Yesterday, I discovered many of the plants in our fish tank had fouled, the water was clouding, the tank was suddenly in some danger. I took out the plants, we moved the snails into a different bowl, we went to the pet store and got new gravel and some new plants, and we spent two hours clearing out the old gravel.

I have two separate filters running to clear up all the dirt in the tank. I left the fish in there because it’s better for them to remain in settled water if the filters can clean it up, which they are doing.

In the meantime, of course, we got this idea to change the look of the tank, and I asked our resident artist if she might make a stone sculpture to put in the tank.

This lit her up – I love to watch her creativity in action – and we went out into the pasture to pick up a bunch of rocks (we boiled them, at Maria’s request, to keep the snails safe). She’s already made two possible sculptures.

When the filters clear up the tank, we’ll put the snails in, plant a couple of the new plans we got and install Maria’s stone sculpture, which I’m very excited to see. She’s back outside collecting more rocks.

This restoration is fairly heavy-duty, we’ve been at it for hours. More later. I’m pretty confident I can save the tank. We have to wash more gravel, check the plants for hidden snails, and let the filters do their work.