Note to Readers: In the dusty pile of unposted blog entries in the forgotten premises of this Blog's Draft section, I stumbled upon this post that I wrote in the 7th of December 2014. So on this day, this post is more than three years already. But as what people always say, it's never too late for everything. So anyway, I'm posting this in its unaltered state to preserve consistency despite its inconsistency with this blog's chronological order.
After three years of working here in Papua New Guinea, I have been spending some time tinkering about an idea of doing something useful once I go back to Philippines for good.
I have several plans in mind but they are yet to pass through their malleable stage. I believe that for a plan to work out in the future, it has to be well carefully thought of and must be as hard as a concrete. For example, aside from planning to run a computer shop in a distant time, I am also considering other options that spark my interest. One of my options is to own a Local Aquarium Shop.
I am not fond of fish in general, but I like the idea of creating your own personal nature scene inside an aquarium, with tropical fishes swimming within graciously. They say that owning a pet alleviates stress but I think it depends upon what kind of pet. For example, I find it stressful to clean up dog droppings but I have no qualm about cleaning an aquarium tank.
And I also find it very relaxing to look at an aquarium for hours on end. Interestingly, you may occasionally find a fish glaring back at you like you're some kind of food before gradually losing interest of you.
Having an Aquarium Shop that produces own tropical fish is what I have in my mind. But one must have to be fundamentally knowledgeable in the basics of breeding tropical fishes if one wishes to embark on such venture. My particular interest in this field is breeding live-bearers as they are the easiest to breed. A couple of months ago, I was successful at breeding a wild specie of guppy that I bought from PNG Gardener. Now, I'm up for a bigger challenge of breeding a pair of red swordtails.
Unlike guppies, it's quite difficult to breed swordtails due to their preference on habitat. For instance, they require a breeding space with a minimum of 20 gallon. And because this is only for the sake of learning how to breed them, I purchased a 75 Litter rectangular plastic bin instead of a glass aquarium.
Although not an eye candy, it has saved me a huge amount of money.
For a fish tank this big, it will require a bigger and powerful filter too. The Eheim 2010 or Eheim 160 was the perfect choice by the availability. I bought it for K175.00 at PNG Gardener. It is both a submersible and a canister-type filter that sucks water from the bottom and spew it up on top leaving the pollutants trapped within the pores in the sponge filter inside.
It runs on 6-Watt power so it doesn't really consume much electricity and a perfect choice for a 24/7 tank filtration.
Another thing that I like most about Eheim 2010 is that it has a protruding tube on top from which it draws air to generate micro bubbles that goes along with the water movement. Although it appears to be not contributing anything other than being interesting, it actually helps to aerate water and oxygenate aerobic bacteria to help in the fish' byproduct nitrification process. The pump causes water movements and the bubbles that go on top increase the surface area and improve the oxygen exchange on the water surface.
This is one of the display rack from PNG Gardener at their Gordons branch. As you can see, they have the Eheim models 2006, 2008 and 2010. All of these Eheim products are internal filters. Both 2008 and 2010 have the bubble feature which the 2006 model doesn't have.
The filter in action. You can see the bubbles rushing out from the opening on top. It is always advisable to keep the filter submerged at a quarter of an inch below the water surface to give the whole tank a good water circulation.
Here's what my plastic tank looks like from another perspective. The source of light is from a 2-Watt fluorescent lamp attached to a modified overhead reading lamp. It's a weak source of light, to be exact, but I'm guessing that the impurities in the water and the tank itself being translucent are both reflective of lights thus making the whole bin glow in the dark.
This tank is currently holding 19 gallons of water, a couple of rocks to weigh down artificial plants and a pair of red swordtail fish.
If I'm successful at breeding this particular specie, then I'm considering it as a good sign that I should continue with my future plans.
