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.
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