texasdiver
02-26-2007, 04:21 PM
Thought I would share with you all my wife's weekend experience with setting up an aquarium with the help and supervision of our local shop.
My wife has been wanting to get a much bigger aquarium and nicer fish for our front hallway for some time. However she is a physician with an extremely busy schedule so I've been the one doing the research and educating myself on how to setup and operate a tropical freshwater aquarium. Previously we just had a 10 gallon tank with 2 small goldfish.
Here in Waco Texas I've discovered that we have the usual petsmart, petco, wal-mart and one really good local independent shop that only does fish.
After visiting all the local options it was immediately obvious that the local independent shop was the only place to go for expert advice and service. The woman who runs it is a no-nonsense Texan who cares much more about her fish than making a sale.
In any event, I had done some research and pretty much concluded that a 55 gallon tank kit with matching stand was about right in terms of the next step up without a massive investment. I shared this conclusion with my wife and she agreed. And over the weekend while I was working my wife, without telling me took it on herself to go with the kids to buy everything and get started. So Saturday morning while I'm working she and the kids manage to bring home the tank, stand, and a bunch of other supplies like gravel, rocks, plastic plants, backdrop etc. etc.
Now my wife is a very thorough doctor in her professional life. But in everything else she just plunges in and wings it. Whether it's cooking or buying a car. She can't be bothered to open a cookbook or actually do background research. So she gets the aquarium home, sets it up in the hallway where we were going to put it, then drags a garden hose in from the yard to fill up the tank.
My 8 year old daughter says "Mom, I don't think that's how they told us to do it". My wife says "Oh, this is OK, tapwater is tapwater, it all comes from the same place". My daughter says "I don't think so Mom, I think we should check. So my daughter picks up the phone and calls the pet shop when my wife was not paying attention and the shop owner tells my daughter. "Sweetie, put your mom on the phone" and then the shop owner proceeds to lecture my wife "Now honey, what did we talk about in the shop? huh? What are you trying to do? Kill all my fish? Now dump that water back out and fill it up from your kitchen tap with no garden hose" So my wife spends the next hour siphoning out the newly filled 55 gallon tank into buckets and then fills it back up bucket by bucket from the kitchen tap (I've since rigged up a 25' drinking water quality hose to attach to the inlet valve under the sink so we don't have to do that again). When my wife was finally done refilling the tank my daughter calls the shop back and they walked her through the setup of the filter, heater, and water treatment. and tell her that she can bring in a water sample the next day (sunday) to see if she can buy some fish.
The next afternoon my wife brings her water sample back to the shop expecting to buy some of the big pretty fish on display in the front aquariums. But no, "no pretty fish for you yet" she was told. "These are the only fish you are allowed to buy today" she was told and brought to the back of the store where she was sold a half dozen green barbs. "you need to cycle your tank and bring me weekly water samples and maybe in a month you will earn the right to buy some pretty fish". Of course my wife had totally not read the chapter on cycling in Boruchowitz's "Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums" that I had bought for her to read the night before. So she had no idea what this cycling business was all about. But she was really put out by being told what she could and could not buy with her own money. I don't think any store anywhere has EVER told her that before.
So last night my wife was just completely fed up after looking at her big new tank with a tiny little school of green barbs swimming around in it. "That horrible woman is such a Nazi. I can't believe she wont' let me buy more fish" my wife fumes. I'm trying really hard not to laugh and then I remember the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld and just crack up. "Honey, remember Seinfeld's Soup Nazi? I think you found your very own fish Nazi!" My wife grudgingly admits that it is sort of funny. Then she FINALLY agrees to read about tank cycling while we watch the Academy Awards. Slowly she starts to get it. "Wow, I could have killed all our new fish!" she exclaims. "I thought it was just the chlorine that was the problem" "Uh...yeah" I answer.
Now if I can just find a local car dealership with the same level of professional integrity as our local fish shop I will be all set!
My wife has been wanting to get a much bigger aquarium and nicer fish for our front hallway for some time. However she is a physician with an extremely busy schedule so I've been the one doing the research and educating myself on how to setup and operate a tropical freshwater aquarium. Previously we just had a 10 gallon tank with 2 small goldfish.
Here in Waco Texas I've discovered that we have the usual petsmart, petco, wal-mart and one really good local independent shop that only does fish.
After visiting all the local options it was immediately obvious that the local independent shop was the only place to go for expert advice and service. The woman who runs it is a no-nonsense Texan who cares much more about her fish than making a sale.
In any event, I had done some research and pretty much concluded that a 55 gallon tank kit with matching stand was about right in terms of the next step up without a massive investment. I shared this conclusion with my wife and she agreed. And over the weekend while I was working my wife, without telling me took it on herself to go with the kids to buy everything and get started. So Saturday morning while I'm working she and the kids manage to bring home the tank, stand, and a bunch of other supplies like gravel, rocks, plastic plants, backdrop etc. etc.
Now my wife is a very thorough doctor in her professional life. But in everything else she just plunges in and wings it. Whether it's cooking or buying a car. She can't be bothered to open a cookbook or actually do background research. So she gets the aquarium home, sets it up in the hallway where we were going to put it, then drags a garden hose in from the yard to fill up the tank.
My 8 year old daughter says "Mom, I don't think that's how they told us to do it". My wife says "Oh, this is OK, tapwater is tapwater, it all comes from the same place". My daughter says "I don't think so Mom, I think we should check. So my daughter picks up the phone and calls the pet shop when my wife was not paying attention and the shop owner tells my daughter. "Sweetie, put your mom on the phone" and then the shop owner proceeds to lecture my wife "Now honey, what did we talk about in the shop? huh? What are you trying to do? Kill all my fish? Now dump that water back out and fill it up from your kitchen tap with no garden hose" So my wife spends the next hour siphoning out the newly filled 55 gallon tank into buckets and then fills it back up bucket by bucket from the kitchen tap (I've since rigged up a 25' drinking water quality hose to attach to the inlet valve under the sink so we don't have to do that again). When my wife was finally done refilling the tank my daughter calls the shop back and they walked her through the setup of the filter, heater, and water treatment. and tell her that she can bring in a water sample the next day (sunday) to see if she can buy some fish.
The next afternoon my wife brings her water sample back to the shop expecting to buy some of the big pretty fish on display in the front aquariums. But no, "no pretty fish for you yet" she was told. "These are the only fish you are allowed to buy today" she was told and brought to the back of the store where she was sold a half dozen green barbs. "you need to cycle your tank and bring me weekly water samples and maybe in a month you will earn the right to buy some pretty fish". Of course my wife had totally not read the chapter on cycling in Boruchowitz's "Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums" that I had bought for her to read the night before. So she had no idea what this cycling business was all about. But she was really put out by being told what she could and could not buy with her own money. I don't think any store anywhere has EVER told her that before.
So last night my wife was just completely fed up after looking at her big new tank with a tiny little school of green barbs swimming around in it. "That horrible woman is such a Nazi. I can't believe she wont' let me buy more fish" my wife fumes. I'm trying really hard not to laugh and then I remember the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld and just crack up. "Honey, remember Seinfeld's Soup Nazi? I think you found your very own fish Nazi!" My wife grudgingly admits that it is sort of funny. Then she FINALLY agrees to read about tank cycling while we watch the Academy Awards. Slowly she starts to get it. "Wow, I could have killed all our new fish!" she exclaims. "I thought it was just the chlorine that was the problem" "Uh...yeah" I answer.
Now if I can just find a local car dealership with the same level of professional integrity as our local fish shop I will be all set!