Fishy tales - 1

"How do you clean and maintain the tank every week? It's a big work!", that's what many of my friends who have a look at our aquarium say. But before I say anything I will make it very clear that I am not an expert in aquarium matters; nor do I manage a 40-50 gallon tank. Though during my school days I have grown fish in an earthen tank and even seen the tiny guppies getting delivered in it, I am still a beginner as far as a glass aquarium (fish tank) is concerned. Well, it is only during the last winter I got to know that fish tanks need a heater. Yes, they do. Some of the tetras that I had, developed white spots all over their bodies. Heard from informed people that it was due to the Bangalore winter. These tropical fish are happy with water temperatures in the range of 22 - 28' C. But in this city, winters make the tanks pretty cool and these tiny fellows suffer. So I ended up getting a heater with a thermostat. We set the temperature at 24' C. 

A few months before that, I had kicked off Project Aquarium in Bangalore with a renewed vigour - with my old fish tank and 3-4 kilos of laterite in neat packs. My earlier attempts in Goa to have a good aquarium had failed. (For many reasons that I get to realise these days). But this time I wanted the Project to sail well. Therefore I decided it will have to be a planted aquarium. Generally most of us are used to seeing flawless designer plastic plants neatly placed, beautiful shells forming the bed and colourful toys giving out air bubbles in the aquarium. Usually such tanks had a pair or two of gold fish, a few (white or black) molly couples, and probably some guppies. These fish were fed twice a day. On a weekly basis the aquarium was thoroughly washed and made sparkling clean. Vim or Rin was used.  I heard some of them use even the Pril. But we learnt it was not the way the "hobbyists" did it. In the first place, the hobbyists did not buy goldies. 

I fell in love with the term "hobbyist". I did not want to be some X, Y or Z having a fish tank; I loved to be a hobbyist. So, to begin with, we decided not to have the "usual" gold fish. Then came the most important paradigm-shifting advice - the tank should not have goody-goody plants made of plastic; the tank needs live plants. To qualify for being a hobbyist the very basic thing is to have a planted tank. That's how I ended up opening 3-4 kgs of dull red laterite into my small, 10-gallon tank. There was a real shock in store for me when I slowly started pouring mugs of water into the tank. The whole tank looked bloody and dirty - like those after-wash buckets they show in washing powder ads. Oh, God! By then I had already sank 5-6 Rs.100 notes in my tank and I could not retreat. Some frenetic visits to the nearby aquarium shops brought me some solace. They asked me to be calm for the next 2-3 days; they said by then the dust particles too would settle down. In the mean time I was advised to go ahead with the planting task. 

Which plants? There are hundreds of varieties and most of them were know only by their botanical name - Vallisneria, Cabomba Caroliniana, Hygrophila polysperma, Cryptocorynes etc. It is like talking in terms of Mangifera indica, Nelumbo nucifera and Solanum lycopersicum instead of simply saying mango, lotus and tomato. Come on, it makes a lot of difference. Anyway, I was too worried about the dirty water than memorising the Greek and Latin names. So I just got some "good-looking" plants. It was a quite an experience planting in the tank; in water. These stuff are delicate and you got to be careful while filling the tank with more mugs of water. We should avoid creating unintentional whirlpools and tornadoes for these small, adorable under-water saplings.

I forgot to mention something more important. In a zeal to have the tank up and running over-night, I had bought the packets of laterite, bunches of plants - and also a variety of fish at one go. I think I got neon tetras, rummy-nose tetra and Singapore guppies. But I had a peculiar problem at hand. Though there were about 4-5 pairs of attractive fish in my small tank, nothing was clearly visible. Yes, blame it on the muddy water. It was terrible. I just hoped that I did not have visitors that time. They would have thought I was one crazy man to maintain a fish tank with murky waters. Unable to take it, I quickly switched on the sponge filter and went out with a hope that by the time I return at least some of the little fellows will be visible. Or rather, all of them will be alive till the mud settled. I got back to the spot after some hours. Luckily, things were better. And over the next 2-3 days, things did settle down. I too calmed down. 

Over the next 6-7 months I had bought a bottle of Japanese Do!aqua liquid nutrient for the plants (I have to apply 1/2 capful of this green liquid to the aquarium on a weekly basis) and a small Hajmola-type bottle of Chinese-made CO2 tablets (One tablet every two days, before food. I mean before I have my dinner I try to finish this work). This liquid supplement and the white tablet ensure that my Ambulia (or is it Cabomba Caroliniana?) and Amazonia sword survive - in spite of our struggle to find them a good source of light. That is a separate episode by itself! But never did I have the problem of "cleaning" the tank every week. Planted tanks are not to be washed and cleaned. In fact, that does not make any sense. It is like changing the soil of your potted rose plants every week. It kills the entire life-system. Instead, you just have to replace a few litres of water every week. It is as easy as that. So, don't worry about spending on more bars of Rin for your aquarium. Turn into a hobbyist.

But one fine evening, we got some other problem in the tank - our big, bovine, black Balloon molly was munching the white CO2 tablet...