I just heard on CNN that George W. Bush is a candidate (albeit one of over a hundred) for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Over the past 3-4 weeks I’ve been setting up a new aquarium in my office (or rather, near my office since all I have is an 8′ x 8′ cubicle cluttered with 8-10 computers). I’ve had an aquarium in the office for almost three years now but have been meaning to upgrade it for some time. The old aquarium was my first; I’ve since set up three other aquariums so this was my chance to apply all that I’ve learned and design a better aquarium.

What’s mainly new about this one is that I’ve dispensed with all artificial décor—namely plants—and planted five different species of aquatic plants: an “onion plant” (Crinum thaianum), two java ferns (Microsorum pteropus), two giant hygrophilas (I think) (Hygrophila corymbosa “angustifolia”), three jungle val plants (Vallisneria americana), and a bunch of java moss (Vesicularia dubyana).

Things are going pretty well so far. By introducing filter media from the old fish tank, I was able to cycle the tank within three weeks while keeping ammonia at trace (non-measurable) levels and nitrites below 2 ppm. The plants are growing well: I’ve already had to prune the onion plant’s leaves, and the java fern is developing 4-5 healthy offspring plants (which grow off the tips of the mature plant’s leaves). My golden chinese algae eater does a great job of cleaning up any algae that appears, and the half-dozen scissortail rasbora transplanted from the old aquarium are schooling with the four giant danios.