Aquariums

It is becoming more and more clear to me that I am a man of varied interests. This post is about my love for tropical aquarium fish.
Three-and-a-half years ago while I was living on campus as an undergrad Cassie and I decided to make a late night trip to Wal-mart. We wanted fish. We had a great time. Wal-mart had all of the fish that I remember having as a child: tetras, plecos, angel fish, and more.
We each decided to get a one-gallon tank and some fish for them. I got a pleco, 2 goldfish, a mollie, 2 neon tetras, and a frog. Cassie got a guppy, goldfish, and some other fish. As it turns out, fish need more space than that one-gallon tank allowed. All of ours ended up dying, though my mollie lasted the longest. It was a great learning experience. At one point I had a large vase, and 2 one-gallon tanks in my dorm room at the same time (Cassie hated seeing the fish die, it grossed her out), and I was doing major water changes about every day.

Though our first foray into fish was less-than perfect we decided to get larger tanks that summer. I got a 20-gallon and she got a 10-gallon. It has been a blast having my 20-gallon tank, but Trinity doesn't allow tanks larger than 10 gallons so I had to retire it for now. Here is a progression of my 20-gallon tank over the past 3 or so years.

This is my tank not long after I bought it.

Here it is not long after that. There are 2 mollies and 2 neon tetras in this shot. I experimented with rock formations that I got from the construction around my parent's house.
I was so excited the first time my mollies had babies. I learned that some fish are livebearers. This is a sweet shot of the babies along with the neon tetras. You can even see the shrimp in the foreground.
Cassie and I really liked the idea of having plants in our tank. At first we were pretty awful at it though. That bubbler in the background was basically killing the plants by taking away their CO2.
This is my tank after a year or so. I did some different things with the rocks, and the plants are still alive! The little grey fish are long-finned danios. They never stop moving!
Finally Cassie, Nate, and I got fed up with the fact that our plants would survive but never grow. Cassie and I invested in new aquarium plant lights and Nate made us CO2 dispensers. We all chipped in to buy plants online and this is my tank after putting in the new plants. The driftwood is actually from a lake in Wisconsin. I boiled it first to make sure I killed any harmful things that could have been on it.

As you can see, I finally had success with growing plants. Almost too much success! I had to trim plants and throw them away! If you look in the center of the front of the tank you can see one of the aquatic frogs I had at that time. They liked to hide in the moss in the back right corner.

This last year Cassie and I have been struggling to keep her 10-gallon going. With graduate school and work at the same time we haven't really felt up to doing much with the tank. Hopefully that will change this year. We both want to get back into it, so you will be getting periodic updates on how the fish tank is looking.

We plan on getting 20 or so neon tetras (if we can prove to ourselves that we can maintain the tank with school and work). I plan on using the wisteria (a light-green plant with longer branches) as ground cover. It usually grows very tall with the leaves being closer to the top. I want to use some of my bonsai knowledge to see if cutting the wisteria down will cause the branches to grow lower. The java fern (a darker plant) will provide a contrast to the light green of the wisteria.
I'm not sure if this will work or not, but I'm excited to see what happens. If you have any questions on maintaining fish and/or aquatic plants feel free to ask. Cassie and I have made enough mistakes and have learned much from our fish guru friend, Nate.