Terrarium Fun

Many of you may remember a goal I set in a previous post: "after May 19th, I plan to ... tak[e] on any side projects for a minimum of 2 months." Well, I am happy to report that I have kicked off the voracious pet project undertaking by building a terrarium out of my leaky 20 gallon tank. I have posted some pictures in a picasa album. For those of you familiar with the layout of our apartment, the terrarium has replaced our TV, which we no longer need now that I have a nice projector.

For anyone interested, some good instructions for building terrariums can be found here. The plants in my terrarium are:

• Maidenhair Fern (back left)
• Big leafy plant whose name escapes me and whose plant tag thingy I can't seem to find (back middle)
• Pink Polka Dot Plant (back right)
• African Violet (front left)
• Button Fern (front middle)
• Blue Star Creeper (ground cover)

I selected the plants both for looks and because they should all do reasonably well in slightly moist, medium light conditions. I also put in a frog decoration and a couple pieces of deadwood I picked up at the local fish store. Since it used to be my fish tank, I have a hood that fits and a nice bulb that mimics solar light. Add water, close the top, put the light on a timer, and it should go for months without maintenance!

On a somewhat related note, I've already started porting my comics script to python, I'm researching names for when I open source my puzzle solving scripts (Pyzzle is already taken), and Linnsey and I are discussing where and when we want to have our wedding. Yay for staying busy!

Leakiness

Our 20 gallon fish tank sprung a leak! =( So that's what I got to spend my Sunday afternoon dealing with. I had to drain the whole tank and catch all the fish so that I could swap the whole thing out for a new one.

It wasn't all bad though--we got rid of a bunch of plants that had gotten overgrown, as well as the dingy looking black gravel. I rearranged the tank to show off the piece of driftwood I got a while back for our pleco. The java ferns have finally gotten well attached to the driftwood, so it looks kinda neat. The gravel is also replaced with much more natural looking pebbles. Even kitty thinks the tank is improved now that the fish have fewer places to hide. I'll post pics as soon as I get my camera fixed.

Any ideas for what to do with the old tank? I'm such a pack-rat that I feel bad just throwing it away. We already have 3 fish tanks (plus a quarantine tank), so even if we could fix it, I'm putting my foot down against filling it with water. Current ideas involve a terrarium, maybe with cacti or lizards or something. Now that we have a projector, we can get rid of our tv and put it there.