070713

The Aquarium Saga

Two or three years ago, my son won a couple of goldfish at the fair with his father.  That led to my going out and buying a small aquarium and other supplies for them.  They lived a few months, nobody felt like messing with the tank, and they eventually died.  I promised my son that we would get more fish, but months went by, the tank ended up in the garage, and it never happened.

We moved.  The little fish tank came with us.  I again promised Dalton that we would get more fish and I would set up the aquarium for him in his bedroom.  Another year went by.

Then some time during this past school year, I decided to finally set up the aquarium.  We got some different decorations, I filled it up, treated the water.  It ran for a couple of months without fish

Then, in the spring, I finally pulled the thing out of his room again and cleaned it up, determining that this time I’d get it done!

Juli Coryneon2And this time we actually did get fish.  We got a little juli catfish and some neon tetrasGreat!

Except it was a mess.  They warned us that the tank wasn’t really big enough, but I guess I didn’t believe them.  The water kept getting so cloudy and gross that no matter how much I cleaned it and changed the water, it was just awful.  We worried the fish would die – the water was so cloudy you couldn’t even see the fish!

I did some research.  Well, apparently a 2.5 gallon aquarium is not sufficient for much of ANYTHING.  I wonder, then, why Petco was so happy to sell one to us.  Especially (apparently) for goldfish which are known to grow big and be very messy!  What to do.  And then on my next water change, it appeared the tetras did not make it.  🙁

However, the julicat was still kicking.  And he did ok back in the little tank – except it became obvious that he was very lonely.  I learned that these guys definitely need friends.

So.  I bought a 10 gallon tank (unfortunately not as inexpensive as this one on Amazon.com).  I did a final clean of the little tank and the new one sat in its box in the garage until after the 4th.  I filled my buckets with water and treated it to get the water ready.  Then on Friday I pulled the new tank out.  Oops, not enough gravel.  Back to PetcoOops, no way I have a big enough bucket to treat 10 gallons of water, had to get that too.

Saturday morning, I’m ready.  As soon as Dalton was up, we carried the little tank to the garage.  I already had the new one set up with gravel and a new decoration I got.  I moved little “Juli” to his temporary container and started emptying the old tank.  I then transferred the gravel from it, along with the plants and decorations that were in there, and after rinsing them added them to the new tank.  Dalton, meanwhile read the instructions and started putting together the top and light fixture and the filter.  Once that was done, I carried the thing (with only a little bit of water in the bottom – it is heavy) to Dalton’s room.  Perfect.  Next step:  buckets of treated water.  Nervousness about little Juli surviving this whole ordeal.  Once the tank was filled, decorated, filter connected and working, time to take a water sample to Petco – and hopefully bring home some friends for Juli.

The water tested out fine, but – OOPS, we now need a HEATER.  There’s another $50 (on top of the approximately $150  or so I have now spent on fish and aquarium supplies!)  And this time, with some advice, we chose to get some “Platys.”

platy-01These fish are supposed to be good choices (for novices like us) so we chose three, each of them a slightly different kind.  We heated the water, put poor little julicat back in, and added the three platysSo far, so good.  And after cleaning up the mess and everything, I was exhausted!  But thank goodness this task is finally DONE (until next time…)  😀

aquarium

This entry was posted in 2013, Onward & Upward, Ruminations and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.