Blue is a rare color in nature, especially in freshwater fish. It is really hard to find. My best theory says the reason for that is because blue things stand out in nature and are more likely to be eaten—but that’s just a theory.

So, anyway, if you’re tired of red and yellow, or black and silver, here is my list of blue fish you can put in a community tank (note, this list excludes varieties that are difficult to keep, like African Ciclids or Discus).

SEVEN: Zebra Danios have blue and yellow stripes. They’re pretty cool, but the blue only shows up in direct sunlight. I like Zebra Danios. I bought a whole bunch and put them in my 20 gallon tank, but they have been disappearing. I think my Red-Claw Crab has been having a little midnight snack. I digress.

SIX: Also on my list are the Powder-Blue Gouramis. These are really kind of washed out, and not really a vivid blue, but they are blue nonetheless.

FIVE: For a less washed-out shade of blue you can try some three-spot gouramis. They have one spot on their tail, one spot in their middle, and their eye makes a third spot. Here’s a pic of one I got from About.com

FOUR: Did you know you could get blue Mickey Mouse Platties? I was very impressed, so I bought a whole bunch. I have six of them. In the right light they really show their color. In normal light they look powder blue. Here’s a pic:

THREE: Next on my list are Opaline Gouramis. I read in my fish book that these guys can be fairly aggressive. They grow to six inches. I bought one, thinking they were pretty cool. I got the bluest one I could find. He was only half the size of the yellow gourami in my tank, but he soon asserted himself at the top of the pecking order. Man, feisty! He is now the same size as the yellow gourami.

TWO: Neon Tetra. I hadn’t realized how brilliant blue these guys can be until I passed a tank full of them in a pet store. They’re not pure blue, but they have a brilliant, iridescent blue stripe. Very attractive. I wish they got bigger. I won’t buy them. Here’s a nice pic from aquariumfish.net (one of my favorite sites)

ONE: Betas are next on my list. If you want pure blue in a freshwater fish, this one is hard to beat. Unfortunately, they are not compatible with everything. It will attack anything that has looks remotely like another beta. This includes anything with long fins, or fins that stick up (like angel-fish). These fish can be super aggressive. They flare out their gills and spread out their fins. It is very dramatic to watch. To their detriment, they are really tiny, and their long fins make them fairly slow swimmers, so they are easily bullied by other aggressive species (especially tiger barbs). They mix well in a small community tank with peaceful fish that DON’T look like betas, like white clouds and neons. Gouramis and bala sharks also do all right. It’s too bad they aren’t more peaceful. Their vivid colors would make them super popular.

I had a beta once. He attacked my angel-fish. Apparently angel-fish look very aggressive the way their fins splay out, so the beta thought they were challenging him to a fight. I had to move the beta to the 20 gallon tank, but that tank has a mirror in the back and he kept attacking his own reflection and wouldn’t eat. Finally I took him to a pet store and unloaded him. That’s when I got the blue platties. The pet store owner told me that customers commonly complain about betas attacking angel-fish. Go figure. Here is a pic from somewhere on the web.

If you are a little more advanced, you can definitely do better than this list. African Cichlids sport some pretty amazing colors, and are definitely king of the freshwater blues, IMO. Also, breeders have managed to create some very striking breeds of blue discus (you have to order them over the web). Discus can be a PITA if you aren’t that serious about keeping fish. They are expensive and disease prone—definitely not worth it if you are only half-way committed. Someday I’ll give them a try, if I ever live somewhere that the tap water isn’t super, super hard.

Frogs Part 1

This is part 1 of a three-part series.

I took my kids to the local pet store last summer, a mom and pop outfit named “Pet Planet.” They have a wide selection of every kind of thing you can find at Petco or PetSmart. I am always on the lookout for anything unique that isn’t a fish—not that I don’t like fish, but critters add quite a bit of character to an aquarium. In the past, I have had ghost shrimp, red-claw crabs, snails, fiddler crabs, African dwarf frogs, and one very elusive bamboo shrimp that I saw a total of two times.

On that particular day they had two tanks full of tadpoles. I felt really excited and got my kids’ attention.

“See these? These are tadpoles. They turn into frogs.”

Of course, you can’t say such a thing without your kids insisting that you buy some, so I got two and took them home. I dumped them in the 20 gallon aquarium and let them do their thing.

Tadpoles are kind of awkward and dopey. They lack fins, so they have a hard time staying upright, and they waddle as they swim. The two that I bought spent most of their time foraging in the gravel, or laying like a slug at the bottom of the tank, looking half dead.

After a couple of weeks, they sprouted back legs. They look like tiny flippers, that come in at the base of the tail. They gradually elongate into fully developed legs. It was fascinating to watch. I took photos of one as he developed. Here you can see his back legs. They still aren't functional.

The front feet come a couple weeks later. They form inside the body at first, then a large bump develops on either side in the center of the body.

Then the front legs sprout right out. It happens over about 6 to 8 days. Here he is again now with fully developed front arms. You can also see his eyes are starting to look more frog-like.
After that, things happen pretty quickly for the frog. They lose their gills, their lungs develop, and their tail shrinks as they metabolize it back into their system. During this time, the frog cannot eat because the mouth is also undergoing a major metamorphosis from the rasping mouth of a tadpole to a mature mouth much like the one that terrestrial animals have.

Here you can see this one's almost done. I stuck him in a yellow bucket so I could get a really good look. He's already an expert jumper!

A little research told me that in nature, many frogs spawn in puddles and streams that dry up and disappear in a few weeks’ time. They do all their development in those few weeks. They might still have their tails, but they can hop, and they will be fully capable of fending for themselves.

I also learned that frogs spawn several times during the warmer months. Quite often, tadpoles that are born during the latter part of the season will halt their development as the weather grows colder, and winter comes they wait it out just like a fish. When it warms up in springtime, they will resume their development, and be fully developed by May.

This last part is important to keep in mind if you keep tadpoles. They develop very quickly in a heated tank, and very slowly in an unheated tank. In fact, one of my tadpoles developed completely into a frog, and the other one (which was the same age) stayed a tadpole for two months. He turned into a frog in the space of two weeks when I plopped him in the larger tank (which is kept at 85 degrees).

Here's the same guy, now, all grown up. He's just under an inch long.

Frogs are fun. In part 2, I'll talk about setting up a frog tank.

How to Fix a Leaky Aquarium

It turns out that aquarium leaks are pretty easy to fix, even ones that look pretty severe. As long as the glass panels are not cracked or badly chipped, you can do it yourself and fix the largest aquariums for well under $10. The real cost is going to be measured in time. It is best if you can empty the entire tank, but you might not have that luxry. All in all, the whole process is pretty easy. In fact, if you have ever re-caulked your bathroom tile, fixing an aquarium leak should be a snap.

I happened to be perusing a local second hand store, called Deseret Industries, and I found a 65 gallon aquarium for only $7.00. It was pretty dirty, but there were no cracks and it seemed to be in pretty good shape. I could take it home, clean it up, then advertise it on Craigslist. Even if it had leaks, I could sell it to someone who kept reptiles and still make a killing. All in all it was a safe deal.

The first thing I needed to find out was whether or not it leaked. I put it on the floor of my garage and filled it with the garden hose. I soon found out why someone had gotten rid of it. The leak was pretty severe, and in no time at all I had a major flood in my garage. I felt really sorry for the previous owners. 65 gallons can cause an extensive amount of water damage. I had quite a challenge ahead of me.

You will need the following items:

• A tube of silicone sealant. Use only non-toxic, 100% silicone, clear sealant.
• A razor blade scraper

The sealant is the most important part. It should cost you between $3.00 and $5.00. Not a bad investment, all things considered.

Some other things you might need:

• Acetone (nail polish remover) for cleaning the area around the leaky spot
• Paper towels
• Felt tip marker (to mark the leaky spot)

REMEMBER: This job will take some time. You aren’t going to fix an aquarium leak in 10 minutes.

Some things to consider:

• The patch will work best if you fix the leak from the inside of the aquarium.
• The patch will be the strongest if you re-seal both the inside and the outside.
• The patch will look best if you re-seal the whole edge where the leak was found—not just the immediate area of the leak.

You can try to do this with your fish still in the tank, but it will be best if you can safely move your fish somewhere else. All of the chemicals used in this process are toxic until they have dried up or cured. Go down to Target and get a large plastic bin. You can hang your filter and heater from the side and your fish can live there happily for several days.

Preparation:

1. (optional) mark the spot where the water is leaking with a marker or a grease pencil.
2. Drain the aquarium completely and empty it out.
3. Clean the area around the leak. Make sure there is no algae, or lime deposits, or salt creep. Use a sponge to get the area wet, then scrape it clean with a razor blade.
4. Make sure the spot you are going to seal is completely dry. Wipe the spot off with a towel and then let it sit for an hour or two.
5. Using the razor blade, cut the silicone away from the leaky area. Cut away an additional one or two inches beyond the leaky area.
6. Clean away any grit or grime that had accumulated underneath the old sealant.
7. (optional) Cleanse the area with a bit of acetone applied to a paper towel.

Apply the sealant:

1. (optional) If you want the new seal to have a nice, even edge, you can apply a strip of masking tape along both sides of the area.
2. Apply an even bead of silicone sealant to the area, a little less than 1/4 inch wide. Make sure the sealant gets forced into the crack between the two pieces of glass.
3. Using your finger or a tool, smooth the bead over to give it a nice rounded shape. This also forces some of the sealant into the crack.
4. Strip away the masking tape immediately after you are done.
5. Let the sealant dry for 24 hours.

Testing the seal

1. Fill the tank up completely.
2. Let it stand for another 24 hours.

Bamboo Shrimp

I have a bamboo shrimp. I went to the pet store one day looking for critters (something besides fish). All they had was a unique little brown guy, called a bamboo shrimp. I found a website that has some good info:

http://www.petshrimp.com/bambooshrimp.html

Here is a photo from the website:

I took him home and put him in the 55-gallon tank. He was kind of interesting, but didn’t do much. The next morning when I came downstairs to feed the fish, the little guy was gone. Lying suspiciously on the floor was a bamboo shrimp sized carapace. I thought at first that he had molted, but since I couldn’t find him anywhere I had to conclude that it had been eaten. I was devastated. Well, I hope whoever ate him enjoyed their little $6.00 snack. Anyway, I figured that’s what keeping an aquarium is all about: experimenting with different combinations of species.

Then about three months later I see something sailing around the tank in long, graceful arcs, finally coming to rest on the top of a log. I knew I didn’t have any fish that size in that tank—just otocinclus, which dart and wiggle. When I took a closer look, I found it was my little bamboo shrimp. I tried netting it so I could put it in the smaller tank (and maybe I’d see it more than once in a blue moon), but it got away and promptly vanished.

I think I’ll name it Hale-Bopp since he appears about as often—every 4,200 years (okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration). Comet Hale-Bopp appeared auspiciously in the sky, two months after my wife and I got married in 1997, a dazzling white smudge, which felt very gratifying after missing out on Haley’s comet (BOOOOO!), a mere, brief cosmic event, a fleeting wonder to behold. Just like my little bamboo shrimp.

Feeding Your Fish

The experts advise that you feed your fish 2 times a day. Give them just enough food for them to eat in about five minutes' time. This is a pretty good rule of thumb--but it differs depending on what you have in your tank and the size of your tank!

When I bought my first 10-gallon tank, I had all kinds of fish--mostly little ones. I overfed constantly. Gradually a layer of scum built up on the floor of the aquarium. So I tried to compensate by feeding way too little. My fish got super-duper scrawny, then started dying. It was a frustrating experience.

Helpful tip #1: I have a small spoon that I use. It's not a measuring spoon because they are too deep. It is more of a toddler's spoon (I have lots of toddlers). Don't use a baby spoon because they are too flat and shallow. I keep my spoon on top of the aquarium, and I feed using that, every day. Because the spoon is shallow, all the flakes lay flat and I have a reliable way of telling how much food I am giving them.

I have found that the five-minute rule is a really solid rule of thumb, however, twice a day in my experience has been a little much. I have lost a lot of fish because of barely overfeeding them. The fish get really, really fat, then the food rots in their gut, then they get sick and die. Very sad. My tank water was very clean, I had no accumulated waste, but I was still losing fish.

After talking to people at several pet stores, I came up with a strategy that seemed to work really well. Feed my fish like I normally do, but reduce the feeding time to once every other day. I decided to feed them on even-numbered days. The strategy worked, and my fish lived. One guy told me that fish can go for quite a few days without eating. I have let my aquarium go over a 3-day weekend.

Helpful tip #2: A fish's stomach is about the same size as its eye. When you feed your fish, you want to fill the stomach all the way. This can be hard to estimate since flakes are flat, but if your fish are about 1 to 2 inches long, they will eat about two large flakes.

The once every other day strategy worked well before I moved. Back then, my 20 gallon tank had zebra danios and silver-tip tetras. These fish don't graze along the bottom, so I had to rely on the corey cats to clean up. Things are very different in my new tank. In my 55-gallon tank, I have angelfish, gouramies, clown loaches and bala sharks. All of these fish graze. They are constantly picking at the bottom of the tank. They eat everything, and they eat constantly. In fact, they graze so much that most of my corey-cats have died. I now over-feed by just a bit, and I feed once a day.

Here's another problem. Suppose you have just a few fish in a huge tank. This can be a problem because your fish might not get to all their food in five minutes' time. Your fish can starve, even though you're over-feeding them. Fish that like to stay hidden are especially prone to this problem.

It looks like the five-minute, twice a day rule is a good starting point, but it really depends on how big your fish are, how many fish you have, and the eating habits of your fish.

Goldfish are grazers. You can overfeed them by just a small amount, and the tank will stay relatively free of decomposing food. Zebra danios and platties are not grazers. If food is on the bottom, they will swim right over it.

Here is a problem that many people have probably run into. Early on, I became a big fan of bio-wheel filters—it is a really cool technology. However, any time you have a filter that sits on the back of your tank and pours water back into your aquarium (like a waterfall), food floats around the top of the water until it goes under the waterfall. Then it gets dunked under water and starts floating around until the filter sucks it up. You will come back five minutes later and find all the fish food gone, but your fish are still really thin, so you feed and feed. Eventually the back of your filter gets super clogged with rotten food because your filter is eating all the food and your fish aren't getting any.

I thought about this problem for a while, and then came up with an idea. I could get a piece of wooden plank (like a 1x10, down at Home Depot). I could cut off a square piece and then use a jigsaw to cut a large hole in it so it looks like a square ring. The ring would float on the water, and I could dump all the food in that. The food doesn't swirl around--it stays in one place, and it stays out of the filter. Cool idea?

Helpful tip #3: Get a feeding ring. Stick it in a spot of the tank where there is an eddy in the surface current, and it will stay there. Don't get a little one unless you have a really tiny tank. Get a big one.

Well, I was browsing at PetSmart one day and found out that someone else had invented that very thing! Cool! It's called a feeding ring. Here's a pic:

It's made of foam-rubber. I thought it would float all over the place and then get sucked under the waterfall, but when I placed it next to the filter, the waterfall pushed it away. Nice! I keep it in a corner of the tank where there is an eddy in the surface currents, and it just stays there. At feeding time my fish got used to going to that corner pretty quickly. They make quite a mess, but not a big one, and it stays out of the filter; and just enough food floats around so that all the fish that like to stay at the opposite corner of the tank get something to eat. Man, I'm a believer in these things.

Helpful tip #4: You can make your own feeding ring by taking a Styrofoam tray—you know, the ones that come with the ground beef that you buy at the grocery store? Using a sharp knife, cut out the bottom, leaving only ¼ inch around each side. Be careful not to break it. This will give you a nice, large, very cheap feeding ring. If you keep the water level in your tank just right, no one will ever know you have a cheap piece of Styrofoam in your aquarium! Reduce, reuse, recycle! :)

My only other piece of advice would be to get a BIG one. They sale all kinds of little tiny ones. Don't get a tiny one unless you have a tiny tank (i.e., 1 to 5-gallon). The bigger ones give the fish room to feed without having to crowd together. If your fish are aggressive, a larger ring will give them less of an excuse to fight or compete.

Red Claw Crabs

I think critters add a lot of character to a tank, and they do some pretty interesting things, too—that is, besides just swim around. I asked around quite a bit and got a whole bunch of advice. In today’s blog, I will talk about one of my favorite critters, red claw crabs.

This isn't the best photo. They are very well camouflaged, and are hard to photograph.

I saw a tank full of these guys at Pet Smart, and bought the biggest one—a lively female. The clerk mentioned offhand that they were semi-aquatic. I figured, yeah, whatever. I’ll just take it home and if there’s a problem, I’ll think of something.

I just love crabs. I love the way they scoot and skitter around sideways on their long, spidery legs. I like the way their eyes are perched at the end of long spindly eye-stalks. I like their massive claws. There is something mechanical about crabs in the way they move and eat.

So, how do you tell if you have a male crab or a female crab? Well, you turn it over (which requires you to hold the little guy with a delicate but firm grip—not easy to do), and look at the under-side. There is a flap attached to what appears to be the crab’s butt, which curls under the body and runs back toward the mouth. This flap is called the abdomen, and yes, it does contain the intestinal tract. On males, the abdomen is very thin, like a pencil. On females, the flap is very wide, sometimes rounded and sometimes triangular, but it is distinctly wider than a male’s.

Well, I put the little gal in my 20 gallon tank, and had fun watching her explore, looking for a place to hide. In the same tank I also had an African dwarf frog. I am not sure if putting the two together was the best idea. I came downstairs a few hours later and found a neat, frog-shaped skeleton lying on the gravel. Mmmmm, someone had a tasty meal!


I know this photo looks suspicious, but in fairness, I had just recently moved the frog into the 20 gallon tank, so it might have died from the stress. Regardless, I would think twice about pairing the two in the future. A quick check on the web reveals that their habits are similar to cray-fish. They are omnivorous—i.e., they eat everything, and they’re not even slightly picky. Don’t mix them with any kind of fish that lives on the bottom.

Red claw crabs like to hide, so if you want to see them regularly, you have two options: buy a bunch (so that there is always one out doing stuff), or don’t put anything in the tank for them to hide under.

Here is a hard, fast rule for any aquarium animal: “If you give them a place to hide, they will”. If you want to actually SEE your critters, don’t give them a place to hide. Nevertheless, all animals need some place to hide from bullies and more aggressive species. There is a fine balance.

These little guys LOVE TO CLIMB. They WILL FIND ANY OPENING in your tank. They can shinny up any hose or tubing that goes from the bottom to the surface of your tank. My crab escaped after just a few days. I was afraid she had gotten out, but eventually I found her hiding under the bio-wheel filter. Be warned, crabs can climb! I sealed off every opening of the tank with half-inch galvanized mesh, and haven’t had any problems since.

Red claw crabs are semi terrestrial. They like to come up for air a lot, so you need a decoration of some sort that protrudes above the surface. I made a platform of wood, 2x3 inches (just a small piece of plank), and attached a long strip of galvanized mesh for a ladder. Now the little gal has safe, easy access to the surface, and she can’t get out. She spends lots of time up there. I attached the bottom of a can so she has something to hide under.

Here is a link I found on the web. Apparently red claw crabs do better if you add a pinch of salt. This is a website of a pet shop. They have lots of interesting info.

http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Bug,%20Red%20Claw%20Crab.htm

Returning From Vacation

Well, I don’t think I lost any fish this time around. Cool! Both of the automatic feeders were totally empty, though, and I have no way of knowing how long the food supply lasted. Maybe I should have had my sister in law check on the containers and refill them. I’ll make a note of that.
Another other thing I learned about automatic feeders is that they don’t work too well with flake food. The flakes seem to get jammed in the opening as the drum spins. As a result, sometimes a little tiny amount gets dumped, and sometimes a great big amount gets dumped. I tried working around this by crunching up the flakes into smaller pieces. That seemed to help.

I also tried a mix of flakes and shrimp pellets. That worked, too—kind of. This is going to require a little more experimentation.

In retrospect, I would advise setting things up a couple weeks in advance and using the feeders to do your normal feedings. That way you can see how long the food lasts, and you can make sure your fish are getting enough. If the food isn’t coming out right, you can try new things. It is nice to eliminate all the guesswork before you are rushing off to wherever.

Now that I am back I think I ought to do a water change. This is probably good advice for anyone returning from vacation. If you used an automatic feeder and you have it set up just right, you are probably okay. However, if you had a friend or a neighbor kid come over, or if you used one of those plaster weekend feeders, you should definitely do a water change. Go through your tank, clean out all the dead fish, remove all the moldy debris, and scrub off all the algae. That should restore the tank to normal.

BTW, I don’t leave the light on when I go on vacation. If you have live plants and you are worried, you might get a light timer, but as long as your aquarium is in a well-lit spot away from direct sunlight, your plants should be fine for a couple days. None of the live plants in my aquarium were affected by the lights being off, and I was away for 8 days.

Going on Vacation?

I am planning to leave on an 8-day vacation to see my parents in Oregon. In the past, long trips have always been disasterous for my fish. I have usually been able to get someone to come over, but they either over-feed the fish, or they forget then overcompensate by over-over feeding... Every vacation I have come home to find 2 or three fish were missing. One vacation I lost five. That was in the early days.

So today I thought I'd talk a little about feeding and vacations, and tell some of the things I've tried that work. I've tried a lot of things and gotten advice from lots of places, so let me go through the options one by one (presented in order of worst to best):

• Weekend feeders. These are little things made of plaster of paris and they have food mixed in. They dissolve over time and your fish swim by and pick the food off. Man, they make a mess. Use these if you want, but you should definately do a water-change when you get back.
• Sinking pellets. These work better. They will accumulate a layer of mold on them, but the fish seem to be able to pick around the mold. You'll have to clean up a little mess when you get back, but it's not bad.
• Hire a kid from your neighborhood. It's a risk, especially if they don't have an aquarium at their home. kids forget, too--remember that. Then they feel guilty and over-feed.
• Ask an adult friend. If they don't have an aquarium of their own they are about as bad as a kid. If they do have an aquarium, you are much better off, but remember, people forget.
• Just let your fish go hungry. This works for two or three days. That's what I find the most reliable--sorry to say. It's the least hassle and works the best for 2-3 day vacations.
• Automatic mechanical feeder. You can get really expensive ones and really cheap ones. All of them allow you to adjust the amount of food that gets dispensed. These work with dry food only (no frozen food)!

So I went out and bought a couple mechanical feeders. The expensive one has a programmable clock, and I can set it to dispense up to eight times a day. It works really well. I bought another one that only cost $12.00. It just dispenses every 12 hours.

My programmable automatic feeder

Both of these feeders work by a rotating drum that has a hole in one end. There is a sliding door that allows you to adjust the size of the hole. The important thing to remember is that you should experiment. Don't just pop in the batteries and program your device, and take off for a week. Make sure you do a couple of practice runs so you can be there when things go wrong. You want to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Here's one final piece of advice that has nothing to do with feedings, but is farily relevant to vacations. If the weather outside is cold, be cautious about turning your thermostat down too low. I went on a week-long Christmas vacation in 2005. I got a friend who was very experienced with aquariums to feed my fish. She came over one day and the house was very cold. All my fish were grouped in a tight little school around the heater and the water temp was in the low 60s.

Most heaters have a maximum range that they can raise the temperature. The range is always relative to room temperature, and is (I would guess) around 15 degrees. That means if you lower your thermostat to 50 degrees, then your heater will heat your tank to 65 degrees. This is not what you want. You'll have some pretty cold fish. When you buy a heater for your aquarium, try to find out it's maximum range. If it has a range of only +10 then make sure your house thermostat is set no lower than say 65 degrees.

My Favorite Habit

I decided to start this blog to record my personal experiences with keeping freshwater fish. I have been doing this now since 2001, and I've had a lot of fun. The purpose of this blog will be to record my observations. It seems like there is something new to learn with every species, and the number of interactions between all the possible tank-mates is infinite.

In addition to this blog, I maintain a secondary website that has more detailed information about my findings and observations: http://www.feralnerd.com/fishblog. If you go there, you can find more detailed information grouped by subject and broken down by category.

Keep in mind, the material I post on this blog and on feralnerd.com represents my own personal observations and my own personal experiences. Do not rely on my findings as your sole source of information. I recommend you collect opinions and observations from many people, and not rely on my stuff, alone. Also keep in mind that I bend or break the rules a lot. I like to experiment and try things, because that is how you learn, and that is where some of the more interesting things happen. You will find me doing lots of stuff that the experts warn you not to do. I have found that the experts (whom I do respect) don't always have complete information, and sometimes they have wrong information. So while I have the money to burn on my favorite habit, I'll bend the rules whenever I feel like it. If anything interesting (or bad) happens I'll definitely let you know.

That said, here's a little info about me, and what I like to call "my favorite habit":

I got my first aquarium sometime around 2001. I started by getting a book, titled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freshwater Aquariums," by Mike Wickham. It's pretty decent. It told me everything I needed to know, and I'm surprised to find myself going back to it so many years later. I started with a 10-gallon tank, then got a 20-gallon tank from a friend. My latest tank was set up earlier this year, and it's 55-gallon.

The first important thing I learned about keeping an aquarium is the cheapest thing you'll put in your tank will be the fish. I was shocked. Just setting up my first 10-gallon aquarium I spent close to $350! There was tons of stuff I needed:

• A cover for the tank
• A light
• An under-gravel filter
• gravel
• decorations
• Some realistic-looking fake plants
• A rock (you'd be surprised how much rocks cost)
• An attractive piece of bog-log
• A big cave-thing
• an air pump
• a bigger air pump
• a bio-wheel filter (the undergravel filter wasn't cutting it)
• an aquarium stand (I used a sturdy little TV stand that I found at Fred Meyer)

Let me just say, if you're thinking about starting up, don't be proud. Get everything second-hand that you can. Most of the stuff you can beg/burrow/buy second hand will look just fine once you clean it up. The best place to find stuff is at garage sales. Craigslist has lots of stuff, too. Scavenge everything you can.

I managed to get the 10-gallon tank for free--my parents had been keeping gerbils in it, and hadn't used it in a long time. I cleaned it out and filled it with water to make sure it didn't leak, then made sure no one was emotionally attached to it before swiping it.

My second aquarium setup was given to me. A friend found a 20-gallon tank with all the equipment (even plants and gravel) at a garage sale for $5.00. He thought of me, bought it, then just gave it to me. Kind of cool. It cleaned up really nice, and I was able to move the 10-gallon tank to my office.

Last Christmas I bought a 55-gallon tank. That's been fun. I have a little money to burn now, and I have been going to different pet stores every couple weeks or so to get something new.

Over the years I have kept all sorts of fish, from goldfish to gouramis (my favorites). Here is my current setup:

Tank 1 (55-gallon)

• 5 angel fish
• 3 clown loaches
• 1 red-tailed shark
• 4 bala sharks
• 2 corey-cats
• 3 otocinclus
• 2 yellow gouramis
• 2 pearl gouramis
• 1 opaline gourami
• 3 fiddler crabs (2 males and a female)

This is an active tank, and fairly aggressive, too. I was worried about the otocinclus at first because they are so docile, but they spend so much of their time immobile that the other fish just leave them alone. The opaline gourami is the alpha fish. He's a lot smaller than some of the others, but he's definitely the one in charge. The red-tailed shark is the longest. He spends most of his time hidden (unless a bala shark wanders too close to his lair). All of them spend their time shooting around, chasing eachother. Very nice.

Tank 2 (20-gallon)

• 6 zebra danios (still a favorite after all these years)
• 6 blue mickey-mouse platties (very cool)
• 1 mystery snail
• 1 apple snail
• 1 red-claw crab
• 2 very tiny, baby angelfish
• 1 goldfish

This tank used to be full of goldfish. I originally bought the goldfish to start the cycles for the 55-gallon. After it had stabilized, I had the goldfish start the 20-gallon tank. By then they had grown on me, so I decided to keep them. They all changed color. The biggest of the group (who I call Lenny) started out green and turned brass-colored. Another one that was orange and white turned pure white. There were some others that each had a brown blotch along their back, and they all turned pure orange.

Last saturday I got rid of them, donating them back to the pet store. I kept Lenny--he's quite a prize. I want to see how big he gets. The others were kind of boring. Goldfish are fine for kids, but I just never found them interesting.

You know, people everywhere will tell you not to put goldfish in the same tank as freshwater tropicals because the goldfish won't do well in the warmer temperatures. That may be true, but sometimes you learn the most when you bend the rules a little. Lenny grew to about 3 inches long since I got him in January. His tank stays around 73 degrees. In all fariness, two of Lenney's original tank-mates stayed their original size. Others grew, but only got a little bigger.

Speaking of goldfish growing, I was told that goldfish will only get as big as as the size of the aquarium you keep them in. I read somewhere else that was not true, but the problem is the quality of the water they are kept in. If you change the water religiously, they should get very big. One fish doesn't make a very accurate sample set for experimentation, but I'll try keeping the water clean to see how big Lenny gets.

I learned recently from Lenny that goldfish are very peaceful. On my scale of 1 to 5, I would have to put goldfish at a 1. I tried putting him in the 55-gallon tank with the other big fish. I figured, "hey, he's huge. They'll leave him alone..." Not so. One of the yellow gouramis went after him, "hey, I'm the big yellow fish in this tank, mister!!" A couple hours later when I checked on the tank, Lenny was hiding down in the weeds. He reminded me of bad, bad Leroy Brown who "looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone." Poor big, dumb, peacful Lenny--I named him after the George Steinbeck character from Of Mice and Men. Lenny's caudal fin looked like the fringe on a lace doily, and he was missing several scales all over his body. Man, not good! He does fine now, back in the 20-gallon tank. He doesn't bother anybody. Eventually he'll get big enough that he'll eat the danios, but by then maybe I'll have a koi pond he can live in.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to write for today.