+ Interior | Son's Aquarium

This is probably the most satisfying thing I have done all week.

Free my son's fish from a small confined plastic fish tank to a 2 by 1 Foot aquarium, complete with landscape consisting of pebbles, rocks and aquatic plants. The plants cost me less than S$9.00.

In addition, a new submerged Dolpin pump costing me S$14.00 that not only does the filtering but also blows out fine bubbles to oxygenate the water, as well as a S$20.00 Jalli light-UV lamp for the fish and the plants for simulated sunshine.

His breeding programme of guppies he brought home from school has yielded more guppies, combined with the initial Tetras we purchased for his room proved too small for all the fish tank in his room.

We set the big aquarium at the service balcony of our home and fit it with a timer to automatically turn on the light for daylight and off at 8:00pm. The autofeeder with timer is set to feed small amounts of fine grains 3 times in the day.

This should take care of accidentally left the fish unfed. Tablet CO2 for the plants was purchased too at S$9.00. Advised to place a tablet weekly to keep the aquatic plants last longer and even thrive.

These small fish and the plants should self-sustain the aquarium environment for months without the need to clean up the whole tank as compared to the weekly clean-up that most times ended-up to be his Mom's chore instead of him.

Once done in the late afternoon, both of us stood there for hours admiring our masterpiece and the sheer joy to see the fish to at least be like in their natural environment.

Watching the fish makes me calm down so much, especially from a hectic and stressful day at work. This is a wonderful win-win situation. The fish have a better living space and I have a therapeutic corner to destress for the day.