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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V4 #208


>Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 09:17:43 -0700 (PDT)
>From: chong wan-tong <deweychong at yahoo_com>
>Subject: Newbie
>
>Hi,
>
>I am fascinated by the aquatic plant aquarium and
>would
>like to take it as a long term hobby. I need help in
>the following areas:
>
>(1) Is there a good book which I, as a beginner, can
>    get hold of to start off my hobby?

    Don't know -- i got all the info i needed off of the internet.

>(2) Should i seek a professional help to set up the
>    aquarium or should i be doing it myself.I heard
>    that there would be a high failure rate for
>    beginner and it would probably cost more doing
>    myself after all the trial and error than getting
>    professional help to set up and imparting the
>    knowledge.


    You know, i disagree with the high failure rate thing :) -- i've only
started getting into planted tanks since early January (when i got my tank,
and started it cycling.) If you like something, you'll want to know more
about it, and you'll research it a lot, and you'll have a clue, and you
won't fail :).
    I talked things thru with my husband before hand, and we reached an
agreement -- i would be the brains of the operation (i have much more free
time to research stuff) and he would be the wallet, as long as things went
well, and it was pretty high stakes that they did go well, since the tank is
the centerpiece of our living room. But things worked out, and i don't think
that i put forth any extraordinary effort, i just spent a lot of time
sifting thru information on the net until i had a grasp of what a planted
tank meant in terms of commitment, capitial, and work.
    I started things off on my webpage for the tank, a sort of day by day
thing (tho i've been slacking lately, and need to update the photos, since
i've added an amazon sword and totally rearranged the plants) and i'm really
glad i went with plants. Everyone who comes into our house comments on it
(and all our engineer friends are tickled by the co2 reactor for some reason
:P) and it really looks classy. If i could do it all in 3-4 months, i'm sure
you could too (and you've already shown major clue by getting on this
mailing list ;)) I haven't lost any plants, and only have had 4 fish deaths
out of 31 fish (two of which were corys suspiciously bought from the same
pet store and died the next day :P).
    There are some links that i found really helpful when i was starting off
on my page -- http://www.worldcontrol.org/ryokurin  -- i can't list them
here, because i have to bike to the Orchard store and get fern spikes, our
water here has iron in it, and the last thing i need is a column fertilizer
to encourage algae :P and come back to turn my little two gallon guppy tank
into a MTS snail factory, so i can hope to breed enough of them so that the
puffers won't eat them all (i know, i know, i shouldn't have the puffers,
but they are the hubby's.)

    Do it! It is fun! And you'll be more proud of yourself in the long run
(not to mention you'll actually *know* what is going on in your tank) if you
do it yourself :).

    Erin Cashier Denton
    http://www.worldcontrol.org/theri
    It's no better to be safe than sorry.

>Any advice is highly appreciated.
>
>Peter