What started as a somewhat rushed affair, getting the wife's Christmas present on time, became a passion, a love, and an expensive and somewhat stressful life.
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Losing fish hurts, failing hurts, not achieving what you set out to hurts and, most of all, my wallet hurts! Buying fish, plants, equipment, water treatments, conditioners, algicides, fertilisers, food...I don't want to say how it's cost in case my wife reads this...
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We've learned two lessions in this; simple is better and nature knows best.
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What does that mean? Well;
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1). Proper aquarium kit can be expensive so its easier, and cheaper, to buy multiple things to do the job of one, more expensive thing. It's easier to follow the newbie urge to "clutter up" your aquarium with lots of fake and brightly coloured plants and accessories. Then your fish die and your water goes all ugly. Why? Lets move on to point two.
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2). Growing a thriving ecosystem is something nature has managed to go for eons without ourt help. OK, if you're keen to get your tank up and going, it's easy to take the simple route and drop a load of plastic plants in. These then become algae and crud traps and your fish will die. Now, cultivating a natural plant system takes time and work. but I've learned it is worth the effort, even if your tank looks sort of bare and ugly for a time. My tank is now a little forest thanks to my being patient and letting nature take her course. Plants are thriving and so are the fish. In fact, instead of reducing, the population is increasing as the fish successfully breed and reproduce. I let nature take her course and nature has thanked me. That's why I love my tank, because it is now truly a thing of beauty.
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Not that the road to this has been free of rocks. I've had plants die as often as I've had fish do so. It's been some work!
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But do you know what? It's been worth every penny, every stressful moment, every panic, dare I say even every sleepless night!
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Worth it ten times over, a hundred!
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Why?
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I have helped bring into being an almost self-sustaining, enclosed ecosystem where fascinating animals of all kinds coexist peacefully and (I hope) happily. They live, they eat, they play, they make more of their kind, well protected and safe. I did that. Me.
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Also they are beautiful, they are mesmerising to watch. Grown men at work pause by my desk to watch if I have the stream running on my mobile. Watching an aquarium just be is so very peaceful and relaxing, perhaps it reminds us of something we have lost.
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I want to share that relaxing, beautiful tranquillity with as many people as possible.
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That's our mission; to let people off-load their cares, sit back and feel peace leech into their very soul while they watch.
