Sad news.

A year ago our friends Blake and Alexis showed you how to build an inner city aquarium. Well, if you’re following their instructions, you might need to hit the brakes. Here’s what Blake had to say…

We had to abandon the fish tank recently due to health concerns.

The poor buggers kept getting sick. We figured it was the water quality or pH, so we did a few tests, which were inconclusive.

Even with water conditioners and fish medicine, they kept dying. So, despite the advice from the aquarium guy to “Just keep buying more fish,” we eventually decided it would be best to to fill up the old shipping crate with soil and focus on the creation of life rather than death.

So far, we’ve been much more successful with garlic chives than with goldfish.

Take a look at this terrific, DIY fish tank.

We spotted this when visiting our friends Blake and Alexis’s terrace on Womerah Lane, and couldn’t resist inviting them for a guest post.

The internal email system of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research (where my girlfriend Alexis works) is constantly swamped with offers of old furniture, cars and other bargains. It’s affectionately dubbed “G-bay”. One was selling a homemade pond made from half a wine barrel containing beautiful goldfish and reeds, for just $50. After picturing a sloshing barrel of fish in the back of our tiny Toyota Corolla, we decided the price was disproportionate to the risk. When just a few too many days had passed to reconsider and make an offer, Alexis was suddenly wracked with regret.

We spent minutes, maybe even tens-of-minutes trying to decide whether we actually needed a fish pond in the first place.

We didn’t, but the seed was planted.

We went to our local hardware superstore, only to find that they don’t sell old wine barrels or giant terracotta pots or anything for that matter that we could use as a pond that would cost us less than two hundred dollars.

We ditched Bunnings and headed to the inner West. We had to find something non-porous that would also look impressive. More impressive than that bloody barrel. Unfortunately, all Reverse Garbage in Marrickville had in stock was about 6km of electrical cable and some plywood koalas, but as fate would have it, only a few steps away from Reverse Garbage, a dusty old used goods co-op called The Bower came to the rescue.

As we were surveying used laundry tubs and old canoes trying to convince ourselves that they were a feasible option (A canoe full of fish would be a beautiful juxtaposition right? Like an umbrella full of rain!) we spotted this glorious receptacle.

It’s an old wooden crate with a metal lining made in 1957 to ship a rotor engine (of course). It still has a plaque on the side saying ‘spare rotor for m/g set, 40 ton crane, captain cook dock 1957’
This quaint piece of local docklands history today was worth $30. Sold! Wait… Was it watertight? Is aluminium poisonous to fish?

Aesthetics first. Details later.

After a brief consultation with the internet and a Bunnings sealant guru we painted the inside of the crate with three layers of bitumen designed for rain water tanks.

Maybe wear gloves and a dust mask for this bit. Bitumen smells quite bad and sticks to everything.
Our tank was dry in less than 24 hours but there were seven more painfully long days of waiting before we could safely add water to the tank. After what seemed like an eternity, we effectively had our pond. You can’t even imagine the level of smugness at that point.

I like to think it kicks arse over the wine barrel. All we needed was some fish and plants.

Here’s the finished product in all its glory.

We kitted it out with plants, some shells, a filter, a sheep’s skull Lex found on the laneway (don’t ask) and for Christmas, Lex’s aunty who is an amateur geologist and enthusiastic fossicker bought us a box of rocks that she gathered from abandoned mines and various riverbeds near Lismore.

We now have 16 goldfish and one kind of sad looking black boggley eyed fish that seems to be routinely ignored by the others.

It cost us more than we expected (about $200 in total), but even those very organised English architects on Grand Designs sometimes go over budget, so I’m not too concerned.

God help us if we have to move. We may have to auction it off. $50 should do it.

Finally, make sure you ask for advice.

We’d pretty much ignored seeking advice until it was absolutely necessary. Shortly after we filled the tank, our fish started getting sick. It turns out tap water’s really acidic and strips off the fish’s slimy coat so they’re more at risk of getting infections. In fact, you’re meant to leave a pond for a month to get the right water bacteria growing happily, before you add fish. Like waiting for bitumen to dry, it’s an incredibly boring step but we found out you can cheaply overcome this problem by talking to your local aquarium person and getting some pH conditioner.

We got all our fish and aquatic paraphernalia from a guy at Kings Cross (opposite the old Civic Video store on Ward Avenue), but if you only buy fish supplies from suppliers with pun-names then I can recommend either the Age of Aquariums online store, or Aquadisiac in Surry Hills.