Tough challenge

Falling in love with this new hobby wasn't easy as a female.

Ocassionally, I will still meet shop owners and staffs that gives that kinda "why you female so stupid and ask stupid question one?!" look when I go around looking for stuffs to "pimp" my aquarium.

Sometimes, it's not even easy to find info on the internet due to, we don't even know what we are looking for or the correct term since I was new to this hobby. Every setup is different and it's really hard to follow what people have advised.

I even went to a BIG LFS farm that had staffs whom aren't bother to entertain me much as I am just looking for hangon filter and spongefilter (back then, I don't even understand how spongefilter works and was asking them for advice and they gave me that "huh? you don't know? just plug in air tube lah, duhz!" reply. But they were glad to serve a few guys that was interested in canister and canister aren't cheap like what I am looking for. How professional they claim to be. Quite disappointing and from there onwards, I don't ask them for advice anymore and don't really buy stuffs there but only go see their livestocks. (But recently I haven't been going there... :P too far from me..) However, not to be unfair to the other staffs of this LFS farm, I still got advice from another staff when I was shopping for shrimp soil on another trip there.

When I was at the downtime of my hobby, due to massive death of shrimps when introducing new plant to the tank, I seek for help but none helped. I was a little depress with the staffs out there and stop asking for help. Actually, till now, I am still a little scared to ask staffs questions.

But, luckily, after I stop my depressing days, I went to a few shops that was really warm and nice and gave me the best advice they know in regards to my questions. I really thank these people for building up my confidence in interacting with staffs at LFS again. They are the aunty from Y618, uncle from Y934, and the lady boss at C328 that auto gave me a good price when I bought a new setup of glassterior slim 600 from her.

I will say being an aquarist is never easy and it's not really for lazy people. Be prepare to set aside quite a sum of money if you are new as you will require quite a lot of basic items. But, don't worry, many of these items will last you quite a while before you need to restock them.

End of the day, the reward of seeing your fishes and the whole aquarium thrieves under your care and concern is very satisfying and addictive! ;)

Good luck!