Saturday, February 21, 2009

Adventures in Aquariums

For Christmas, Santa brought Jake an aquarium.  Daddy pleaded with Santa to bring Jake one...and Santa listened.

Well...things have been going well with the little fishies.  All are alive and swimming.  Only one problem.  We placed it in our front room where we get horrendous afternoon sun and now we have algae growing on the sides.  We thought it would be cool to get an algae eater, so off to Pet Smart we go.  Once there, we were talked into going with 2 snails instead.  Okay, they are kinda gross but kinda cool at the same time.  Well...they both refuse to attach to the sides...one is hidden in the mountain thingy we have in there and the other is just crawling around on the gravel.  They are refusing to do their jobs.  So...off we go to Pet Smart again...this time, to get working snails...ones that know what to do.  It's now obvious that on one at Pet Smart agrees with each other and you will hear a different answer depending on who you ask.  So, we left with a real algae eater this time.

One problem...now we can't find either of the snails or the algae eater...appropriately named "Al" the Algae Eater.  I only have one thing to say...he better show himself and get to eatin' some algae!

2 comments:

  1. Wow what a great idea for the family. Cathy and I will try to keep up from our end. From my pool experience I know that pH can promote the growth of green stuff. A pH of <7.1 retards it and >7.2 promotes it. Of course you need to balance that with the needs of the fish. Snails have a mind of their own, there is no accounting for snail behavior!

    By the way, ask Dougie if we can now donate his old aquarium since you have a new one now?

    Love to all, Doug and Cathy.

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  2. I'll ask Dougie about that. The water is fine, we had it tested. The problem is that it is in our front room, directly across from the windows. We weren't thinking that it really does get direct sunlight due to my curtains only being 1/2 way down. We get horrendous afternoon sun in that room. It's not a bad algae problem, just enough that you can see it on the front.

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