I'd Like to Be...Under the Sea...

I'm betting you're already sick of my sailor and sea-related lyrics, and we haven't even gotten to "Scuba Dooba" yet! (That's okay--I've found a few projects I may start before Scuba Dooba.) When I wasn't making jam or stitching this past weekend, I was landscaping. Growing grass in a fish tank is a lot harder than growing grass on land, as I've said. I've seen beautifully planted and landscaped tanks in stores, but there seems to be a trick to it involving the purchase of a myriad of supplies. (It's a lot like counted cross stitch that way.) And patience with fiddly details. (Also like cross-stitching.) First there's the addition of a box of laterite to supplement the gravel. Laterite looks like granules of clay and causes a red cloud that hangs in the water for a couple of days and makes the fish look like something on Mars. Then there are the "Flourish Tabs" that I added yesterday, which look like black plugs and are a fertilizer of some sort. Hopefully they won't cause an algae overgrowth on the glass. Next I'll buy a CO2 system which consists of a canister that produces CO2 bubbles that are released into the water as the ingredients of the canister--a commercial starter and table sugar--ferment. Fermented? Demented! It would be so much easier just to buy the plastic plants, but I really want this grass to grow.

When I was at the pet store stocking up on ridiculous supplies this weekend, I saw the coolest 2.5 gallon goldfish aquarium which looks like an undersea "Pirates of the Carribbean." It's even cuter than the "Sponge Bob Squarepants" aquarium.

Honestly, for me to go to the pet store is like sending an eight-year-old in with a credit card; somebody needs to go with me and intervene.

Once I got my arms to dry from slopping around in the aquarium, this is one of the things I worked on: