I instantly appealed to my grandfather. He was a sagacious man with few words and a strict disciplinarian, every member of the family held him in awe, except me. I was his favourite.
My appeal was allowed. The tank was not to be thrown away but I was to remove it not only from the living room but also from the ground floor and keep it on the first floor veranda across the room I and my brother shared. The banishment would turn out to be a happy one as not only one corner of that veranda was my exclusive play area where I built my Meccano structures, but then unknown to me; it provided just the right position for the tank for my later trials.
The veranda faced south and was guarded by a chest high wall which was good 2? wide at the top. It provided a perfect table to keep tanks on without intruding into my Meccano building area. I am adding a old (and a poor) picture of my grandfather's house - just look at those guard walls of the first floor balcony and you will get the idea of what I am speaking of (the guard of the veranda was a little higher).

I reset my tank at my corner. The light had reversed. Where earlier the light entered from the viewing side, now it entered from behind. I replanted the fresh collection of plants and waited for action.
It came but not in the manner I expected. The rear and the side glasses started to darken with algae and the plants again, belying the initial hope, were doing poorly. Cleaning the rear glass was a harder job especially due to the height of the tank. After battling patiently for months my only achievement was that I was now better at glass cleaning but there was no future in that.
There was nowhere to go for advice. As far as I knew it was the only aquarium in our little town. The battle lines had to be redrawn but my awful aquarium book had no clue for me. Light from the front and the viewing glass got algae covered; lights from the rear and sides and the rear and side walls got algae covered ? lights, lights?

??.. why not from the top ? no glass there to get algae covered! Eureka!!
I emptied the aquarium, cleaned and dried the tank. To the exterior of the rear and the two side glass I applied several coats of thick black paint consisting of black pigment mixed with fish glue, a water based paint as I was not allowed to play with oil based colours. The galvanized iron canopy top went into storage. Carefully I reset the aquarium taking care not to spill water and undo the paint work I had so painstakingly applied. Summer was coming to an end; the water in the lake was at its lowest for the year. The fresh collection of plants had roots. I replanted my tank with them.
The plants survived. My pride and confidence grew with them. Armed with net and bucket I went out of town into the forested areas where the hill streams had a lot of small fishes and I knew I would manage to catch a few with the flow being low. I came back with a small school of zebra danio caught with the net from shallow pools and couple of loaches caught by bare hands as they played possum under the leaf litter at the base of the boulders in the pool.
That evening as I was transferring my proud catch to my tank; my only thought was if these fishes would survive in my aquarium.
.......... to be contd.