I bought a 300 litre aquarium about 6 weeks ago for the living room. Added soil, plants and water. Have spent the last 6 weeks watching plants grow, and snails that smuggled in on plants, multiply. I over fertilised it and left the light on accidentally for a couple of days whilst I was away and experienced an algae bloom, which was interesting. Added some cardinal tetras and amano shrimp yesterday and have spent a lot of time just watching them potter around. Has been a nice change from looking at a screen.
Oh man... you just throwback thursdayed me to my last weeks thought. I really want to get a pet fish, like a betta for my mental health. I feel like it would motivate me when im working on projects to have a buddy near me.
The main work is doing a water change, which I think I'll have to do every couple of weeks going forwards, but we'll see. I had to do it more often at the start whilst the tank was cycling. Takes me about 40 minutes. I also have to trim the plants every so often. Oh, and feed them of course. It doesn't feel like a lot of work or a chore to me atm.
If your first fish tank is just going to be something small with a goldfish or two in it, I'm not sure how you go about doing that as I've not done that before. Maybe you just fill the tank from the tap and chuck the fish in? I decided to go for a large planted heated freshwater tank with interesting fish and shrimps and snails, so I had to be careful to monitor the water and find out what species could co-exist, what pH and temp they like, etc. It took 6 weeks before I could put anything in it safely, so one tip would be to patient. Another would be, go and speak to the people in the pet shop / aquatics center about what you're doing as they can tell you everything you need to know. I got most of my advice from ChatGPT, but double checked it with the kind people at the aquatics center as I was setting things up.
