Absalom

Well Dear Friend, Goose has been having a swell time playing long distance DJ, and I'm sure she'll be sad to learn that I beat her to the song of the day post today. Poor darling.

But in the end, it was high time I updated you on...something.

Anyway, we got a fish tank.

Remember that story about the two little goldfish? Yeah. That spiraled out of control (as most things do around here). I staked out craigslist for ages, waiting patiently for the fish tank I wanted. I found it, finally, for almost-free, but had to drive an hour and a half to pick it up. It was still totally worth it. So it's like 35ish gallons and a hexagon. It's about twice as tall as it is wide and is nearly identical to the one I had as a kid. I got it home, lugged it inside and got it set up. Then the research began.

I don't know if you've ever witnessed me researching projects, but it's really...annoying. It's compulsive. I can't stop it. I just read more and more and my goals are constantly morphing in to things that will cost more and more money. My Dear Sweet Goose just sits there and shakes her head at me (but never rains on my crazy parade).

Well it didn't take long for me to figure out that a tank with a small footprint can support less biomass than a tank of equal volume with a large footprint. Duh. Should have seen that coming. In addition, goldfish have a high bioload, (they're dirty fish) so the tank could hold 3...max. Okay. So we thought we'd move to a community tank with one black moore in there, and some other species. Not so easy. Apparently black moores have bad eyesight, and (obviously) delicate eyes. Fast moving fish can startle them, they can bump their eyes, and then it's all downhill from there. Also goldfish are cold water fish, most fish are tropical fish...you see how this goes?

So we abandoned the goldfish plan and moved on to tropical fish. Goose likes platties and mollies (mollies also have a big bioload so those are out). I (at this point) have stopped caring so much about the fish and have moved on to aquatic gardens and aquascaping. Yes. Aquascaping. You heard me. I have totally lost myself in matters of substrate, CO2 injection systems, and starry-eyed dreams filled with a fish tank filled with rolling grassy hills, sandy rivers, and perfectly pruned aquatic bonsai trees.

Instead the two of us met in the middle. We got a community tank. (Our opalescent unicorn of a betta fish Absalom, ruler of the roost, two platties and two sword tails). The betta is being a little testy today, but mostly that's a plant issue. Aggression will decrease as the scenery becomes more complex and more territories become available. We plan on adding small schooling fish in a couple of weeks once the plants come in a bit more, and while I got some live plants, Goose got a pirate ship. In the end, it's still beautiful and it's a good mix of what we both wanted...I'm just saying I could have landscaped the shit out of the tank. ;)

That's all for today. Sending you lots of love and stuff from both Goose and I. <3