back to being an 'aquarist'

So, a few years ago, I developed a fascination with keeping fish in a tank thinking it would be quite cute and something nice to look at. Not long after I invested in a Fluval Edge tank aimed at beginners which had a……in summary, it was much more hard work than you think albeit super enjoyable. I’ll skip most of the story as it was several years ago and no longer relevant.

 

The interest has never really gone away but it never really seemed practical (or fair?) to keep fish anymore especially with moving into central London student accommodation to do my master’s degree and later PhD. Well that all changed very quickly over the last few months. Firstly, my PhD supervisor is an archaeobotanist who also happens to enjoy growing his own aquatic plants in tanks along with fish and shrimp. Secondly, a friend of mine has jumped over years of practice and gone straight for a marine tank in his student accommodation. This was all too much for me and the itch culminated in me taking advantage of black Friday sales. So now I am the proud owner of a 34L Fluval Flex. The problem was that I got the tank but was determined not to go rushing into it and so to date, I have probably consumed over 50 hours of YouTube videos and blogs about freshwater fish, aqua scaping, aquatic plants etc etc (I promise I put an equal amount of effort into my PhD). I’m also a big fan of supporting local business so after some advice, I headed down to an aquatics store in Balham, London and started the process of building up my tank.

 

First things, first. I needed a good substrate on the base of my tank in order to provide somewhere for the plants to hold onto. The guy at the store (who is super helpful) also advised some fertile soils to make a thin base at the bottom of my tank so that future rooted plants can have something to get a bit of extra food from. On top that, I went for a relatively light coarse sand. This is good because it has more surface area than sand for ‘good bacteria’ to stick too (for the Nitrogen Cycle – will talk about this next time) and still provides something stable for plant roots to take hold in. Next, I got a couple of dragon rocks to help build up my new aqua scape. Finally, I got myself a couple of Java Ferns – they are supposed to be super easy plants that can tolerate beginners a wide change in water conditions. Add the water a there we go (Photo 1).

I am actually missing an entire of week of allowing my tank to cycle so will skip forward to today. I received a text from my PhD supervisor saying he will harvest me some plants.....then he asked if I want some shrimp. I will do some posts later on about the types of plants and other things inside my aquarium but as of today, I have a nice little aquascape going on with a few different species of plant and some gorgeous cherry shrimp. Originally, I counted 7 of them in bag but of the course of the evening, I have only been able to find 4. I'm not too concerned though because they are tiny, and I have a nice little underwater forest going on.  

 

So yeah. This just a very quick zoom through of the where I am at with my new tank. I will let it sit for about month and give the plants a chance to get comfortable and start to grow before I consider adding any fish. In the meantime, though I will write a little but more about this hobby. Hope you enjoy.