little jar for a while.
I eventually moved to a new house a little ways away from the old one-and here we set up a approx 1500 gallon pond-and added goldfish once again. I also kept a dingy ten gallon tank with whatever I managed to catch from the pond. There were mosquitofish in the pond, and I spent many hours attempting to outsmart and outdo them-I like to think i'm skilled with the net
They all ended up in the ten gallon but failed to breed due to all the babies being eaten almost immediately. Believe it or not, I eventually extirpitated the little things from the pond unintentionally.
By 4th grade, I was given a gift-my own big tank. It was a 46 gallon bowfront. I had been researching on fish for a while, and was eager to get this tank set up. The first inhabitants were a few rosy red minnows(P. promelas) and crayfish. Eventually, I got zebra danios, white clouds, and finally paradise fish(my first egglayer to breed).
Skipping ahead, I eventually got a ten gallon bedroom tank with a pair of kribensis that I got for 6 bucks from a really friendly LFS guy. He was almost certain they would spawn for me-and they did after a month-I was hooked. I managed to raise 40 fry and trade them in for store credit.
Skipping golden wonders and killi fry in a pond, Heterandria formosa tank which was always active, and many others, I eventually decided it was time to redo the 46. The old lightbulb was just about to burn out, and the fish were mismatched-shattered remains of the community it had been before. I decided to try my first serious planted tank. Eventually, I got a new fixture, driftwood, and a few plants from the ten gallon. Give it a month or so(about 7 months since the reconstructions began), and some really friendly guy offered me fish
...
And here we are!
I consider when I bred and raised paradise fish in about 4-5th grade as the starting point of when I began to truly understand the hobby-so that makes about 4 years of experience-and counting.