Topic: THOSE EARLY YEARS - 1

[Essabee]

As I near completion of 50 years of my flirtation with the planted tank, I look back into the past and count my blessings. December 1960 when I received my first tank a 24" 12" 15" size, glasses fitted in a fabricated galvanized iron sheet frame with common window putty and sealed with battery pitch and canopy of the same GI material; little did I know that it would wean me away from my Meccano set and give me so much enjoyment . The 60's I believe were the dark ages of the aquarium hobby when myths and not logic abounded and found place in the awful books written about the hobby. Then it was those kinds of books that were all that I had to rely upon on the start of my journey.

I don?t remember now how many days the two pairs of fishes, black molly and red sword tail, which were received along with that tank, survived; knowing what I know now it could not have been for long, but long enough to whet my appetite with their beauty and to challenge me to find a way to make fishes survive.

Those days there were no LFS in my home town Ranchi, and the tank and fishes had been brought back from Calcutta by my parents (as they had been there, while missing my birthday). Now I was left with an empty aquarium set up in accordance to one of those awful books, perhaps a boon in disguise. The tank was not only deserted but also looked like a patch of desert with its washed sand substrate.
 
Situated under the switch-board in the room and located directly opposite to the door opening Eastwards onto the open courtyard; the tank received enough indirect sun reflected from the floor of the room during the better half of the day. The lone incandescent 40 Watt bulb which the canopy possessed to light the tank (it had been in use only for evening viewing when the fishes were alive) being switched off.  It was light enough to turn the front viewing glass a bright green. Greenery to an avid gardener! Then there were aquatic plants in the lake which I passed every day on way to school; that gave me the idea to try to grow some.

The fauna-less tank got cleaned and I scrubbed off the algae using a pad made from the wiry, woody, skeleton of a matured snake gourd (those days you did not get the plastic ones at least in my town). The tank cleaned; I planted several varieties of aquatic weeds from the wayside lake. My first planted tank had been set up.

The glass started to green again and the combat between the algae and the planted tank hobbyist found a new addition ? me. So it was scrubbing, siphoning, and spillage, every holiday trying to keep that glass clean. All this time, in spite of all the work I put into the tank, the plants after the initial flush of green growth were languishing.

The tank was in the living room of my grandfather's house where, all members of the family (my grandparents, my father's brother and his family including 4 cousins, my parents and my brother) gathered at leisure hours. After the first few weeks of tolerance to my labours ? resentment of the disturbance and ugliness that I was creating started to build up. No, none took it out on me though I was the youngest in the family but long faces of all (except my grandfather's) and their blank stares made me realize that something must give. My grandmother finally announced the verdict; the aquarium was a mistake, it was ugly, it was nuisance, it had no place in the living-room or any part of the house and should be thrown away.

(to be continued........)

[Cholly]

I can feel your frustration and desperation. You do the cliffhanger well, just don't leave us hanging too long...

[Essabee]

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.

[Nic Obscurites]

Good read.
Waiting for more 

[Mollielover]

Joy, John & I are both fascinated....

[Cholly]

This is great reading Joy! Can't wait for your next installment!

[Clint]

Great stuff, please keep going 

[Essabee]

My tank had fishes, and I fed them with the fish food I had received with the tank in December last. The plants stayed green and the fishes did not die out. I had an aquarium at last. There were no algae to fight this time. The pond weeds grew; older leaves dying but new ones replacing them.  My stock of food dwindled. To begin with it was only a 100 cc cylindrical glass bottle with a label saying -Angel Food - and displaying the picture of angel with the tapering ribbon leaves of vallisneria in the back ground and containing a fishy smelling coarse powder.

I needed more food. There were no LFS in town. My hobbies those days included fishing with rod and line, so I was quite aware what made fishes bite; I had to use the dry types similar to the baits I used to make my catches. I knew who best could help me in making my choice of ingredients; my mother.  The result was a concoction with roasted bread crumbs, dried shrimps and dried cabbage leaves - all pounded to powder using hammer and pestle, and mixed.

My wild caught fishes accepted the home-made food. I knew the home made food was a stop gap arrangement - I needed better food. Some research was necessary but I did not know where to begin. The doctor at the government run veterinary hospital had no idea about aquarium fishes but told me that pond fishes were fed food containing rice bran, oil cakes, fish meal, etc. and this supplemented their natural food - the microscopic plants and animals that grew in the water and all larger life-forms that ate it. He also told me that supplementary feeding when practiced made the pond water turn acidic and liming was necessary to correct it. My research on the subject of pisciculture at the state library filled up gaps and added lots of exotic materials like silk-worm pupa as fish food ingredients.

Armed with my newly found knowledge and painstakingly hand-copied charts of analysis of different food ingredients; I embarked into formulation of a fish food concentrate with 35% protein content. Leaning heavily on animal proteins from dried shrimps and dried Bombay-duck fillets (a sea fish) mixed with decorticated peanut oil-cakes to balance the essential amino-acids and add some fat and carbohydrates too and dried cabbage at the core and other ingredients as per their availability, and I further fortified this mixture with vitamins and minerals from the pharmacy. Like my first food mix; I again pounded the mixture into dust but this time I mixed a whisked raw egg to bind the fine powder and form bite size crumbs for fishes.

Dried in the shade this food mixture was a success. In the long years when I followed my hobby in isolation of the wonderful wilderness my career would lead me to; this basic food with some additions and alterations, depending upon availability (for example once I was intrigued by a pinkish shade in a forest lake and found it to be a daphnia bloom - which I collected and dried to be mixed with my fish food) would stand me well and keep my fishes healthy. That does not mean that my fishes did not feast on the seasonal mosquito larvae or chopped earthworms when I could find them. This food mix was the staple diet and freed me when over burdened with the work that paid for my living.

(to be continued......)

[Lori]

Wonderfully interesting.  Please continue, Joy!

[Cholly]

I can see myself willing to go through that now, with my love of fish fully developed, but you amaze me with your perseverance as a youngster. Although I guess I went through some similar trials with my self caught critters. (Mom drew the line at snakes, I couldn't bring them in the house, but if it walked, crawled, flew or swam, I was interested)