Allen Echiverri ... Craigslist Victim!

Contrary to my previous post, I am, in fact, a Craigslist victim.  LOL!

It's funny how sometimes you do something stupid that turns out to have been a good thing.  My stupid something? Well ... I wanted to check how water was circulating in the tank to see how I should position things. So how would you check on the flow?  As for me, I thought, why not food coloring?  LOL!

Food coloring doesn't hurt anything, so I dropped a few squirts of red in one corner, a few drops of blue in another, same with green and yellow.  Interesting watching how things go.  Was actually insightful.  Then I thought that the filter would remove the food coloring overnight.  LOL!  Wrong.  Woke up to a brown tank.

So I went to wash the tank.  Slowly emptying it out ... what a pain in the ass.  But it was a learning moment.  When I had the tank tipped over, I noticed that the plastic trim around the bottom was coming off.  Uh-oh.

So I checked around to see how much it would cost to order a new plastic base.  Found that I can get a new plastic frame for $4.00.  Then I thought, OK, not bad.  But then read further ... minimum order is $20 and shipping is $14.95 min.  $35 to replace trim.  On the other hand, I can get a brand-spanking new tank from Petco for $55.  So I did.

It's a 29 Gallon instead of a 30, wider rather than tall.  A little too wide for the space at the end of the counter, but a wider tank will actually be better for showing a planted aquarium ... and I do have to admit that the tall tank made it hard to reach the bottom of the tank for cleaning or maintenance.

Alas.  Long and short is an aquarium (especially a big one) shouldn't be something you get off of Craigslist.  Thank God it was only $10.  Maybe I can make it into a greenhouse to raise rose cuttings so it's not a total waste.  But maybe I'll see if I can order a trim through my local fish shop.  It would be nice to raise Angelfish again.

So let's see where that leaves us:

$10.00 -- Craigslist tank
$29.95 --AquaClear 50 Filter
$60.08 -- New Fish Tank (54.99 + 5.09 sales tax)

$100.03 -- Total Costs so far

Starting the Cycle

Heartened by the judgment of the Wet Web Media crew, I decided to go ahead with the 30 gallon Craigslist tank.  :-)  First step is to test out the tank in its new home and to start cycling it.  What does cycling a tank mean?  Whenever you start up a new tank, or completely change the water in an aquarium, have you ever noticed that the water starts to cloud up after a couple of days?  You think to yourself, "Sheesh!  This thing gets dirty, quick!" and your natural tendency is to clean out the tank again.

What happens?  When you put fish in the tank, you feed them and their waste produces ammonia.  Out in the wild, fish eat and poop all they want.  But remember, in the wild, the proportion of fish to water is a whole lot better than in a fish tank.  And in the wild, the water is constantly running.  A fish tank is a closed environment.  In it, the ammonia produced would cause a fish to eat and poop til it died.  So, to help out aquarium life, nature gives up bacteria.  When you see the cloudy water, it's because the bacteria are in full bloom seeking to bring some sort of equilibrium to the tank.  They take the ammonia, turn it into nitrites, and then the nitrite into nitrate which the plants can absorb and fish have learned to live alongside it.  Cycling can take a few weeks.

Remember those carnival fish you'd take home as a prize?  How often did they just die overnight?  That's because they weren't in the best shape in the first place, and most likely when you brought it home, you put it right into an uncycled fish bowl.  Shock + weakness + ammonia build-up = death.  So while testing the integrity of the tank, I thought it would be good to start cycling the new tank.

I filled the tank up with about 10 gallons of water and dechlorinated it.  Then I took a gallon of the water from Bully's current small apartment of an aquarium and poured that into the tank.  Since I don't have any test fish to feed and then produce waste starting the cycle, I had Bully help me out.  Then I took a gallon from the tank and refilled Bully's tank with that.

I also pulled out one of the plants and threw it in there to help the process.  Then I borrowed the filter from Bully's tank and ran it for a few hours to help share the bacteria (apparently, bacteria love to hide in filters).  I stirred up the gravel in Bully's tank to collect some mulm (the waste in the gravel), and then I threw in an Eco-Bio Rock which I had from before (they tell me that if you pull it out and dry it and store it, the bacteria will hibernate and will live for another day.  I e-mailed the Onedersave people to ask if my rock was still good and they responded:

----Original Message-----
From: ONEdersave-Customer Service <customerservice@onedersave.com>
To: Allen Echiverri
Sent: Mon, Jun 6, 2011 6:18 am
Subject: Re: EcoBio-Rock

Hi Allen,

EcoBio-Rock bacteria go dormant until you put it in water again. But it may take a little longer when restarting. You should definitely try using it.

Thank you for your interest in EcoBio-Block Products.

Customer Service

ONEdersave Products LLC

Clear Water - Healthy Fish

EcoBio-Block

So, I'm giving it a shot. :-)

Then, while all this was going on, the filter I ordered arrived this morning from Amazon, safely delivered by the Ontrac guy.  I don't know how Amazon found OnTrac as a delivery service, but my guy is fantastic.  He makes deliveries before 8AM because he knows that I'm usually checking the roses out front around that time!  Good guy.

In any case, I decided to go with an Aqua Clear 50 filter because it can be adapted to an under-gravel filtration system to promote movement under the substrate which I will lay down next week, improving oxygen to the roots of the plants.  Now some people say an HOB filtration system (Hang on Back) disturbs the water surface too much with its "waterfall" effect and will diminish the CO2 I'll be injecting into the aquatic environment (the plants will need CO2 to flourish).  But I don't think that will be too much of a concern because the tank is tall and the water from the filter will glide into the tank.  I'm also considering anchoring some floating plants in the filter case outflow reservoir into the aquarium to ease the re-entry.  We'll see about that.

Again, to help with the cycling process, I made use of Bully's home.

Mind you, this filter can pump 300 gallons of water an hour.  At its lowest setting, it goes at 66 gallons/hour.  Bully's current tank is 3.5 gallons.  LOL!  You can see him on the other side of the tank swimming to stay still!

The filter has a sponge at the bottom, a charcoal pouch, and then some ceramic doo-dads that are supposed to help keep good bacteria.  Most of the things I've read say there's no need for the charcoal because it could purify out things you want to keep in.  I'll run it while cycling, especially with the new water, and then try pulling it out after the tank is cycled.

So that's where things stand today.  Let's hope the take makes it through the night!  :-)


Cost summary:


Tank:  $10.00
Filter:  $29.95
Total to date:  $39.95

The Bully Problem

So ... you know how it goes when you have this idea and a preconceived vision of how things are supposed to go?  Well, the next issue to confront me is the fact that Bully is a Goldfish and Goldfish are omnivores.  Yeppers.  They eat plants.  LOL!  So ... what to do?  Is my idea of a planted aquarium for my Mom's Fantail a no-go from the get-go?

Then I started thinking about what I was doing ... am I creating a habitat for Bully?  Or do I want to create an aquascaped aquarium in which Bully merely resides?  Goldfish are a pain in the butt!

You know what's great about the internet?  You realize that you're never alone.  Many others have faced the problems you're currently facing before.  They've dealt with the issues and you can learn from them.  So I googled the search term:  Goldfish Planted Aquarium.  The results led me to this wonderful site:

Goldfish and Plants: The Low-Tech Approach

Fantastic!  Tried and tested results!  So I googled each of the plants listed to see what they look like to start planning what I wanted in my tank ... I mean Bully's new home.  Hehehe!  So that's a start.  So then the question was where would I get the plants?

I went into a big-chain pet store (won't mention the name of it so I won't get sued) and thought, "Hmmmm ... I won't be getting plants here!"  In one tank, there was a Tiger Barb dead amidst some of the plants.  In another, the bamboo was covered in algae.  In another, dead Angelfish floating in the foliage.  How I wished I was close to Subscape!

So then I thought about ordering online.  Things that you learn ... there is a place in Ohio that had most of the plants that I wanted, but then California has some pretty strict agriculture laws and quite a few of them couldn't be shipped.  Then I thought, OK, let's search for places in California to order from.  And wouldn't you know it ... there's a place not too far away that is San Francisco's version of Subscape!

Aqua Forest Aquarium

It's just down the road from St. Mary's Cathedral, in Japantown. Really cool website.  I'll probably swing by there tomorrow.  Want to see the range of plants and all that to get the broad idea.  Perhaps you'll remember this about me ... I'm not an impulse shopper.  I go to a store a minimum of three times to look around before I actually make a purchase.

This planted aquarium challenge has been truly that thus far!

[btw, yes, that really is Bully above!  I'm really pleased with the Sony Alpha camera my Sisters and Mother got me for my birthday!  I can use all the lenses I had from my Minolta Maxxum system (Sony bought out Minolta and all the lenses and accessories are compatible), so all these pics have been with the new camera!]

Getting a Tank on Craigslist

Now this is where the cheap-ass side gambles and, more often than not, always costs me more money.

First, the tank size.  The tank is going on a granite countertop on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.  So the space is a yard wide.  Needing space on either side, I figured that 24" would be the widest I'd want it.  I was thinking that a 24"x12"x20" tank would be cool -- 25 gallons.  I saw one at Petco, but as part of a kit.  But who needs the light hood, the filter, the gravel, etc., that comes in a kit when the light doesn't give you the wattage needed for a planted aquarium, the filter isn't strong enough for a goldfish tank, and you need substrate, not decorative gravel.  I just wanted a tank.

Then the inherent urge to go as cheap as you can go struck.  By chance, I checked on Craigslist.  And guess what?  There was a woman renovating her home who wanted to get rid of an old tank.  Was a 24"x12"x24" -- 30 gallons.  My only concern would be if it would be too tall for my Mother to reach into to feed Bully.  So I took the yardstick to the breakfast bar and was satisfied she could easily drop food in.  Besides, stretching a bit would be good therapy, right?  :-)

So I e-mailed the post and the woman assured me that there was no leakage.  So on the way home from church on Sunday, I dropped by her house and traded two $5 bills for a tall 30-gallon tank.

On Monday, I took it to the backyard, put it on a level surface and cleaned it out.  Now the internet is a wonderful thing.  My first thought was to wash it out with soap.  But then I checked the net googling the question "how do you clean an aquarium".  Can't remember the site that I went to, but found sage advice.  Don't use soap -- it's a pollutant and kills fish.  That made me think back to when I was like 7 or so and I cleaned out a fishbowl with soap and I guess I didn't rinse well enough ... the next morning, the fish was dead.

But then I read some good advice.  Use bleach.  Bleach cleans really well ... just rinse it all out a few times.  And if there's residual bleach left, the chemicals you use to dechlorinate water will most likely take care of that.  Easy enough!

Then I filled the tank with water to make sure there was, in fact, no leaking.  Left it sitting for six hours and no leaking.  Phew!  I was glad I wasn't a Craigslist victim.

This morning, I cleared off space for the tank and thought that it would fit the space well.  My Mother laughed that Bully would feel like he was in the ocean.

I added a few gallons of water to make sure there was no leaking, and laughed again when I saw that 3.5 gallons in the new tank was barely at 3 inches.  Bully would definitely have more fun swimming around!

Then ....  Craigslist is too good to be true.  I noticed at the base of the aquarium, the plastic trim was cracked.  And it looked like someone used a dark resin to try to repair the crack.

So I started thinking ... with the substrate and the water, a 30 gallon tank would weigh well over 300 lbs.  I can just imagine the plastic failing and then starting to separate and then the weight of the tank causing a colossal failure.  Whoosh!  30 gallons of water, 60 lbs of substrate flooding the kitchen!  Not a good thought. So then I thought, let's see what Mr. Google says.  Some people out in cyber land reported failures that I envisioned.  Others advised that it was merely cosmetic.  Not too sure about that.  Alas, $10 down the drain. Allen Echiverri -- Craigslist victim!

But not wanting to be a victim, I sent those pics to the Wet Web Media crew to solicit their advice.  On other issues of tank trim cracking they have been cautious.  So I thought, let's see what they say about mine.  Their response?  Purely cosmetic!  Hooray!  Allen Echiverri ... not a Craigslist victim!  :-)

Still, I think to myself, you're an idiot.  Here, this tank is going to be in the house for years and years to come and your cheap-ass attitude causes you to hesitate getting a nice looking tank?  LOL!  On the other hand, the pragmatic side of me thinks, hey, the tank works and it doesn't look bad.  My Mother likes it.  LOL!  My frugal nature wins out!  Not going aquarium shopping anymore.  In the meantime, I'm thinking to myself that how cool is this?  For $10, I got a 30 gallon tank ... whereas $10 also could get me ten boxes of Mike and Ike's at Safeway.  Ah, the relative value of things in life.  Of course, let's see if I would have been better off with the Mike and Ike's if I find 30 gallons of water flooding the kitchen!  Hehehe!  We shall see!

Why a Planted Aquarium?

I was living down in Melbourne and a couple of blocks away from my flat was this Aquarium store called "Subscape".  It was a pretty non-descript place, but there always seemed to be cars parked in front.  So one day I walked in and felt like I hopped into a fairyland of sorts.  I even started humming "Under the Sea".  I mean I knew that big city Aquariums "aquascaped", but it never occurred to me that you could aquascape the aquarium in your home.  We're talking "Allegory of the Cave" serious enlightenment here!

Here's a link to Subscape ... it's a really cool place though the pics don't do it justice. It's mostly dark when you're there:

Subscape Aquarium

Whenever I would be in a frustrated mood, I would walk the couple of blocks and just get lost for a while.  It sucked hugely that I wasn't in a position to start an aquarium given my frequent inter-continental moves, so I sorta felt like that store was my aquarium.  Fast forward to my extended stay in San Francisco.

As you can see from Bully's old home in my previous post, our imagination in decorating a tank was limited to what was in the aisles of Petco.  And there really wasn't much you could do with a 3.5 gallon tank.  I wanted to start a planted aquarium after I did my research and learned that goldfish really needed at least 10 gallons a fish ... but being gone so often, everyone at home thought it would be too much trouble to take care of everytime I'd be gone.  But then the Christchurch earthquake happened.  I lost my flat and my office at the University of Canterbury was in the Law Building that sustained substantial foundational damage.  So I made arrangements to do my research abroad, and came back home to San Francisco for an extended stay.

So now, with time on my hands, I decided to embark on a planted aquarium challenge.

A New Home for Bully

As part of my Mother's therapy from heart surgery five years ago, my sister Kathleen got her a small 3.5 gallon fish tank.  My Mother's responsibility would be to feed the fish.  Who knew it would be so hard to raise goldfish.  It seemed that every time I came home for a visit, there were new fish!  After about a dozen candidates who didn't seem to like living in the tank, I picked up a small Fantail and a bigger Oranda to give the Comet some company.  But, then I started reading up and realized what a big mistake that was -- goldfish produce a lot of waste and pollute a tank really easily (especially with my Mother's penchant for overfeeding him because "he looks hungry!").  But the fantail took care of things for himself ... by the next time I came home, the Comet and the Oranda were gone ... dead, thanks to the Fantail.  Kathleen nicknamed him Bully.  Two years later, and home for a while with some time on my hands, it's time to give Bully a bigger home.