About 7 years ago my husband and I started two fish aquariums. These fish survived a three hour drive to a new apartment. Then another move around two years later to our current home. It's amazing what you can do with large cooelrs. Unfortunately we had a fish heater malfunction about a year ago that only left us with two very large plecostomus. One in a 29 gallon tank. The other in a 55 gallon tank. All by themselves. This allowed them the opportunity to grow over a foot long. They each took up their entire tanks, so we couldn't get any other fish. We found a local pet store willing to find them new homes.
We also decided to make our first attempt at using real plants. I love gardening, so how different can under water gardening be? Just kidding. From left to right I have these plants in the tank (photo above): Lemon bacopa, lace java fern clinging to the "wood", Amazon sword, red ludwigia, Italian Val along the back (tought to see), another lace java fern on the other piece of "wood", and a frill plant. There was a small tan snail mixed in with the frill plant that I got a PetSmart. I can't find it in the tank (I couldn't NOT put it in...I didn't want to kill it). Hopefully it doesn't multiply. The little blue bags contain gravel from the established tanks. I am also running the old filter cartridges from the established tank in the new tank. The former tank had no problems with disease, so I'm not worried about introducing anything harmful to the tank. I do want to introduce the good bacteria into the tank to help cycle it a little more quickly.
This all stemmed from my four-year-old son showing an interest in getting Dwarf African Frogs. We invested in some new lights and a glass cover and moved the tank to the living room. Now we are the proud owners of 8 Red Wag platties...all male. No baby fish are welcome here! That would cause a whole new fish problem. After a few weeks my son will get his frogs and some other tiny fish. Overall it has been a great experience for the family. We spend lots of time watching them swim around and eat. The kids are fascinated by them, and their smiles are worth every bit of work it took to get the tank up and running again.
About 7 years ago my husband and I started two fish aquariums. These fish survived a three hour drive to a new apartment. Then another move around two years later to our current home. It's amazing what you can do with large cooelrs. Unfortunately we had a fish heater malfunction about a year ago that only left us with two very large plecostomus. One in a 29 gallon tank. The other in a 55 gallon tank. All by themselves. This allowed them the opportunity to grow over a foot long. They each took up their entire tanks, so we couldn't get any other fish. We found a local pet store willing to find them new homes.
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