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Andre's Aquarium Club is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of information relating to all aspects of the biology of aquatic life. |
i | Our purpose is to promote the interest, keeping, study, and breeding of freshwater and marine life. Additionally, the exchange of ideas, conservation and distribution of information concerning aquatic life is our primary interest.
The aquarium pages are designed to help our members maintain their aquariums. We hope you enjoy our site. If you are not already a member, we invite you to join our exclusive club, and email questions about your own aquatic world. If you are really seriously interested in pursuing this hobby by creating a beautiful and healthy environment for your aquatic collection, our club will definetly fulfill your requirements with the information and all the personal advisory help you may need. Do not delay, Join today. No one is authorized to receive answers without the membership passwords. Each member enjoys individual attention and help. Andre's Aquarium Club is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of information relating to all aspects of the biology of aquatic life.
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MEMBER OF THE MONTH
Adrian Golumbovici
"My first time":)
by Adrian Golumbovici I've always liked animals(I have a German shepard and a pair of parrots), and have always been fascinated by the sea (in fact any kind of water). Every time I went to the seaside I would go to the "State Aquarium" and spend lots of time in the silence there looking at the fish, as a feeling of peace filled my soul. But the idea of having my own home aquarium came a little bit later. I had an aquarium when I was fourteen, but at that time I didn't have the money or the knowledge how to keep it. At that time the first attempt was a catastrophe with a lot of tears and a severe bodycount. I kept the idea alive in my mind for the future and hey, here comes the future.:) I'm 23 years old, just finished this year a management-marketing faculty at day courses and full time employed since last year. Boy, this last year was tough or what?!? Anyway, since I've been so busy studying and working I just didn't notice when time has passed like a wind beside me. When I arrived at home from work or courses (whichever was last on that day) I was so tired that I could barely move. So a night in town or even an evening was out of the question. I could only bury myself in my study books till late night till I was finally falling on my nose asleep. I used to sleep through weekends so I can recover from a week with only 4-5 hours slept a day. Well, at first this was easy, but at my age, and a background from highschool of being a rocker it's kinda tough to get used to living with no fun. But since I had to build a future and a career, I decided that the only alternative was to find a way of relaxing without leaving home. And since I was too tired to be able to listen to loud music as I used to do long time ago, I recalled my passion for exotic fish. And it was a brilliant idea. I had the money now and the knowledge of the last time (9 years ago). So, I jumped in my car and since there are very few petshops in Bucharest and most of them are so poor in species and accessories that you wonder why they keep calling them so, I decided to go to an open air market that is the heart of pet commerce around here. I bought a 20 or 30 liters aquarium (I can't tell exactly it's capacity, but it's somewhere around that) built without a metallic frame and bought two plants and about a dozen of fishes picked by "eye" for their looks (without being able to identify any), a thermometer and went home. Man, it was the dumbest thing I've ever did. I must've been tired or something... When I arrived home I realized that all I could remember from the last experience in aquariums and exotic fishes was the tears and the floating fish in the aquarium. Quite sad, I forced my memory to the limit and finally remembered that the water taken directly from the tap was not good for fish because of chlorine. So I boiled some water and then let it get cool enough, and then put the fish in it and the plants. I installed the aquarium on my closet since that was the only space available in my room. I also put some rubber "feet" under it to absorb the possible shocks. Then with a puzzled look in my eyes I realized as few fish gathered around the surface of the water gasping for air that I didn't buy an airpump and that the boiling usually makes the chlorine disappear, but also the oxygen. The second thing was that something was missing. How was I supposed to plant the water plants since there was no gravel to plant them in. Sheesh... And it was about 21:00 so I didn't have any chance to get any of the parts I was missing. Damn! I promise that next time I'll do the shopping I'll try to rest first. Oh well... I had to do something, so I turned my house upside down 'till I found an air diffuser, but I started to scratch my head while I realized that there was no way to try to build-up an airpump though I'm very handy at weird ideas on how to make things work. Finally I had a "killer workout" trying to pump air with a syringe. The plants where forced to stay in position by hanging a "weight" on the roots side (the "weight" was a ceramic capacitor from some parts I found in my fathers locker). By the next day 3 fish were dead and two visibly ill. I got depressed and as I also couldn't find an old book on exotic fish keeping that I had years ago I almost decided to let go and give up. But I finally shook my head and said "NO WAY! I'm not anymore that helpless 14 years old wimp!":). And as I got to work I started exasperating my workmates with questions on information about exotic fish, where I could get my hands on some books on this topic or a place where I could find some specialists. But only vague answers came back. I stayed quite nervous for the entire work day hardly being able to concentrate on my work. When I was out of the store I work in, I went in a hurry through the town (especially all open markets in Bucharest) but found nothing. It was a rainy day and since most of our city commerce with pets is made in open air there was nobody to buy anything from. It started getting late when it occurred to me that as in west barbers and bartenders know anything, so do cab drivers around here. After some search like in gangster movies, I finally bumped into one that seemed to remember a specialist "somewhere". Finally we got to that so called "specialist" and his collection of animals was impressing (many species of fish, birds, rabbits, and also a monkey). He started talking that I thought I would never be able to stop him. He was getting more and more like an endless line noise. I've got a headache but also I could gather some basic information and I bought from him a repaired second hand airpump and a water filter. I spent a small fortune on them and in some way I regret it (the airpump broke down 2 days later and though I fixed it myself it's very noisy and it's getting weaker when it heats up from a few hours of functioning). But at least I could save most of my fish and as I was in no bargaining position I decided it was a good idea under the circumstances. I also found some sand in on a play ground and I burnt it in the oven for about 4 hours to make sure is disinfected. I separated in based on granularity and made two layers a bigger grains layer on bottom and a finer upper layer. I washed only the upper layer so the roots of the plants would have from where to get the necessary minerals. By the way, I'd advise to pour water very, very slowly through a thin tube so you won't get muddy water. And another thing, please be wise unlike me and put it in a "hill side" way (starting with more on one side and less on the opposite side) so the fish excrements gather at the base. So it would be easier to collect through a tube when you're changing the water (about 1/4 at a time weekly).
At that time I also realized that the small silvery fish that resembled a small gold fish was actually a baby goldfish (pitty that he died a few days later) and that they aren't too much into crowding with other fishes. In about a week almost half of my fishes died, but though it was like a bit of me was breaking with every loss, I decided that I can't give up and that I must concentrate on getting more info and accessories. After "getting the war band around my forehead" I realized that a couple of weeks I got connected to Internet and that there must be some info "out there´on this subject. After I searched the net with every engine possible and after getting through piles of "garbage" like paysites that sell different things (by which I'm not interested since people around here still handle buying with cash and credit cards that are internationally accepted are hard to get and the conditions needed to be fulfilled are prohibitive for the average man) I got to Andre's Aquarium Page. And since that time I gathered most of my information from him. Mostly because he took time to answer my dumb questions. I also joined Andre's Aquarium Club and they sent a book on Tropical Fish at their own expense. I could not obtain a book here. My many thanks to all the members. The so called local "specialist" got on my nerves and I didn't visit him anymore. He started yelling at me for every mistake I've done and started to do more then giving me information. He started telling me what to buy in fish and plants and how to arrange it. He started spoiling all the fun. I wasn't building an aquarium of my own with my own personality and taste, but merely building one for him. I got myself a decent air pump and a neon "thing" that usually is built in the walls of the house and with my technical skills I hooked a cable with a socket to it and got myself a handmade aquarium light. I figures that 20W should be enough and since the halogen bulb was longer then the aquarium's length I put it on the top of it. Finally it worked well, though at first I had this strange idea that it must stay on all 24 hours a day and it stayed so for about 3-4 days. Thank god I had the inspiration to ask Andre. By that time 1 more fish was dead, but the rest of them hung on pretty well. I also bought them a lot of sorts of food to determine which suited them best (now I have about 10 different types of food including live Tubifex worms which they adore). By that time I found out also that they don't eat any of the food on the market and also that you can determine which they like best by looking at the speed with which they are eating it. I found out that it's a good thing to feed them small amounts (what they can eat in about 2-3 minutes except when you're feeding the dry food pellets which take time to get moist) and two times a day (in the morning when I wake up and before I go to bed) and different things. I can say my fish are getting more change in their diet and menu then I do.
Later on I got the info that you must age the water if you don't have the dechlorinating stuff by letting it stay for about a week. And about PH and mineral concentration... I'll have to rely on the strength developed by fish strains in our country, 'cause you can't find any testing kits around here except maybe if you're working in the chemistry field. I also bought an automatic aquarium heater with which I replaced the hand made one, which my father built and used to heat the water for pictures when in the darkroom (he was an electronist and amature photographer) and which was tuned to the desired temperature by disassembling and tuning a resistor and checking later on the thermometer to see if you guessed right (there was no temperature scale on it). Eventually I found out that fish require a higher temperature than room "normal" temperature (20°C). Now I keep it constantly at 27°C and it seems just fine except for the so called "neon fish" and some "guppy" I had, which died (at first I kept it at 25C but later I discovered that the fish that were coin shaped with white-black stripes and turquoise reflections that seemed ill were Discuss and required at least around 27C). I wouldn't get the temperature any higher since I understand that is the superior limit for the other fish, but it seems every fish I have now is happy with the current temperature and the Discus are fine........... Now I have about 20 happy fish in a dense planted aquarium. I still can't identify them all, but I'm glad things got stable. Later on I bought 4 baby piranha which I was able to identify positively and put them in another aquarium and boy, do they grow fast... But that's another story.........
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