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For countless millions of years before any humans walked the earth, a myriad of fish lived in our lakes, rivers and oceans. I've always been tempted to keep them, but it wasn't until recently that I made the final decision. Now I just needed to create a home for them ...
the finished product
It's been something Ive umm'd and arrr'd about for years. I've always enjoyed other peoples aquariums but never had the confidence to have one myself. A load of small swimmy creatures utterly dependant on you? It's quite a responsibility ... and its not like my cats who only make demands when theyre hungry, want a lap to curl up on or need to go outside ... the residents of any aquarium depend on you for their very lives!
My friend Leigh has been keeping tropical fish for around a year now. He had a medical condition and was told by his doctor to keep very calm at all times. He decided to buy an aquarium ... then he bought another ... and another! Whenever I went round to his house, I found myself gazing into the cool, calm waters watching swimmy beings of various size, species and colour batting around his tanks, and I asked him question after question. Over time I built my confidence up about this very relaxing hobby and was tempted more and more to get an aquarium of my own.
And that's what it is about for me. Calm and relaxation. Working with computers all day and dealing with people who don't understand the first thing about what I do is incredibly stressful sometimes. So are relationships ... friendships ... finances ... well, I think you get it. Stress is bad and I stress out easily. At my time of life I need as much calm as I can possibly get! With a little effort on my part, creating a place for my swimmy brothers and sisters to live will bring me greater benefits compared to the effort that I put in. I love my cats to pieces, but if I sit there and stare at them for hours, they'll just think I'm a nutter ...
So after great deliberation and hours of internet research, I chose a Fluvel Roma 240. It's 4 foot wide and came as an all-in kit of 240 litre tank, stand, filter, heater and all the bits and pieces to get it all up and running. Just add water and fish they say ...
But actually there's a lot more to it than that. As you can see from the pictures below, plants are very important to me as well. I'm creating a 'world within a world' and it has to look right. I still remember the moment I dumped the huge bag of Japanese soil in and how cool the white sand looked when I scooped it out of the bag and covered the substrate with a couple of inches of fine silica. It looked ever so pretty.
Next came the stones, and after a good scrub, I was able to include some rocks out of my garden as well as adding in some slate that Leigh donated to me. I also needed a whole pile of pebbles and ended up buying assorted bags of rough cut Tigers Eye as a contrast to the smoothness of the larger rocks.
In addition, I wanted a lot of bogwood. This allows the shy and nocturnal fish to hide away and also leeches nutrients into the water. Leigh has said I should expect the water to stain brown with tannins (a bit like very weak tea) but it hasn't happened yet. The bogwood adds depth and interest and certainly catches my eye with the textures and colours, enhanced by the clear water.
Next I added in a range of plants and it was a bit of a challenge getting them set into the substrate correctly. Placement is also an issue because you really have to see the end result in your mind and how, once matured and grown, the plants will sit with the stones and bogwood. If you dont have a clue about what you want it to look like and just bung in a load of shrubbery, it'll end up a complete mess. My aim was to make it look as natural as possible and I think, for the time being at least, I've achieved my goal.
So that was mostly done last weekend and I was able to sit on my sofa over the past few days and really take in what I've created. Of course I moved things around, took a few things out and even added features like air-stones, more rocks, a few more plants and some LED night-time moon lighting ... but now when I look at it, I can feel my mind immediately slow down and I find myself staring into the depths and really appreciating what I see. I've already lost a few hours of time with this new habit ... I expect to be loosing even more once the fish are in!
So finally, getting the water quality right has been a bit of a challenge. There are six main parameters for the water in any aquarium ... Temperature, Aeration, pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. Every one is dependant on the other and a small change in one parameter has effects both immediate and over time. Not wanting to get into discussions on chemical processes, I've been testing it every day and the levels are pretty much where I needed them to be.
click on any thumbnail to see the larger image
Of course, being a new tank, it needed a helping hand to get the Nitrogen Cycle kicked off and once again Leigh was my white knight, and allowed me to plug my filter into one of his tanks last night, and then swapped over some of his and my sponges to add bacteria. This has really helped the water chemistry and I get a feeling now that the tank has come to life.
It's been hard work getting it right but I think you'll agree from the pictures that it's a very pretty place indeed. With the water quality improving every day, my next challenge is to populate it with little pioneers, and the first colonists will be Danios and possibly Pepper Corys. Both are very hardy fish and can tolerate slightly wider water parameters.
I do hope they'll like it ...
Until next time ...
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