PlanetCatfish.com

How many people here are involved with fish in a professional manner?
And in what capacity?
Scientists, importers, shopowners etc.
I hope this qeustion does not offend anyone I am just interested to see as my son has expressed an interest in going down this sort of career.
He is only young but he keeps logs and journals of what the fish are doing and what they are eating, who's having agro with who etc. and is often lectureing the guys in the LFS about mislabeled fish and fish you shouldn't keep with other fish.
By the way he's only 9yrs old so he'll probably lose interest, but it would be handy to know in case he doesn't.

Many of the Mod staff are involved professionally from the standpoint that many of us write for, and get paid by, various aquarium magazines. Many of us also sell photos to magazines and for use in fish books. I am not sure that one could actually make a living wage from those lines of work though. Silurus is a professional on the scientific side and Barbie on the commercial side.
I would not count on him losing interest. My brother decided to be an artist at about 8 or 9, practiced drawing for years, went to art school, and is now a professional artist in New York (he drew the catfishes you see on the website).
-Shane

By the way he's only 9yrs old so he'll probably lose interest,

I didn't

I didn't either but the dreaded gameboy didn't exist when I was a kid.

I started at about the same age and had my own retail fish store by the time I was 15. Went on to putting myself through college breeding discus and I'm still at it at 54.

I fit into the retail end. It allows me to experience many species I otherwise would not be able to afford or spend any time with, but the financial rewards are far less than what my degrees would earn me.

If you had asked me all through high school and college this is what I wanted to do, though. Balancing interests and survival is the challenge ... good thing my wife doesn't mind living just above poverty I do wish I had pursued the more scientific approach to aquatics, rather than unrelated degrees. I envy those who are able to make a real living dealing with the science of what I love. It is not at all easy to go "back to school" once you hit the real world!

J

grokefish wrote:I didn't either but the dreaded gameboy didn't exist when I was a kid.

I grew up with computers and fish. I actually found girls more of a distraction for a time than computers. Being a fish nerd and computer geek made that fairly challenging pastime.

I made a career out of computers, married computers and fish to produce this website and fish remain something of a very pleasant constant that the "other" career pays for.

I guess my point is that you can have more than one thing in your life. Hey, I was playing Lego Star Wars II last night with my wife - you can bring balance to the force/fish!

Julian

That game is rad.

I started collecting local fish when I was about 8 years old. Also got into tropical fish around the same time. Read several Jacques Cousteau books and never missed a television special as a teenager. Learned to scuba dive at 16.

Went on to get a master's in oceanography and have worked as a marine biologist for 30 years. The past 20 have been spent with the state of California regulating sewage treatment plants, power plants, oil refineries and doing other stuff.

So, you don't necessarily grow out of it.

I worked for Metro of Seattle which was absorbed by King County but my work in technical services, engineering division brought me in contact with the water quality lab as well as the treatment plants. It is amazing how much of our "high tech filtration systems" are reduced versions of sewerage treatment processes and facilicities. Both aquaristics and sewer treatment share the same philosophy of, " The solution to pollution is dilution."