things had died while I was gone

After I got back from my vacation, I saw that my CFL had broken while I was gone. Could've been because of some water that got in the hood, or because the lamp was kinda squashed between the glass and the plastic of the hood. Who knows. Either way, I wasn't going to risk buying another €18 lamp just to have it break again.

On top of that, some of my plants had started rotting and died while I was gone. Most of the salvina natans was falling apart, and the bacopa lanigera was gone altogether. The water was brown, and very hot. I bought a thermometer, and apparently the thermostat didn't work correctly. It should have kept the temperature around 25°C, but instead it was about 30°C in there. I solved this problem by turning the thermostat down a bit. It does keep the temperature constant, but always warmer than it's supposed to be.

Without a lamp, I wouldn't be able to keep any plants, and I saw no way that I could keep a decent lamp in this hood. I went to the aquarium store to see if they had any solutions for me. They had 18W clip-on lights but they were €40, more than I had paid for my aquarium originally. It just seemed too much money to spend. After all this, I didn't feel like carrying on with the aquarium.

Luckily, my boyfriend convinced me to just buy that clip-on light, because I had been wanting an aquarium for so long. So I bought it, and after removing the hood and spending quite some time cutting through the plastic on my aquarium with a butter knife, I was able to attach it to the glass. I also had some glass cut to act as a cover for my aquarium.

 

I removed all the water from my aquarium twice, because it was really a rotten mess. Most of the plants survived though, and all seems well for now.