I’d rather be fishing

So I have recently become interested in aquarium fish, those little glow in the black light Glofish in particular. Fortunately enough my girl had a fish tank at her house which she had grown tired of taking care of and had become overtaken by all the nastiness that a fish tank, when not being properly maintained, can be. When I started you could barely see inside the tank, a thick coat of slimy algae making it virtually impossible to see through. The water was also super cloudy and the smell was pretty rank. I started out with a long ass scrub brush and scrubbed the walls as clean as possible. This made the water even cloudier but at least I could see into the gloom. The tank had numerous decorations that you could no longer identify due to the thick slime that was covering it. As the water began to clear I discovered that there were 4 fish still alive in the tank. A Rainbow Shark, a pink Glofish Tetra, and 2 Cory Catfish. I rescued them from the mess and placed them in a tiny little tank I’d gotten especially for this and prayed that the shark didn’t eat anybody before I could get the tank cleaned. It took me nearly 2 days to clean the fish tank. I scrubbed and scrubbed at the aquarium decorations and cleaned them up some but scrub as hard as I might, I couldn’t get them all the way cleaned. I pulled all the fake plants from the tank and just threw them in the trash, not even bothering to try and clean them up. I went to the pet store and got some aquarium soil and a handful of underwater plants that the pet store carried. I also got some assorted plant bulbs. I mixed the soil with the black light sensitive gravel I got and planted a little underwater garden, kind of like a little underwater forest with Java ferns and bamboo and some other shit I don’t know the name of. I conditioned the water, making sure it was the proper temperature and returned my 4 survivors to their home. I’d gotten a new bubble tube that had flashing, dancing LED lights to accompany the bubbles which suctioned to the back wall and I also got a couple of extra blues lights that hooked to the rim of the tank because I learned that Glofish don’t actually glow in black lights, they glow under blue lights. With the tank clean I decided to add some fish. I was gonna get some more Glofish Tetras to go with my one surviving Pink tetra but when I got to the pet store the had just received a new shipment of Glofish which contained a bunch of Glofish Tiger Barbs. Tiger Barbs look like little piranhas and are semi-aggressive so they make good tankmates for the shark, which the tetras really don’t. I got 6 Glofish Tiger Barbs to start, 3 green and 3 red and added them to my tank. It was at this point that I started teaching myself about aquarium fish. Mainly about Rainbow Sharks and Tiger Barbs, but also just about schooling community fish as well. I learned about the ins and outs of aquarium set-up. About filtration systems and lighting. About size limitations and water conditions. About schooling fish and community tanks. At first I thought it was just like add tank, water and fish and you were good to go but come to find out there’s a whole lot more to it then that. I learned how dirty fish actually are, requiring constant maintenance in order to keep the tank clean and healthy and the fish happy and active. I also figured out why the tank had been so dirty and my girl was so burned out by having the tank in general, owning a fish aquarium is a lot of work, most of which is dirty and expensive. But I also learned that this is something I want to do. A hobby that I find interesting and rewarding. Done correctly, it’s like having Animal Planet live in my living room.