Unfortunately, during the flood, the plumbers had to use some pretty heavy chemicals in my house to make sure that we won’t have any mold growth. They also blessed us with 25 industrial fans, plastic doors to separate each room, and a $200 increase in our electric bill.

Due to all of the crazy, we had been kicked out of our home for a week. Afterwards, we dealt with cleaning the house: removing damaged items, tossing expired groceries, re-cleaning floors and bathrooms and the like. Between that and my current work hours, the tank had been overlooked.

Today was fish tank cleaning day. Friends, it was necessary. I’ve kept 6 black skirt tetras for over a year now, and I’ve kept them with a variety of plants. My favorite being the Amazon Sword. Unfortunately, during all of the crazy the tetras were slightly overlooked and algae got the best of me. Most of the plants had to go – but the sword remains. Huzzah!

So today was spent scrubbing driftwood and glass and clearing out gravel and other basic maintenance. I’d be lying if I told you that it wasn’t satisfying. The tetras currently reside in a 10 gallon tank, which I’ve decided to upgrade to a 20 gallon. I will now have four fish tanks – just the one containing fish.

I planned to move the plants into the three gallon and grow them up a little with some nice substrate, but it might be a little while until I’m able to do that again. The others (one five gallon and one ten gallon) are for quarantining and emergencies – just in case there happens to be a different kind of flood.