Office Aquarium

Well after several years of having fish in the house and yard, I decided to bring some fish to the office. With all the confidence of my pond and 50 gallon tank, I figured this would be an easy ride. So much that the first fish in my new 10 gallon office tank was a pleasant goldfish, fresh from the store, with flowing fins and orange on white colors. My daughter named it Pete.

One sunny Sunday morning daughter and I went to the office for some aquarium time. Fresh water, new filter, a bit of water from the home tank, everything was going along great.

Pete was a big hit. Monday morning at the office people came by and admired Pete. While I was away a meetings people would come by and discuss important topics in front of Pete - knowing his excellent ability to keep a secret. He swam and ate and pooped and, within a few days, the nitrogen cycle began.

Having setup several fish tanks, I was ready for this. Test the water, change the water, test the water, change the water, repeat until ammonia levels were safe.

One thing I didn't account for was three day weekends. It turns out that while the tank is starting to cycle a three day weekend with no water changes is enough to cause considerable stress on fish.

Well, within about three weeks, Pete died. I took him home from the new tank - still swimming though obviously stressed - and put him in my healthy 50 gallon tank. He swam among the other goldfish for the rest of the day and, around 10pm, lay down for his final rest at the bottom of the tank. Goodbye Pete.

Not to be deterred, I changed and tested and tested and changed again. This time the chemistry was in the safe range and it was time to take another chance on a slightly larger and healthy fish. I brought a fish from my 50 gallon tank. Not wanting to flush another few dollars down the drain, this seemed like a cheap alternative. The new - yet to be named fish - was also a big hit at work. Folks were sad to see Pete go but glad the opportunity for safe top-secret conversations had returned to the office place. In fact, there were three fish ready to listen - a new Beta fish, a Pleco, and a new yet to be named goldfish (YTNG).

YTNG was doing great. Lots of good eating and swimming. I put food in tank and YTNG would race to the surface to eat. Very cool. A great way to decompress between coding challenges. Weekly water changes with water from home, occasional glass scraping to keep algae down, and some filter cleaning. YTNG was happy and so was I.

Then came another three day weekend. Tuesday morning, the tank was very green. For my pond, I fixed green water with a UV light. The UV light would be impractical for a 10 gallon office tank so a cheaper solution had to be found. After speaking to the aquarium guy at PetCo, I decided to try a few water changes and AlgaeFix.

You may be noticing a theme here - when in doubt, change the water. This is the cure-all for aquariums - change the water. In general, a 20-50% water change is enough to help the tank get back in balance and keep the fish healthy. I have had great success with my home tanks doing 20-30% water changes as seldom as once per month. Low maintenance and happy fish. Good for everyone if you ask me!

Anywho, back to the green water. Well a few water changes and some a dosing of algae fix and the tank was clear! Hooray!

Enter the heat wave.

OK, so this one I did not see coming. It turns out that my office building has NO AIR CONDITIONING on weekends. It may have heat in the winter so the pipes don't freeze but there is no cooling on weekends in the summer. One of my co-workers came to the office on Sunday and observed an office thermostat at 86 degrees. That is too hot for goldfish. Goldfish peak out around 78 degrees. That's like spending the weekend in a 120 degree sauna.

Bad news. YTNG died. Monday morning when I arrived at work I discovered a floating fish and a very smelly tank. I was not happy. At first I wanted to drain the tank, take the remaining fish home, and call it quits. After a bit of happy coding time though I decided to stay the course and keep the fish tank going.

So now the question is how to manage the temperature. It will be complicated or expensive to put a refrigeration system in place. It will be much less interesting to switch the fish out for something more temperature tolerant - like plants. It will be a shame to keep killing fish in the office fish tank.

So if you have any suggestions, please let me know!