One of Kerri’s Christmas presents was the promise of an aquarium. I actually had a small aquarium as a child for a number of years, but I don’t remember very much from it in terms of details. I believe the most important thing for the functioning of my childhood aquarium was my mother. However, since she’s in Texas I cannot count on her to take care of these.

We went today and purchased a 55 gallon (sigh, english units) tank, along with everything needed for it except for fish. We found a very nice little ``local fish shop” called Tropiquatics out in the western suburbs. They were very helpful and we left with everything we needed (including instructions on what to do). We’re planning on putting community tropical freshwater fish in the tank. Nothing very fancy to start.

A few things struck me as interesting about this process. First, I had assumed that a larger tank meant a more difficult tank to maintain. Instead it seems (according to our local experts) that a larger tank is easier to maintain and keep healthy. The reasoning here is that in a larger tank, there is more time to notice any problems developing in the tank or water chemistry. For a very small volume of water, the chemistry can become toxic quite quickly. For a large tank (that isn’t overstocked) things change more slowly. This makes sense, but we’ll see.

The other interesting thing is something I was unaware of from my youth. We must “cycle” the tank. This means that we need a few small, hardy fish to create waste, and then give the tank time to develop the correct bacteria to process the waste. Fish make ammonia. So we need bacteria to eat ammonia. However, while ammonia itself is toxic to fish, the bacteria that eat it, release nitrite. Nitrite is also toxic to fish. However, there are also bacteria that eat nitrite and make nitrate. The nitrate isn’t nearly as bad for fish as the other two. So, eventually we as fish keepers must change the water occasionally to get rid of some of the nitrate. But to start you wait and cultivate your own bacteria for the tank.

I’m actually a little sad that it was so hard to find this place. Looking through various internet searches basically reveals PetCo, Petland, PetSmart, and Walmart with very few independent stores. I suspect they may be a dying breed, instead being replaced by the super-store versions. Having worked at a similar super-store directly as a teen for books and music, I know how little knowledge it takes to be in charge of such a store. Hoping on good advice is really not something to be expected.