Welcome to the Larquarium!
Today is October 21, 2012. And I love aquariums.
By no means am I an expert. If this were aquarium college I'd be a sophomore. I do a decent job. I have a lot to learn, but I'm enjoying it thoroughly, even if my wallet is not. Nobody told me how expensive this hobby was going to turn out to be.
In 2004 we upgraded from 3 small tropical tanks (and one goldfish tank) to one big 55-gallon. We were psyched. As we had done with the small tanks, we went to the pet store (Wet Pet, in McMurray, PA), bought our tank and our stand and our filter and our heater and our gravel and our decorations. And then we promptly came home, filled up the tank without checking the temperature of the water (it turned out to be around 92 degrees), netted our various fish, and tossed them right in.
Needless to say, we've come a long way since then. We made it through our first new tank syndrome, we make it through the night the tank exploded (I look forward to recounting that story in a future entry). There was the big gravel-to-flourite change, and the initial foray into plants (a huge fail). There were the dark years when I was pregnant with my kids and couldn't have cared less about the layer of grime and the brown algae, while my clown loaches grew bigger and bigger and my skirt tetras hung on like champs.
In the last few months, I've come back to the hobby. The tank was reborn with a lot of work, a lot of trips to the sink with a 5-gallon bucket (I love you, Python), and many hours of a wet right arm.
And then, just a few weeks ago, as we prepared for vacation, ich struck. My 9 years without a quarantine tank finally caught up with me. I paid the price with the lives of my beloved loaches, along with a school of cardinals and a spunky yoyo. I flushed Beer Belly, Bug Eye, Tiny and finally Gladys, the boss loach, one by one. Damn near broke my heart.
However, I persevere. And this shall be the documentation of that perseverance. Forward we march. Forward we swim.
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