have you seen that meme where it says what you think your house looks like with an aquarium
versus what it actually looks like so true when i asked you guys what is the main thing that keeps
you from enjoying your aquariums no room was one of the top answers so today we're going to talk
about how to save space maybe tidy up everything so that you can have that beautiful looking
fish tank environment while still living in a bedroom apartment or maybe cubicle hi my name is
Irene with girl talks fish here with practical tips for busy fish keepers like you and number
one on the list is having an aquarium stand now i know not all of us are gonna have the luxury
of having a dedicated stand maybe you have your fish tank on a dresser or a bathroom counter but
if you do have one try to pick one with shelving or better yet cabinets nobody wants to see
all your messy you know fishnets or airline tubing that kind of destroys the illusion of like oh i
have this beautiful landscape piece of living art and then all this junk underneath so preferably
don't get ones that have a lot of empty space underneath them try to have those doors in fact
i wish this aquarium stand it has a bunch of stay space below that i probably need to come up with
some kind of diy solution to cover it up so that you know next time one of my friends come over
comes over and they have kids they're not going to go digging around underneath and maybe start
tearing apart my filter or something number two on the list is under the bed tubs you
know i keep the things i use a lot obviously near my fish tank but what about the things
i don't use a lot but it's nice to have around such as medications extra sponge filters or fake
decorations for a quarantine tub like they're really useful but they're obviously not going
to fit all in my aquarium stand so in that case i like to buy those kind of really low profile but
wide plastic containers you can get from Walmart, Target, or another retail shopping center and then
you they basically are built to fit under your bed so i make sure everything is dry shove it all in
there and then slide it underneath my bed or my couch if it'll fit and what's nice about that is
next time i need my aquarium stuff it's all in one place for me to take out plus there's a lid
on it so it'll cover everything and make sure it doesn't get dusty number three on the list
is a water change bucket now back when i worked in an office i had a cubicle pet basically a pet
betta fish and obviously i didn't have room for an aquarium stand or under the bed tubs but really
all i needed was just a little bit of food and my water changing supplies right so enter the water
change bucket this is just a three gallon kind of rubber made bucket with a spout and what i would
use it to do is put use my siphon to put the dirty water into the bucket then pour that dirty water
out into like a toilet or into like one of the office house plants and then rinse it out fill
it with clean water and then use that to pour it back into the tank then once i was done i would
basically dump all my tank cleaning supplies back into the bucket and then shove it under my desk
easy peasy everything's out of sight number four is shelf organizers i'm actually really excited
about this one because i didn't under uh discover this hack until i basically started researching
for this video so my original idea was you can see in this aquarium stand there's a ton of bottles
inside and they're all the same level so the only way i could tell what they are is to pick
up each one and so my thought was maybe i could do like a lazy susan so i could spin it around
and see the different bottles but that was too big to fit inside or what about a spice rack but
again that was too big and then the shells were too narrow for the bottles of fertilizer i had
but then i came up with a diy solution to use these makeup trays that go inside of drawers
and i'm actually going to turn them upside down so they're stackable and in the back row i'm going
to put two trays stacked on each other and then the middle row one tray and then the front row is
kind of ground level and that way my bottles are kind of sitting on bleachers the ones that i use
the least i'll put in the very back and then the ones i use the most i'll put in the front
looks so cool and neat and nice and i'm really glad i went through that cleaning
process because i got a rid of a bunch of products that ended up being expired and i no longer use
number five is a siphon hanging rack now i don't know about you but i'm a little bit of
a siphon hoarder like well all of my aquariums are different sizes right and so i find that
i need a different size siphon for each of them to be like the perfect tool for them so
i have a lot of siphons but they obviously look really really messy so i thought well since most
of my water changes require me going to the bathroom to use the sink or the tub
for water um what if i got a over the door towel rack and then i could hang my siphons there that
way you know anytime the door is open the siphons are kind of conveniently hidden behind the door
and then no one's the wiser so usually what i do is after i do a water change i will actually hang
up my siphon on the shower head or on the shower rod so it finishes dripping and then once it's
mostly dry then i'll hang it on the kind of towel rack siphon rack i like to call it and then that
way you know it's behind the door nobody sees it and then my kids can take a bath time with
you know without a ton of tubes hanging around everywhere at least that's the idea
nowadays since i actually have the room for it i have a shelf that has nine by nine cubes in it so
then i can put all my aquarium bath stuff in these decorative baskets and then nobody's the wiser so
if you want to see my vlog on how i did it it's over here and then if you're interested in more
hacks on how to save time or money you can see the rest of the series in this playlist over here
take time to enjoy your aquariums and i'll see in the next video