Some Photos of the Goldfish Barrel

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theotheragentm

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
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I just got my first flower on my water lilies. It's great. Toss some fish, some lilies, and feed the fish. They poop and the plants grow. Water changes are basically only when the water gets less clear, because the lilies suck up the bioload quite quickly. What I didn't know is that the flowers close up at night. You can see in the pictures below. They're in chronological order. The flower completely closes up by sunset.

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I have two separate plants in there. This second one is from the other plant, not the same as the first one, so I think. It gets hard to trace the stems down to the bottom of the tank.
 
That makes sense - that two separate plants are producing the different colors of the flower. You can always look forward to the alternating colors!
 
Well, it's summer time. That means every animal is roaming about at night. A few nights ago I heard a loud splash and took a flashlight into the backyard to see what happened. There was water on the ground around the barrel. Some of the lily leaves were torn at the stems. My guess was that it was a raccoon, possum, or skunk. Then last night I heard the neighbor's two dogs barking while some other animal snarled and hissed.

What's my point? I had to build a perimeter around the goldfish barrel. It's not the prettiest, but it was cheap and I think it will work.

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Are all the fish accounted for?

Yes, all sorts of strange and interesting creatures come out at night! I saw my first possum in the backyard recently. I used to get flying squirrels at my bird feeders at night. They have such big eyes!

That looks like a good fence. The alternative is to lay netting over the water, but a raccoon could possibly pull it off, and the lily flowers could be hindered. This looks like a good solution. Let us know how it works!
 
All were accounted for at the time I built this contraption. I didn't see one of my fish this morning. It's recognizably different in appearance, but if it's disappeared, it's probably not due to an animal raid as everything else looks to be in place.
 
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