Life in a glass pond

Keeping an aquarium full of fish, apart from giving the house a lived-in-look, is also said to bring good luck. The Chinese believe that an aquarium full of fish brings good luck, health and wealth to the owner, contends Harkiran Sodhi

TO make our home more pleasing to the eye as well as to give it a unique, personalised touch of our own, we try to choose accessories that we place. Some of us prefer the ethnic look with carved wooden furniture, rugs with more Indian motifs and colours as well as paintings, which complete the theme, while others like the more European Spartan, clean look.

Everything, from the paintings we hang up to the curios we place around the house down to the flowers we use, all combine to make our home that unique, special place for us. In some homes the focus is on the furniture, while in others it is the paintings displayed and still others with the different curios that are sprinkled all around.

Common in many western homes and essential in many Chinese houses is not so common to India — the goldfish bowl or aquarium. The round glass goldfish fish with it’s one or two bright goldfish swimming in it are a common enough sight in not only many homes in the West but a part of the films and cartoons as well.Keeping fish in the home, though seen often in movies and photographs, is now a trend that is fast catching on in India as well. Garden ponds with water lilies and fish are a apart of the traditional Japanese garden’s charm, and these are also being brought indoors to try and bring colour into our homes.

Aquariums are far more popular than the more frequently seen goldfish bowl. A part of the reason is that the capacity of a rectangular aquarium is more than a round bowl as well as the functional aspect. Fitting in all that a tropical fish needs to survive in a container is not possible in a bowl while it is easy in a regular sized aquarium. Another reason is that the upkeep of a bowl becomes far more tedious as it is more basic and without all the equipment.

Keeping an aquarium full of fish apart from giving the house a lived-in-look is also said to bring good luck. The Chinese believe that an aquarium full of fish brings good luck, health and wealth to the owner, but only if it is well maintained and the fish are healthy.

In order to set up your own aquarium you can either collect the necessary material and do it yourself or then call in a professional to help you. Aquariums, whether you buy a round bowl or a rectangular one, or get one made up to suit the area you want to place it in have to be of glass. These can be made up or then bought ready-made in standard sizes from any shop that stocks aquariums or fish.

While buying an aquarium, no matter what the shape or size, check the joints, if there are any to see that they are well joined, don’t look weak and don’t leak. Remember that once you put in the water and the stones the weight of the aquarium will increase manifold. Therefore the finishing needs to be solid and well done.

Place the aquarium in a safe area of the room where the traffic is minimum to avoid it being knocked over or broken. The height of the table that you place it on should be such that after placing the aquarium on, it should be comfortably viewed while sitting or standing, as you prefer. The top of the table that you place the aquarium on should be solid and able to take the weight of the filled finished product and it should not be a wobbly or rickety table, but the base should also be solid.

Experts recommend first placing a sheet of thermocol on the tabletop and then placing the aquarium on it. The thermocol absorbs impacts and works like a safety cushion protecting the aquarium from cracking with the smallest of jolts. When the aquarium is placed on top there should be about half an inch of extra thermocol on all sides extra.

To clean the aquarium when you buy it, remember never to use any detergent or cleaning agent on the inside. Even the minute residue left behind can prove fatal to the fish when you put them in. The best way is to clean it with water and a clean cloth and use regular salt to scrub any areas that have stubborn stains on them.

Once you have cleaned out your aquarium then you should fix in any attachments that are needed. Recom-mended by most aquarium sellers are an air pump, a water filter, and a water heater. Of course, you can buy any decorations that you like. The air pump is a necessity as it provides the fish with the oxygen they need in the water.

Water filters, though not used by everybody, are recommended to keep the water clean and reduce your job of draining and cleaning out the fish tank ever so often. You can use one or two different filters; one cleans the base of the aquarium while the other one filters the water.

The heater is needed essentially in winters to keep the water to the required temperature for the fish; these water heaters have automatic cut-offs and are sleek glass encapsulated elements, which can be safely left in the water.

There are about as many accessories to decorate your aquarium with, as there are varieties of tropical fish. Here the option is yours as to what you want to put in and how much you would like to spend on it. Silica sand is used for the base of the aquarium to give it a natural look; this is specifically used in aquariums. Many people opt for the cheaper bajri, but then this needs to be cleaned very thoroughly so that no mud or dirt remains in it.

Goldfish, red cap goldfish, blue shark, albino shark — all come in endless varieties, colours, sizes and shapes. Once you set up your own aquarium at home you can fill it up with any exotic species of fish you so desire.

This feature was published on March 21, 1999