Fish Disaster of a New Kind

I haven't even been posting much about my fish because... well, first, because it became routine maintenance and Joe (our biggest goldfish) just got bigger, and then after Joe's death it became one horror show after another in both tanks for some reason.  I suspect they just got old and riddled with some kind of virus or crud.  I tried a number of things to revitalize them.  Currently the 30 gallon tank is sporting some of the most beautiful plant arrangements I've ever had, but the 10 gallon tank...

...sprung a leak.

Yeah, and right before work too.  I was eating sushi (ironic?) and I looked over to see water on the floor under the bookcase that that tank sat on.  LOTS of water.  So I quickly drained what remained of the tank water (remember the fish are long gone at this point.  In the 10 gallon even the plants are plastic and not worth rescuing.)  Finally, the tank was light enough for me to pick up and so I put it in the downstairs tub.  Then we had to pull out the bookcase and check the damage.  We caught it early enough that the floor is fine.  The books in the bookcase got a serious soaking, but since we  knew the danger of having a fish tank over a bookcase, the books were... well, we LOVE all our books, but in this case it was 1970s encyclopedia set that had some sentimental value for Shawn but... well, only a few volumes were a complete loss. We can probably find replacement volumes on eBay or elsewhere.

The silver lining for me is that I get to buy a new tank.  I'm kind of excited about this, because I was thinking that a complete strip down was my next move anyway.  But, getting to buy the whole thing again is EVEN MORE FUN.

I've been indulging my love of Japanese garden designs in my fish tanks.  The 30 gallon, which is currently only home to a couple of ghost-glass shrimp and two snails, is actually LUSH with plants (most of which are real).

Here, check it out:

There's a java fern on the driftwood and that other really spindly one is also real. Here's my little pagoda...



And finally, the full view:



The only bummer is, as pretty as it looks, there's still something possibly quite foul in there, since I've discovered a few of my ghost-glass shrimp dead.  I can NOT figure out what it is, and it's pretty so, I've been letting it slowly clean itself.  I keep up with the water changes and filtering and I keep hoping that it will soon be a great home for some actual animals that have spines. In the meantime, I'm trying to see if I can keep the little ones alive.  If the snails croak, I'll know it's going to have to be a SILENT forest (or I'll have to restart this one too.)

At any rate, this is your warning. I may have a number of posts about the research I'm going to do for setting up of the new tank.