There is little that is more relaxing than staring at dish swimming in an aquarium. There is also very little on this planet that is more of a pain than taking care of those fish. --Richard Lowe, Jr.
A couple of years ago I wandered into a pet store, looking for something for my cats. I have always liked animals, especially cats, and have spent many happy hours at zoos and wilderness parks, examining and studying the creatures that share this planet with humans.
This fine day my eye was caught by an aquarium. I had never considered getting fish before, but for some reason I decided it was time to try out a tank. I don't really know what came over me, but it just seemed like it was the right place and time.
I looked over the tanks at the pet store and quickly decided it would be best to buy a kit. Before making the purchase, I spent over an hour discussing my plans with one of the employees of the store. He told me everything I needed to know ... which seemed to be quite a bit.
As I drove home with my new fish tank (no fish yet, as the pet store employee told me I had to let the water "age" for a couple of weeks first) I wondered what I had gotten myself into. If I had know what was coming, I think I would have thrown the tank out the window.
When I arrived home I carefully set up my new ten gallon tank on the top of the dresser. I added the filter, air pump, gravel and water, then started up all of the equipment. If course, I forgot a few things and ran back to the pet store to pick them up. By the end of the night, the pump was going, the water was cycling and the aquarium looked great - empty, but great.
Over the next three or four weeks, I visited the pet store each weekend with my little vial of water from the aquarium. You see, the water has to be just right before you add the fish. The guy from the pet store would take my water, add a few drops of this and that, and a pellet of some other thing, look at it, jiggle it all around, then tell me, "nope, not ready". I had no idea what these arcane experiments meant but it all sounded official and made it seem very important.
Finally my water was pronounced "safe for hardy fish". The day had finally arrived! Much to my disappointment, I was only allowed to pick from a few fish, and I could only add two of them. I spent the next three hours studying each and every swimming creature until I found just the right pair.
The next few months were a great adventure. I religiously changed the water in the tanks weekly, I cleaned everything and I added a couple of fish a week until I had a dozen of them.
All was going fine until one summer day I invited my wife Claudia along to the fish store with me. While looking at the various swimming creatures she spied a huge snail. It was gorgeous, with an orange and white shell, cute (so she said) eye-stalks and one giant (for a snail) foot. The thing was over four inches long ... about the size of a small fist. Claudia named the creature "Darwin".
We bought the snail and another tank just for it. Claudia wanted a snail, and I (being a smart husband) want to make my wife happy. So she got her snail. A week later she wanted another one which she named Newton.
Within a couple of months the tank exploded with snails. There were hundreds of them all over the place. And somehow my tanks snail population exploded at the same time. We were fascinated as we watched these little animals eat, play and slither all around. Claudia spent countless hours observing their every move.
We soon discovered some interesting things about snails.
One day we came home and found Newton dead, totally removed from his shell. Claudia was devastated. She cried and cried (later, she was astounded she had so much emotion for a snail). A few days later, Darwin died, and Claudia cried again.
The other tanks became so filthy from the snails that Claudia and I decided to throw away everything. We tossed out the tanks, the filters and everything else. One fish survived and was carefully transferred to a new, five gallon tank. He was thoroughly and carefully checked for any trace of snail before he was moved to the new tank. I had learned that lesson well.
This little fish survived for many months in that tiny tank. He seemed happy enough, swimming around in circles all day long. He had it made - enough food, clean water, lots of air and good lighting.
The poor little guy finally died and I threw out the last of my aquarium supplies. At the time, I didn't want anything more to do with the hobby - it was too much work.
That attitude only lasted a short time, however. Another visit to the pet store and I soon fell in love with fish again. This time, though, I was determined to learn from all of my mistakes. I bought a bigger tank - a 29 gallon job. I got three huge filters to keep it all spotless. I aged the water perfectly and added the new fish slowly and methodically.
My excitement lasted over six months. It all went perfectly. The fish thrived as the water was perfectly balanced for them. The tank had over 20 fish (a lot for that size of tank) and they all lived long lives (for fish).
After a while, though, I got bored and didn't keep up the tank as well as I could. I've got to admit that while fish can be interesting and keeping up an aquarium can be fun -- it's basically incredibly boring.
One day about a year and a half after getting the large aquarium, the landlady decided she did not like the idea of having all of that water on the second floor. She asked me to remove the tank, and by that time I was more than ready to do so. I found a friend who wanted to start his own aquarium, and in one day we were able to move it, fish and all, to his place.
The fish are thriving to this day. I am happy because I don't have to take care of them anymore, and also because my electric bill dropped by fifty dollars a month! I think that I will not get another aquarium again - they are just too much work. It was fun, however, while it lasted.
Hi Richard,
Wow! What a page. You have a goodly amount of "stuff" there. First, I liked your design. Your colors and and your ocean fish picture are great it kinda gets you in the mood to hear all about your fish tales below.
Your CSS code validates beautifully and I think you ought to be proud of that, you have a slew of code in your external style sheet. It took me awhile to go over it. Nice use of border styles with the anchor styles. I'm impressed.
I also really liked your navigation "buttons" at the top of your page. What a cool use of an Unordered List with List Items as your buttons. I've never seen that before but I sure like the idea. Looking at your style sheet it looks like a lot of thought and work went into that navigation bar with all the border, padding, background colors, text colors and such.
Your frame around your paragraph text is like a jig-saw puzzle. In fact your whole page is pieced together like a fine mosaic. You put a lot of work put into your page. You said you were going to redo all your web pages, oh boy do you have your work cut out for you! With all that detail in your web design and code, I have a feeling you might be just a tad bit of a perfectionist. :-)
Good job I enjoyed your content and your design.
Guy Randall
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.