Saturday, December 8, 2007

My first aquarium

Since I was a kid I dreamed about having fish in aquarium. First I wanted me a big aquarium (50x50 x 50 cm what is far from big, but for 8-year-old boy it was great. And parents said no way. OK. Than I wanted me a bowl with small fish (I even bought me a bowl but I never have balls to go and buy fish - thanks God for this). Than I forgot about aquarium and I was riding horses for a long while (more than a decade). However, I got that crazy idea back when I saw that I have nothing to do and almost no time for anything. And one day I saw nice aquarium full of fish and I got that childish look on my face and I started "Daddy I want my aquarium too, I want, want want". Ant that want was strong enough to search "Bolha" (Slovenian version of E-bay) portal and Find me nice middle-sized aquarium (80x40x50 cm). And then I started. I rearranged room, I bought all necessary stuff (I was listening and reading carefully before for a week or two to get at least basic information) I paid fucking lot of money. And then I started. I washed sand, I measured quality of water, I put first plants and decorations inside and almost broke Outside filter on first run (strange smell came out, because I wanted to run it dry. And then I finally managed to run it for first few days controlling water conditions and so on. Water was good and stable, first plants were fine and I added some more. And they are also good.
Then I added first two Ancistrus. They were doing fine (and still are), so I added also additional three Corydoras and they are preforming also great. Than I needed additional decoration and hiding place so I added nice root and some stone. things were doing just great but water was still empty. Aquarium was running for 14 days now - I is not much but I risked according to the fact that I had almost perfect water conditions. And here we go again. I started new cycle of developing my mixed area. I got me Platydoras (I am crazy about cat-fish), than I got me four scalares (Angelfish) - two classic white and black and two dark. I also got me also two Electric yellow cichlids and than I found out that my aquarium is almost perfect.

But only Almost so I added additional two plants and artificial cave for yellows.
For all professional attitude and good advices I am mostly indebted and grateful to Mr Pet zoo center in Ljubljana BTC. They provided me with most of what you can find in my aquarium or around it. But most important, they provided me constant monitoring of my aquarium and great new knowledge that helped that none of my fish died and none of my plants rotted so far.And here is my first aquarium in final version. It is not meant to be some natural habitat but it is my first attempt in aqaristics, where I want some of most interesting fish to live in the most optimal conditions I can gave to them.

1 comment:

Tanichthys said...

I must say that this little aquarium looks great!
Really like it!