🌻 The great fish tank swap of 2024
Also I quit keto, I know you were wondering how long that would last
Hi, friends!
How’s everybody doing this week? We are well at the Funk house.
I suppose my big news is I quit doing keto — it was great at first (so much energy!) but the initial spike gradually faded until I realized I was back to feeling like I did pre-keto. I also got a new doctor and she told me a keto diet was the opposite of what my body needs right now. Instead, I should minimize as many physical stressors as possible: no keto, no fasting, no high intensity workouts, and be sure to get enough sleep. Well, OK then!
In the end, I did keto for 10 weeks, and lost 10 pounds (which is apparently very little compared to every other person on the internet who has ever done keto), and did not, in the end, see any differences in my energy or “mental clarity” or all the other things people claim. Too bad!
Samson’s sick, poor baby has a double ear infection and won’t let us put any drops in his ears. We’ll have to take him to the vet.
My friendship bracelet offer last week was a HUGE hit — much more than I expected — so now although I’m very much looking forward to making 19 bracelets, I make no promises on timeline. The first one is just about done. So many audiobooks in my future!
Our other big excitement has been getting a new fish tank. (Not an additional one. A replacement for our old one.)
We’ve got a 55-gallon freshwater aquarium in our living room (as casual fish tanks go, I’d say it’s a “big one”) that we’ve had since 2018. It’s moved with us twice, from Lansing, MI to Milwaukee, WI to Kansas City, MO. A handful of the fish we have now originated in Wisconsin.
One morning, a couple weeks ago, Andy and I were sitting in the living room enjoying our coffee, when we heard a POP from the vicinity of the tank. Trusting as I am, I looked up, saw nothing amiss, and went back to my coffee. But Andy sprang up and looked up and down and around the tank until he found the source: The plastic cross-beam that bisects the top of the tank had snapped.
He quickly Googled it to see if this was a big deal or not, and the internet quickly answered that THIS WAS A BIG DEAL: That plastic rod is very much structurally critical and is the only thing keeping 500 pounds of water from exploding all over our living room. Yikes.
Andy sprinted to the garage and grabbed some wood clamps. As he tightened them on the top of the tank, we could see the front pane of glass edging back into place — it had already started to bow out a bit. Yikes!!!
So we’ve had our tank held together with clamps for a few weeks. We tried to epoxy the plastic bar back together, but it didn’t hold. We needed a new tank. Unfortunately, replacing a fish tank is a biiiiig job.
We looked at a few for sale for cheap on Facebook Marketplace but, unable to be certain of a used tank’s condition, decided to buy new. Andy ordered one from Petco. It sat on our living room floor for some time, as we procrastinated the ginormous hassle of swapping it out.
Finally, last Sunday night, in a heroic act of self-sacrifice, Andy swapped out the tanks while I went to a birthday party (did I mention heroic?).
To do the swap, he had to empty out the contents of the old tank into other containers (some 5-gallon homer buckets and a big black rubbermaid we call the “keg tub” after its early use) — saving as much water as possible so as to not shock the fish during their move. The tank itself is heavy and has to be pretty much empty of water and gravel to be able to move it. Even after mostly emptying it, he still ended up roping in our next-door neighbor to help him lift the old tank off its stand.
He took the gravel outside to rinse it off with the hose (a meaningful side quest). Then, “all” that was left was getting 50 pounds of gravel back into the new tank, plus all that water, plus replanting all the plants, and finally dumping in the fish. (Did I mention heroic?)
I am pleased to report that everything is back in the new tank. We filled it about halfway at first (all the old water we could salvage) and have been adding another 5-gallon bucket or so every day.
Unfortunately, we did have one casualty: Our chonky Chinese Algae Eater. It jumped out of the bucket while Andy had stepped away to take a break. He found it on the floor, too late. We’ve had that one since at least Feb 2020. RIP, Blimpie!
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RIP, Blimpie 😢 I had a fish tank many many moons ago and had this bright red algae eater that didn't make it through a cleaning. I was devastated since it was such a pretty fish!