4.5x2x2 Aquarium tank setup in 2005

This was my first tank when we shifted into our apartment nearly 4 years back! It's always great to be able to marry someone who appreciates your hobbies and allows u the breathing space to wallow in the mud once in a while! :) With much faith, wifey gave me the go-ahead to cut a hole in the wall to stick an aquarium in! lol... man, and was it a fun project or what! :) The tank was purchase in Irene's PJ. As it was a custom size tank, they had to fabricate it in IPOH, where all tanks are born :P at 4.5 feet in lenght, 2 by 2 feet width and height, it was priced at RM350! Plus a separate filter tank and filter medium and pump... I spent approx RM600 here. Mind you, the workmanship to cut a hole in the wall plus building a solid concrete table to take the weight of the tank comes to be another RM500. All in all, it wasn't too bad a deal except for the headache of not getting the tank size proper; hey delivered it the first time at 2.2 feet... an extra 2inches over. As they say, you can't negotiate with a brick wall and the tank couldn't fit in at all! Back in went to Irene's where they actually cut the top 2 inches off!! @#$@#$@!!! Well, that's the cost of DIY-ing it yourself...I did shop around in other places like Pet Safari and most shops will charge u around RM600 plus just for the display tank! Ah well, give and take i guess...Pictures are taken with a Canon IXUS compact, so they aren't the greatest, sorry!

As you can see, the tank has no top and if it really overflows (which has happened a few times over) it'd end up wetting your entire place!

Here you can see me potting plants into medical gauze, thick enough to prevent the potting soil from chalking your water, thin enough also for the roots to breathe!

some water wisteria and pennyworts that was purchased from Pet Family Taman Megah! RM2-3 per bunch... Resonably priced plants that should not require too much light and more inportantly not burn a hole in one's pockets!

The substrate are riverstones, purchased at Sg. Buloh, RM12 for a 10KG bag if i'm not mistaken. Even the driftwood was purchased there. RM5-6 per piece, quite resonably priced for aesthetically pleasing "wood" :)

Filling up the tank at this stage. No CO2 induction, normal fluorescent tubes for lights... this was a simple low-tech aquarium which i had hope would survive! :P

Alas... it didn't last long :P lol, i had to redo the entire setup, install a canister filter, plug in a CO2 tank and the works. After a year of tinkering, i had an overgrown indoor garden instead :P

In the end, even that did not survive with insufficient substate, bad lighting...Messy affair!

I did manage to breed some swordtails though... :) Which was the highlight of this tank! None survived, unfortunately... As they're either born deformed and dies after awhile... weak gene pool, i'd guess.Anyone tried planting ngah-koo or arrowheads? This was during CNY 2006. It's rather nice, but lots of work as the leaves dies a messy death! :P