Fish Tank!

Lance has been after me for I-don't-know-how-long to get a fish or two for him. I've been really reluctant because even though they're pretty low maintenance, they are still maintenance and the last thing I wanted to do was to get a tank and a fishy and have the fish die. I still remember my goldfish I won at a fair when I was probably 3 or 4 years old. Wait. I think I have a picture:

No, no. That was a fish I caught when I was 3.

Nope. I'm too old and I didn't win that fish. (The fish didn't win, either, by the looks of it.)

Okay, that's not even a fish!

Anyway, I know I have a picture of that fish--it's probably buried somewhere at my mom's house. 

Long backstory short, I had that fish for probably a week or two and it died. As did Chad's. It might have had something to do with the fact that we kept the fish bowls on top of our microwave. Who knows.

Anyway, I was reluctant. George however, was fairly excited and on our "week off", we went to a couple stores to price out fish tanks and filters.

We finally found a stand and 20 gallon tank on craigslist for what George considered a good deal. (I have no idea whatsoever, so just went along with it). We ended up with a wooden stand, a tank, a filter, rocks, lava rocks, a heater, and a light. After making a few more purchases, we were ready!

First, we needed to refinish the stand.

You would, too, I'm sure. 

We had never refinished anything before and naively thought it would be easy enough with a little elbow grease.

We were wrong. So, so wrong.

First we stripped the old varnish away. Haha. After two coats of stripper, we finally broke out the sander. And by "sander" I mean a manual hold-in-your-hand sanding block. 

We started this project at 7 p.m. Around 2 a.m. we had sanded it down to the bare wood (well, as close as we could get without having a mental and physical meltdown) and applied the first coat of varnish. Yay.

The next day, we sanded it lightly and George applied another coat of varnish.

Jude helped:

It was looking pretty nice!

Next we tackled the tank that had all kinds of fun green stuff growing inside it.

Lance and Jude were more than happy to help get rid of the sand and pebbles.

Thanks, guys!

The night George was able to get everything up and running!

Our tank. I think it's pretty, although a little dark, but we're hoping to put in some brightly colored fish that will be spotlighted against the black.

We have to let the tank cycle for a couple weeks before we put fish in it, just to make sure the water is safe and has the necessary bacteria and such. So for now it's just a bubbly tank. Stay posted for updates on our fish!