Your Basic, Fresh Water Aquarium

It has been almost a month since we have posted and many of you may wonder what we have been doing. I will try to publish a few posts in the next week or so to update you on what is new.

I decided that it would be fun to set up an aquarium again. (My family had an aquarium when I was growing up, I had a small aquarium in college, and most recently we had a bowl with a beta fish.) Since all my experience has been with fresh water aquariums so far, I decided to take the easy route and do another fresh water aquarium.

We decided on a 46 gallon, bow front aquarium from PetSmart and we brought it home on February 6. A couple of the brochures I had read and people I had talked to at the store said it would be ok to use softened water. I added three comets the first night and they had all perished by the time Sydney and I returned from her skating lesson on Saturday.

I went back to PetSmart a little later and the guy at the store thought the water was too warm for comets (the woman the day before said the comets wouldn't mind 80 degree water.) He sent me home with four mollies, a type of tropical community fish. Unfortunately, they were all belly up on the bottom of the tank by the time Carrie and I returned from seeing "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Eagan Regal later that night.

I went back to PetSmart on Sunday and talked to Emily who seems to know fish pretty well. She thinks that the softened water was causing vital compounds to be leeched from their little fish bodies. Dejected but hopeful, I went home, drained the tank, and refilled it with 80% hard water and 20% soft. I also adjusted the heater to a more temperate 77 degrees. I let the tank settle for a couple days and then took a water sample to the store.

Emily was working again. She tested the water and sent me home with five red wag tail platies. After acclimating to their new home for about an hour, the little guys seemed hungry so I dropped some flakes in. I was relieved to watch them swarm to the surface and eat like it was going out of style! (The comets and mollies were not interested at all in eating during their short stay at the Waldrop house.)

The good news is that it has been almost three weeks and the original crew is still alive and flourishing (best as I can tell). I added three additional platies - a sunburst variety - about 10 days ago and the tank appears to be cycling and healthy. Time will tell...

There are two males and six females. One male is larger and is clearly dominant. The males displayed some interesting behavior when they were fighting for dominance. At feeding time, the "alpha" male tends to swim near the top of the tank with the females. The other male appears to be an outcast, tending to stay near the bottom of the tank on the opposite end.

In case you are considering setting up your own tank, I thought I would list some of the associated costs below.

3 Comets: $0.36
4 Mollies: $11.96 (returned for money back)
8 Platies: $15.92
Total cost for set up and maintenance of the tank so far: $825.00
including 46 gallon tank with stand, hood and light, heater, thermometer, automatic feeder, gravel, under-gravel filter, twin biowheel power filter, powerhead filter, fish, plants, decorations, chemicals and test kits, and food.