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Guess where I am. Seriously, guess. I bet you can't. Ok, maybe you can. I'm at the Orlando Airport again waiting for my flight to Chicago. It's 6:35p.m. and we're supposed to be boarding, except that I don't see a plane in our terminal. It looks like we're going to be late, but as long as I get there sometime this evening, I'm ok. And yes, I am usisng American Airlines again. They are the only one that flies there in the evening. My other option is to leave an hour earlier, which I suppose isn't horrible in the grand scheme of things, but I'd rather not spend an extra hour out of my day not being at home.
But enough about flights. Let's talk about fish!
So back when we were living in the 700 sq. ft. apartment (one which I still thing is only 500, but everybody says it was 700), we bought a 10 gallon fish tank with the understanding that we were going to get a bigger one when we moved to a bigger place. And when the bigger place came, we had other things to buy like a dining room set, office furniture, etc. So we haven't managed to buy the 29 gallon that I originally wanted.
So when the time finally came, I decided to forego it a little bit longer. You see, we did the other tanks on the cheap. The 10 gallon is a goldfish tank which only cost us about $30. We have it on one of the end tables, so all we had to buy were the gravel, plants and fish. With the 29 gallon, we'd have to buy a stand, then the gravel and the tank and by the time it was all said and done the way that I wanted it, the tank would have been in excess of $500. So instead, of spending that, I decided to bling out the one that I have.
I bought the extra light (which is a 40 watt). If you want to grow low light plants, you'll need at least 3 watts to the gallon. I now have 4 watts to the gallon, so anything I put in (except the pickest of plants) should grow fairly well. I also bought a CO2 injector. And when I put them all together, they look like this fish tank here. And you know what? The minute the light turned on and the CO2 had been in the tank for 2 days, the plants started to bubble. I don't mean boiling bubbling. I mean that whole fifth grade science class bubbling. You could see some of the plants doing that whole photosynthesis thing. It was neat. I have no idea if any of it is making a difference in the tank. It should take about 2 weeks for me to see any difference. You may or may not see updates then. Depends on how busy I am.
My next project will be the 5 gallon tank. It's currently got an 18w light on it (it used to only have 8 and only the hardiest of plants ever survived that tank), but the CO2 injection will have to wait. I have to test the water every day to make sure that the PH hasn't gone down too much. (CO2 = reduced PH). But since it takes about 2 days for the yeast in the bottles to really start up, and since I'll be gone until Thursday night, I haven't started it. On Tuesday though, I'll make a yeast culture (bread yeast, sugar and water is all you need to make CO2), and then I'll start the experiment. My only concern is that there will be a huge algae bloom in there. That tank has puffers, which means no snails. The dwarf puffers will eat them! So that tank has always had algae problems. I'm hoping that the plants I have in there will grow fast enough to sufficate the algae. Who knows eh?
Oh look, my plane is here. Talk to you soon!