My new Pet (s)

Yeah, you know I cant have a single grape, and similarly, I cant have a single pet, the size of grape...So my new pets.
I am now a proud owner of an aquarium. It has right now 4 gold fish ranging from $7 to $0.26. Now you might wonder how the heck I did end up having an aquarium and actually managing to stuff it up with a range of gold fish. To begin with, it was always in the back of my mind. Growing up I had an aquarium, in my grannys house.. I had seen the weekly rituals involved in cleaning the aquarium, and the process of actually maintaining it.. For sure, was pain in the butt. But what the heck, I loved the entire process...
My neighbour , Shantu, was enthusiast about animals.. He had a pet Dog, a pet Cat, and for some time even a pet Rabbit, that too in Mumbai...Imagine, a family of 6 people living a miniscule, 300 sq ft apartment with all the additional burden of extra family members. But Shantu was up to them and for sometime he even managed to have his own aquarium. I used to go with him to local fish shop in Andheri, where I grew up....
It was fun to look at all the fascinating variety of fishes, and assortment of worms that go with them as fish food. Though, being too young to be technical about maintaining an aquarium, which I now learn is a form if science in itself and actually one can publish original articles...Shantu did pretty well.

In UCSD price center, a food court on campus, they maintain a huge, I mean huge aquarium, the capacity of which easily would be on the upwards of 250 gallons. They have an assortment of tropical fish in there.. I will clarify what I mean by tropical
soon. So as you see it all summed up pretty well for me to do something about having my own aquarium.

To the initiating, here are some tips about how to go about setting up your own aquarium and what to look for in the initial few weeks of proud ownership. No wonder if one decides to venture into this, beginning is with google. Yes, heres the link to wonderful website which is all about aquariums, Aquarium Info . Ok so if you go through the website, a few things will immediately stike you. The guy for once has pretty decent knowledge about aquariums and assortment of fishes that go with them.
However my own research into it lead to some varying answers. First of all, as it is suggested there, I agree that it is better to have a fish tank rather than a fish bowl, if one really wishes to decorate his/her apartment with the amazing little creatures of water. A decent 10 gallon glass fish tank with all the kit, which would involve a filter, a lamp, dechlorinating liquid and a Ph maintaining solution would cost around $25-$30 in Walmart. Petsmart, which specializes in everything that is animal is probably a better place to look for such beginners kit. However, Walmart does have best deals as usual.

Once the kit is bought, one has to decide where to keep the tank, how high above the ground should it be and should it be kept on any ordinary table. A 10 Gallon tank when filled with water will get darn heavy. So it makes sense to have a very sturdy and really strong table and a safe corner in the house, away from direct sunlight.

The kit that I bought came with a very decent instruction manual, following which for a change dosent require a PhD. Neways, the tank should be set up in a safe corner of the house with filter mounted and the tank filled with tap water. Yes using tap water at normal room temperature should be ok. One has to take care though to dechlorinate the water using the solution that comes with the kit. Let the filter run for a day or two before you decide to venture into the store to look for your pet.

For beginners usually, as I found out, having Gold fish makes sense. The reason they are better pet for amatures is, their maintainance is easy. The water temperature for them is usually, around 68-72 degrees farenheit. So tap water at room temperature should be usually ok. That eliminates the need for heater. Tropical fish which I mentioned earlier require heater, as they thrive better in temperature range of around 78-80 degree farenheit. Gold fish in wild can live upwards of 30 years (an esstimate I got from talking to a few people in Walmart and Petsmart and Pets People). In captivity, they can easily live upwards of 10 years... So they really have a long life. That again is a boon for beginners, who do not really want to invest into pets that would die say in a week. One can buy gold fish ranging from $0.25 to anything upwards of $20 -$25. As I have seen the higher price is usually for big (by size )gold fishes..

The rule of thumb which actually I liked and kinda makes sense is an inch and half sized gold fish per gallon of water. That said a 10 gallon tank can easily hold 3 to 4 small gold fish. In india, one gets live worms as fish food, which for sure are better. But in America, I would guess they would have 'N' rules and regulations against worms killing and given the technological advances, one can buy, variety of fish flakes with detailed description of protein and vitamin contents. There are even fish pills available for the enthusiast. I also found medicine pills for fish illness.
So you see, there is amazing mishmash of stuff out there for your fish not to get bored of same food. The next most logical question is how much and how many times should one feed fish. Gold fish are very adapting. If you feed them more, they will eat more and vice versa. I therefore would suggest to begin with feed a pinch of flakes once daily. That prevents the filter from being clogged of extra food remaning in the tank. It also prevents some nasty chemical reactions in the water evoked by remaining food. The rule of thumb here is, feed as much as fish can finish in a few minutes time.

Finally tank cleaning. Once a week one should take care to replace one third of tank water. No need to remove fish from the tank. There is something called gravel cleaner, that one can buy for around $7. It is very useful to remove all the gunk in the tank resulting in one weeks time.

As it turns out, the room freshners that one can buy in any supermarket are not good for fishes. In my experience, if the the room freshner is on for a long time, the fish die. I still couldnt figure out how exactly the room freshners affect fish, but my initial investment on 3 gold fish turned sour one day when I left my apartment with room freshner on in my room. In the evening, when I returned my room was freshened up but , the fish tank had 3 dead bodies. I have stopped using the room freshner since. So far all my pets are hale and healthy.

So you see, with few tricks and tips under the belt it is easy and great fun to own an aquarium....

Happy aquariuming you all!!!!