{"id":459,"date":"2022-03-05T11:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/?p=459"},"modified":"2022-03-05T11:00:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T17:00:54","slug":"now-that-my-feet-are-wet-lets-set-up-a-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/2022\/03\/05\/now-that-my-feet-are-wet-lets-set-up-a-tank\/","title":{"rendered":"Now That My Feet Are Wet, Let&#8217;s Set Up A Tank!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Are you familiar with real fish tanks? I am. I used to be a serious fresh water tank hobbyist when I was living in Okinawa. (Note I said hobbyist, not pro.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was actually when I was living in Okinawa that I first discovered Aquazone 2 and was SUPER into virtual life games at the time. I mean, obviously otherwise this blog wouldn&#8217;t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, we&#8217;re going to be setting up a fish tank in Aquazone 2 today. We aren&#8217;t putting any fish in the tank yet, instead we&#8217;ll only be putting substrate, accessories and a few plants in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"324\" height=\"280\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2info.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-460\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2info.png 324w, http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2info-300x259.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 324px) 100vw, 324px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>To start, let&#8217;s pick out a tank. This one is going to be using the <em>inspired<\/em> name Aquarium2 and I&#8217;ll be using one of the preset sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Generally speaking, bigger tanks are easier to maintain. A larger volume of water is going to stay relatively clean for longer than a smaller tank would because of the volume of water that a fish would have to actually expel waste, etc. A larger tank is also ideal because it allows you to keep more fish, which gives you a more visually interesting tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, we do have the option to use Fisherman to make other changes to our tank. It&#8217;s a truly wonderful tool that allows you to do things like alter the volume of water in your tanks, do gene splicing experiments, edit your fish&#8217;s health and more. However, for this tank, we&#8217;re going to be doing a long-play style and we&#8217;re going to be introducing the fish in a few real day&#8217;s time rather than making any changes with an editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of, let&#8217;s consider the fish we want for our tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know that I want this to be a relatively low-maintenance tank. You know what&#8217;s a pretty low-maintenance fish? Cat fish. I love me a corydoras. Unfortunately, Aquazone 2 will only show you species information after you&#8217;ve added fish to the tank, so I&#8217;ve had to add one of each species of fish that I want to add. I&#8217;ll be pulling them out of the tank and adding them back in a few days, a few at a time, as planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of typing, I only have 2 types of corydoras available to me, panda cory and leopard cory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Leopard Catfish stats<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature 20-26C<br>Condition: Neutral<br>Keeping: Easy<br>Breeding: Normal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Panda stats<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unavailable in-game (pulled from <a href=\"http:\/\/seriouslyfish.com\" class=\"autohyperlink\">seriouslyfish.com<\/a> instead)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature 22-25C<br>Condition: Neutral<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, I&#8217;m going to want more than just the two types of fish in here. I would also like a royal pleco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Royal Pleco stats<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unavailable in-game (pulled from <a href=\"http:\/\/aquariumsource.com\" class=\"autohyperlink\">aquariumsource.com<\/a> instead)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature 22-25C<br>Condition: Neutral<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And finally, we&#8217;re going to want some pops of color in our tank. Harlequin tetras and Blue Neon Tetras are good options here since they&#8217;re pretty, docile and we can have a whole small school of them. They&#8217;ll also balance out the tank visually since the cats will generally prefer the bottom of the tank and tetras prefer the middle level of the tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Harlequin Tetra stats<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature 24-27C<br>Condition: Slightly Acidic, Soft Preferred<br>Keeping: Easy<br>Breeding: Slightly Difficult<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Blue Neon Tetra stats<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unavailable in-game (pulled from <a href=\"http:\/\/fishkeepingworld.com\" class=\"autohyperlink\">fishkeepingworld.com<\/a> instead)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature 21-27C<br>Condition: Slightly Acidic<br>Keeping: Easy<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we have our stats, we can decide what we want our water to look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As far as the temperature goes, we want it no lower than 24 C, and no higher than 25. We can set the heater to 24.5C (about 76F) as a happy compromise for all the fish we&#8217;ve selected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The acidity of the water defaults to 7. We want to push it a little bit closer to the acidic side. Not too much to make any of the fish uncomfortable. We can&#8217;t just turn a dial like with the heater though. For this, we actually need to use medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"337\" height=\"275\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2medicine.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-461\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2medicine.png 337w, http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2medicine-300x245.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 337px) 100vw, 337px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In Aquazone 2, you sometimes need to add medicines and food options to your tank before you can use them. Think of this like you&#8217;re stocking up the little shelf below your fish tank. Press the bottom left button (looks like a tank with an arrow going into it) to select the items you need to add. In my case, I need pH down. I&#8217;ve added pH up as well in case I need to make any adjustments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve already removed the fish so I can freely experiment with how much of the ph down I need to add. The instructions call for 20ml per 10 liters of water but it doesn&#8217;t say how much this will affect the actual pH of the tank. On the low end, we want it no lower than 6 and no higher than 7. Let&#8217;s shoot for 6.5-6.75.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tank is roughly 64 liters in volume, so that&#8217;s 6.4 doses. Let&#8217;s round that to 6 doses and add 120 ml of the pH down. There&#8217;s no immediate effect, but that&#8217;s because the medicine takes time to circulate in the tank. We&#8217;ll check on it again tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While we&#8217;re here, let&#8217;s also add some water conditioner to kill the Chlorine in the water. This is also used every time we change the water. Let&#8217;s use the minimum dose and do 2ml per 10 liters. We&#8217;re rounding that to just 12 ml of the Chlorine Cut. Again, this is going to take some time to circulate in the tank so we&#8217;ll check on it again tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, let&#8217;s get to the fun stuff. Decorations!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, for substrates I prefer to decorate with sand, soil or other natural looking substrates. That means I generally avoid using gravel or colorful pebbles in my tanks. I&#8217;ll be using stream gravel here. I also like to use wood accessories since, in real life, they can help with the water condition. I don&#8217;t think wood in this game has the same effect, but I still like the aesthetic of wood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lastly, let&#8217;s add a few plants. I may add more later but for now I want to add just a few to help get the tank started. As with the wood, real plants have a benefit in a fish tank but I&#8217;m unsure whether they actually do anything within the context of the game. I won&#8217;t be adding a background to this tank. Let&#8217;s have a look at what we&#8217;ve got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1023\" height=\"770\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2day1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-462\" srcset=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2day1.png 1023w, http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2day1-300x226.png 300w, http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/aq2day1-768x578.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1023px) 100vw, 1023px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Not a bad start! I&#8217;m pleased with where we are so far. I may add some tall plants behind the wooden decorations and do some adjusting later, but for now I&#8217;m happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All that&#8217;s left to do is adjust the light schedule. I&#8217;m doing 14 hours on and 10 hours off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s it! We&#8217;ll check on the water condition again tomorrow to make sure that the tank is on the right track. I&#8217;ll see you then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks for reading!<br>Kez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you familiar with real fish tanks? I am. I used to be a serious fresh water tank hobbyist when I was living in Okinawa. (Note I said hobbyist, not pro.) It was actually when I was living in Okinawa that I first discovered Aquazone 2 and was SUPER into virtual life games at the&hellip; <span class=\"kuorinka-read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/2022\/03\/05\/now-that-my-feet-are-wet-lets-set-up-a-tank\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Now That My Feet Are Wet, Let&#8217;s Set Up A Tank!<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[44],"class_list":{"0":"post-459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-aquazone-2","7":"tag-aquazone-deluxe-2","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kezune.com\/designergenes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}