Another Go At It

Over the years, the Swallow's young ones have been asking for pets.  The Swallow and her mate were not keen with the idea of keeping furry creatures, let alone ending up with their care when the young ones had lost their interest.

Then one day in year 2007, one of the Swallow's young ones came home with a bag of fish which was his prize in a 'fishing' game at his school's fun fair. 

As fish met each of the criterion for the keeping of pets, as laid down by the Swallow and her mate, the young one was allowed to keep the fishes.  And that was the start of the journey of discovery into the world of fish...

A big glass bowl (recycled from a damaged turbo broiler, now being used as the Swallow's terrarium) was used to house the fishes.  However, due to lack of food and oxygen, and maybe too much moving around, several of the fishes died.

The Planted Tank

The Swallow's mate decided that the family would go to a nearby shop, which sold all manner of things relating to fish and other pets, to buy some fish food and an air pump.  They ended up buying a fish tank, some plants (apparently it helps to calm the fish) and more fish (they were down to a fish or two)!

Since then, the Swallow's young ones (as expected...) have lost interest in the pets, but the Swallow and her mate's interest grew.  They invested some time in exploring the world of fishes and aquatic plants, and brought to fruit their decision to have a planted tank.

The Swallow and her mate experimented with

• various plants like dracaenas, aponogeton, cabomba and cryptocoryne among many others
• other fishes such as tetras and sucker fish
• different growing mediums eg soil, soilless, gravel
• lighting and its effect
• CO2 and its effect
• fertilizer and its effect

Java Ferns

However, their inexperience showed and the planted tank was down to one tetra and the newest bought plants - the Java Ferns (pictured left) and the Flame Moss (pictured right).

Flame Moss

When the remaining tetra died as well during a water change, the Swallow and her mate toyed with the idea of 'letting go' the planted tank but then decided to have another go at it...they cleaned the whole tank, filled it with gravel and water that had been kept aside for several days, put back the ferns and the moss, and waited a week before getting some fish.

A renewed interest from the young ones brought about the buying of guppies.  Although they are not as hardy as the tetra (especially the x-ray tetras), the guppies they had bought in the past had given birth to fry, and the young ones were hopeful to repeat this.

Guppies