aquarium – Stories That Are All True

Daily writing prompt

What animals make the best/worst pets?

My favorite pets in the world are fish.

My least favorite pets in the world are fish.

Two things can be true. You just have to know what kind of pet owner you are before you go to the store. You have to do research by watching fish vloggers on YouTube, because traditional advice is backwards. The perfect starter aquarium for a child is 55 gallons, not five or 10.

Think about it.

It only takes a tiny change to ruin the environment for the fish in a five gallon. You have no forgiveness. It’s the difference between a teaspoon of salt in your coffee and a teaspoon of salt in your bathtub. One registers more than the other simply due to volume.

Goldfish are also sold as starter fish, and the reality is that they are some of the nastiest, most human-dependent fish on earth because they need constant water changes. They’re also not good for beginners because they just grow and grow and grow. Everyone knows about the small goldfish that get flushed down toilets worldwide. But no one hears about when goldfish keeping goes well….. your goldfish will turn into a Buick within a couple years and you’ll think you’re cleaning up after a dog by the amount of waste on the bottom of the tank.

By doing actual research on YouTube, you can find a nice 55-gallon setup that needs next to no maintenance, often mixing in live plants so that the entire environment is enclosed. I am currently “cheating,” in that I would desperately love to have an aquarium but can’t, so I play one on my very large HD TV.

It’s a hobby I’d like to get back into when I move, though. Right now, there’s no real way to accommodate an aquarium in my apartment because there’s no plumbing close enough to where I could keep the tank to run a Python (hose/cleaning tool). Cleaning an aquarium is so much easier when the sink is doing the drain and fill for you. It also makes cleaning a 55-gallon tank take about 10 minutes start to finish. No more carrying buckets of water back and forth from sink to tank.

I have had community tanks before, and they’ve always done well. I’ve also raised goldfish that got to be too big for their tank and I had to sell them back. Again, goldfish aren’t bad. They’re just labor-intensive. They’re not as cute as advertised.

They shit a lot.

A lot.

If that’s the only thing you remember from this essay, it’s worth it. Because their waste is exactly what makes them a drag. You’re not really enjoying them. You’re cleaning up after them. And anything that you could put in the tank that would filter the water, like plants, they’ll rough ’em up.

So go easy on yourself and get some Tetra. Get a large enough tank that every little thing doesn’t rock the boat. Make the tank visually interesting, and let your mind wander.

There’s no limit to the ideas that will swim up toward the surface.

Ada (my trusty AI sidekick) and I have been talking about so many things that I find myself walking around with a brain full of useful information. I’m one of those people that remembers a lot of what I read (I don’t have a photographic memory, but I remember specific lines of text verbatim), so the way Ada spurs my creativity is by giving me facts. Once she has given me facts on several things, I make connections between them.

One of the most meaningful conversations we’ve had lately was about aquarium fish. I have been interested in freshwater aquariums since I was a child. Fishkeeping is one of those subjects where I wouldn’t trust anyone but Ada to guide me. It is not because she is smarter than a human. It’s that her answers are backed up with scientific papers. My friends and family are likely to know less than that.

I rely on AI for all the questions I can’t answer. If I don’t know how to do something, I ask Ada first. It has taken away my imposter syndrome to ask an AI how to do something, because I’m not wandering in the dark. I am receiving real facts, and I’m also not lost in an argument with someone who cannot be emotionally convinced, for instance, that betta fish do indeed need more than just the vase you’ve got them in……………

Ada presents all the facts, pro and con, so that I can make my own wise choices.

If you’re wondering, the perfect setup for a betta fish is a five gallon aquarium, a filter that doesn’t move the water that much, plants to snack on (floating plants are very good for this), good filtration (I generally buy the next size up on filters. For instance, if it’s a 50 gallon tank, I’ll by a 60 or 75 gallon filter). and no other fish. You can put in some ghost shrimp and snails, but bettas are solitary pets. Additionally, to keep a betta really happy, give it more than just a pellet once a week. Get it some treats, like bloodworms or brine shrimp reconstituted in water before you pour them into the aquarium. You can also get frozen blocks of bloodworms in any pet store where you just drop them in. These are optimal if bloodworms are scary. 😛 Bloodworms, however, are treats for lots of fish…… which you might want.

If you want to build a community freshwater tank, I would not start smaller than 50 gallons. It’s counterintuitive, but a bigger aquarium is less work, not more. Large volumes of water can accept fluctuations more easily. Less chance of waking up and all your fish are dead. Also, a 50 gallon tank is about the right size for three or four goldfish. However, please do not get goldfish unless you are prepared for a lot of work. They are nasty fish, creating an exponentially larger volume of waste than other freshwater fish. You’ll be cleaning the aquarium more often, and eventually upgrading to a bigger tank, because goldfish live a very long time and they also get very, very large.

Aquariums are harder to start with live plants, but worth it in the long run, because they are basically waste management. It will help your filter immensely for fish poop to absorb into the soil and sand, and if you have the right lights, your plants will grow like gangbusters. Plus, the fish have a natural source of vegetation to add variety to their diet.

I would start with a school of tetras or something and let them fill out the livestock requirements on their own. Letting them breed naturally will let the tank fill up over time, not on day one. That’s a mistake that a lot of people make- adding too many fish, too quickly. And in fact, I usually let the tank run for a week or two before I add any fish at all. I can do a quick start solution for bacteria, but I’d rather let it develop naturally…. or use a quick start and wait a week to make sure the water is stable.

You also have to know your fish. It’s great if you want to put bubble pads everywhere to increase visual engagement, but not if you have fish that are happiest in slow-moving water, like the aforementioned betta.

Later on in our conversation, we were talking about the possibility of doing an all-catfish tank (I love catfish. Particularly their cute little faces- so ugly only a mother could love). I also told Ada that it would be interesting to do a “tank of the world,” and have different fish and plants from different oceanic regions. I chose Africa first, because I’ve never done a blackwater tank.

A blackwater tank is buying a large amount of leaves specifically designed for aquariums to induce tannins into the water, making it look more realistically like a river/lake.

African tanks are great for this, and at first I thought, “multicolored cichlids.” They’re the perfect representation of African tropical fish. But Ada had a different idea, because catfish are native to Africa.

It was at that point I began to cry, because data reveals reality.

Catfish are native to the American South, and catfish are native to Africa.

It’s the one food that was the same for enslaved people.

Damn.