What Do You Mean, We Need An Aquarium?

How could I have known that those words spoken 30 years ago would change my life and alter my destiny?

Thirty years ago my children informed me that we needed an aquarium. Although I disagreed with them, I reluctantly relented, based on their solid reasoning, that it would teach them responsibility and would be a fun family project. Red flares should have been going off in my head by those extremely sensible comments coming from the mouths of my children.

So, off we went to our local pet supply store to make our aquarium purchase. I had absolutely no idea where to even start, so with the help of the on-duty (sort of knowledgeable) store clerk and some books I had managed to grab from the book rack, we started our adventure. We began by choosing the perfect aquarium. Not too small, but one that would stand out and compliment our room decor. We chose a 30 gallon glass tank along with a nice sturdy (water weighs a lot) metal stand and a plastic lighted canopy. So far, this is pretty easy! Now we needed the equipment to move, aerate and clean the water. We picked out our aquarium filter, air pump and heater, some air pump hoses and some filter media (all suggested, of course, by our little helper store clerk).

OK, now the fun part – we get to decorate our aquarium with all kinds of pretty ornaments and plants. Now, we had three differences of opinions here. My daughter, leaning toward the “cutesie” ornaments, my son towards the skeletons and sunken shipwrecks and me, I just wanted it to be pretty. So after a mass compromise, we were able to come up with a tank decor that we were all happy with. So, now let’s choose some fish! NO? What do you mean we aren’t ready for fish yet? We have all of this stuff and aren’t allowed any fish? Something called “Cycling The Tank” was sort of explained to us and we relented and packed up all of our treasures and headed for home to create our “underwater world”.

We chose an area for our aquarium away from a window (that’s what the book said) to deter the excessive growth of algae. We assembled all of the fun equipment and decorations and now the real fun part — We had to fill it with water! All of a sudden both of my children had really important, life-threatening things that they just had to do and mysteriously vanished. So, I lugged bucket after bucket of water and am finally rewarded with an aquarium full of underwater beauty. I turned on all of the equipment and sat back to see the fruits of my labor. I can’t believe what I am seeing. This is positively beautiful! The soft bubbles from the airstones, mingled with the plants moving with the undulating flow of the water gave me the feeling that I was in a tropical paradise. I couldn’t stop watching it. And we don’t even have any fish in it yet! I felt a calm and tranquility come over me and I knew at that moment that I had been “hooked”. I was about to become an avid aquarist and little did I know at the time that it would lead me to a rather lucrative business where I would share with others my love for the underwater world.