Saving a beautiful aquarium from trash

Saving a beautiful aquarium from trash

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I am riding a bicycle by 80th street in Queens on April 16th, 2024.

Here I spotted an aquarium left on the sidewalk.

Let's take a look.

Yup! Someone put a barely used cube shaped glass aquarium to the trash!

There is a water pump and built-in filters.

It even has a glass cover!

All walls seem to be intact.

It's about a 4 gallon very pretty tank!

Aha! One of the removable glass pieces is broken.

I think the aquarium can be used without it just fine.

And it's small enough for me to transport it on my bike.

I promised to the young man who owned this aquarium to make a video about it.

One man's trash is another man's treasure :)

I really like this glass cube tank!

It comes with a small water pump that can be attached to the wall here.

I may use the pump in this or any other aquarium.

The  filters take about a quarter of the valuable space of this small tank.

And I don't use filters in my aquariums.

So let's remove the wall with those filters.

It's actually easy to cut the silicon using a sharp blade.

I have to be careful around parts sealing the walls of the tank - do not cut through those!

The silicon leaves no traces on the glass.

I use a flat shaped blade for a final cleanup.

Now I have a glass cube with 9.5 inch sides.

It has a capacity of 13 liters or about 3.5 gallon of water.

I washed it clean and filled it up with tap water and let it sit overnight.

The cover only covers 3/4th of the surface leaving a huge gape where filters used to be.

One of the glass walls used for separating filters comes in a perfect size for this purpose!

I use sandpaper to smooth sharp edges and corners of this glass piece.

Now I have two pieces of glass to cover the tank!

First I want to put a flat rock to make a feeding spot.

Flat feeding spots reduce the amount of food leftovers.

The rest of the bottom I cover with medium sized gravel.

I am going to reuse some lava rocks from my old aquarium to make a cave.

More about lava rocks in a video that I am going to publish on June 18th ;)

I simply reassemble the lava rocks to make an arch.

Also, I put more gravel on the back of the tank to make the bottom inclined toward the front glass for a better viewing.

The Java Fern in my main aquarium has been producing many offspring.

I picked 5 new plantlets for the aquarium.

Stick Java Fern plantlets between gravel and lava rocks.

Next I add cuttings of fast growing Elodea.

And let's add cuttings of fast growing Guppy Grass.

I use fast growing plants for making fish food flakes and to control algae growth.

Scuds are the first critters I put in all my aquariums including this one.

Baby scuds feed on common green algae.

Adult scuds feed on plants, and everything else they can chew on.

Fish eat scuds.

I also like bladder snails - they are fun to watch.

Bladder snails feed on common green algae growing on walls of the aquarium.

Fish and scuds eat snail eggs.

It would take another month or so to establish a colony of snails and scuds in this aquarium.

Also it takes about two weeks for bacteria to build up in newly setup aquariums.

Then I could add fish.

Meantime...I could add this pretty pink turtle.

My granddaughter named this turtle Sally.

We have made a fully functional sustaining aquarium saved from trash and looking pretty!

Here you can see the aquarium one week later on April 25th, 2024.

Scuds and snails are busy keeping the aquarium clean.

I don't use filters and I don't change water at all.

Snails and scuds have all food growing right here - I don't have to feed them anything else.

And the little Sally turtle looks pretty with scuds on top of her :)

You are going to see this aquarium in my future project.

Have fun and happy aquariums :)