Re: Water change in tall apartment building - buckets

["David A. Youngker" <nestor10 at mindspring_com>]

> Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 11:09:19 -0600
> From: Tom Wood
>
> Buckets?! You still use buckets?! Gawd man, get with it. If
> I were you I'd leave the hobby because you obviously aren't
> keeping up with the latest water transportation technology.

Just as there's a perceived "breakdown" of the hobby into various "fields"
(or aquascaping into "disciplines"), more than one of which can be
successfully combined, so it goes with two interests as well. You see, the
buckets are actually part of my fitness regimen, helping me to build those
"cannonball" deltoids while I'm helping keep the fish healthy too. (Of
course, those who've seen me in the flesh can testify that the buckets don't
catch all the "waste", either, or this story would be in one.)

Actually, buckets are an old habit inbuilt over a few decades, so they're a
hard one to break. Especially when they offer a few advantages over a
straight drain. All my tanks save two have three things in common - sand,
heavy planting and breeding fish. (One doesn't have plants and the other
doesn't have a breeding population - yet.) Using buckets as an intermediate
stage means almost never losing fry, keeping the sand in the tanks, and
providing working reservoirs while trimming or rearranging the plants.

For the most part, though, I *do* use a hose to fill 'em.

> Dehydrated water is the only way to go man.

I had a few storage problems with that - never could keep the containers
airtight with curious and playful cats around. And those little cans will
suck up a *huge* amount of atmospheric moisture. So when I discovered I'd
lost ACME's address, I just never got around to digging it up again.

No more molded de-hydro in my place - or that gawdawful _smell_, either...

;-)

-Y-