Near fishtank tragedy...

I was doing my regular cleaning and maintenance of our 55 gallon fishtank in our living room this evening when I had a boo-boo. I cleaned out our Fluval(the worst part of the whole job) and replaced its media(carbon, peat, and the like). I was then going to play a little on the computer but decided tonite was the night to clean the glass too. Here was where my mistake lay.

Since it's a glass tank it's usually an easy job to clean the hard algae that a brush won't clear, just use a razor blade. This is also why I prefer glass to acrylic. As I was cleaning the tank I barely bumped the center support and I heard a large *CRACK*. 'Oh, shit, what was that.' The plastic center support had broken. The tank is 10 years old and the plastic was brittle, I guess, and it didn't take but a slight bump to snap it. This caused the front and back glass of the tank to bow out dramatically. They bowed out almost an inch. Damn close to the breaking point of the glass. Now I had a two 3 foot wide panes of glass bowing out badly and creaking in protest. I couldn't get the ends close enough to join them back together somehow. I wouldn't try anyways for fear of losing the whole tank and 20 or so fish at the same time. Some of those fish are 8 years old. We lost a 10" Bala Shark last week that was that old and I think it was the first time I was ever really upset at the loss of a fish.

Luckily a close friend of mine was cleaning out his garage last week and gave me an old 45 gallon corner tank he no longer wanted. We had been looking for a tank for our bedroom so I said I'd take it. I cleaned it out this past weekend and we moved it into our bedroom where it sat empty while we decided what kinds of fish we were going to try. Luckily it was sitting there empty and waiting for some fish because it was about to get some. The whole family sprang into action grabbing buckets and pitchers to do a quick move of 50 gallons of water and about 100 lbs of sand at 10 o'cock at night. Not fun.

We got everything moved and the fish seem to be doing alright. It's been several years since we've had a tank in our bedroom and as I sit here watching them explore their new digs I wonder why we waited so long.

The moral of this story is: 'Hard work pays off eventually. Laziness pays off right now.' If I'd have been lazy and played on the computer I wouldn't have made more work for myself.

: Upside Down from the concert "Play Everywhere For Everyone Austin, TX 03-10-04" by Barenaked Ladies