Planted tanks.. Aquaria!

We will be moving out of our place soon so I thought I would take a picture of our planted tank that I have had for close to 2 yrs. I still remember buying the tank from a guy who stayed in the 4th storey of a HDB block and I carried it back by myself together with the stand. Boy, was I stronger in those days... :)... only 2 yrs ago!

Its a 3ft tank with CO2 and lighting. Keeping an aquarium is supposed to keep you calm and is a good hobby that requires very little time to maintain and upkeep. On average, I replace 1/4 of the water using a siphon every week with fresh water. I wash the external filter (a Atman 3336) and change the filter sponge every 2 months or so.

As its a planted tank, the plants in the tank will make use of the waste materials from the fish to grow and in turn provide oxygen for the fish to breathe. Of course, you have to provde light to the plants in order for photosynthesis to occur - in our case we have some strip lighting that we place above the tank that we switch on about 9 hours a day. Lots of people put an air pump in their fish tank which is totally unnecessary for planted tanks. The fish in the tank dont require much in terms of food and when I am travelling, I can fit an automatic fish feeder that dispenses food every day.

We keep cardinal tetras, striped pencilfish and also corys (panda and leopard) mostly, with some otos and yamatos and a single dwarf puffer which is mostly caged since he likes to snack on the fins of the other fish. Not sure if we can keep the tank or sell/give it away when we move... life is full of decisions...