As some of you may remember, my husband maintains an aquarium at the school where I work. He's taken care of it for years, much longer than I've worked there. It's a gorgeous planted aquarium (people always assume the plants in it are fake, they're so green and lush) about 75 gallons I think, with schools of Diamond and Neon tetras. Unfortunately, it's in the back of the library so visitors to the school (and some of the teachers) hardly ever get to see it.
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| Diamond Tetra |
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| Neon Tetras |
Last year Gregg's doctor friend wanted to take down and get rid of the beautiful custom built aquarium he'd had in his home (and Gregg had maintained) for over a decade. The family travels a lot and it had become something of a burden. When Gregg took it down, the friend told him to keep it and do whatever he wanted with it. Well, we have plenty of tanks in this house, and don't need any more empty ones to store in the garage, so he suggested that they might want to donate it to a school. They loved the idea!
I took pictures of it and offered it to my school first, and the administration very enthusiastically said "Yes!" to having a second tank! It really is beautiful and obviously expensive. The band director helped us move it up to the school and for the last 6 months it's been sitting in a workroom, waiting. Decisions had to be made about where it was going to go, and of course what we were going to do with it. Then Covid-19 struck and school was no long open and I figured setting up the tank was put on hold indefinitely.
Then on Monday afternoon the bookkeeper texted me to tell me that the principal is ready to set up the aquarium (!!) and to ask if Gregg could prepare a quote for the cost of everything by the end of the week. Of course, we have to know what kind of tank to set up for them, and they were clueless about the options. To help them in the process, Gregg came up with ideas for three very different tanks that would be suitable. We're excited to see what they choose, and of course there will be lots of room to put our own touches (like with décor) into it. I'm excited! The new tank will go into the main lobby of the school so it should get lots of attention.
And maybe best of all, after the tank is up and running Gregg will make a little more money when he comes to our school, now that there will two tanks for him to care for instead of one. Yay!
Here are some of our ideas:
Tank #1: Tiger Barbs---easy to care for, active, pretty, inexpensive. Lots of varieties of them that you could mix, or you could stick to just one kind.
Tank idea #2: Fancy goldfish, like Shibunkins. They would be playful, goofy, and relatively easy to care for. The tank is a bowfront, 80ish gallons, with a stand and hood that look like brushed nickel. I think these goldfish along with a minimalist aquascape would look great. This is my favorite idea.
Tank #3: Rainbow Fish. They're gorgeous and make a beautiful display, and they're relatively easy to maintain. The downsides: they'd do best in a planted aquarium, which we already have, and the fish and their set up would be slightly more expensive than the first two options. Also, these fabulous colors take a while to develop in the fish, and until they do, they might be almost colorless and not very eye catching. But when they do finally color up....hoo boy!
What's your favorite idea of the three?
