Page 38 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 10 2022

Food for Thought

THE RABBIT HOLE

AQUARIUM

BY PETER STOFFBERG

f you’ve followed this column, you will know all
about Bethany the Zebra Cichlid and how she
Ipatiently raised a brood of tiny fry in her mouth.
She’s doing swimmingly, except that her aquarium is
too small, a problem that could have been avoided
with a little research. Bethany and her friends may
be pretty and very yellow, but apparently, they are
the Jack Russells of tropical fish, and they need their
space. Our aquarium needs an upgrade and aquarium
upgrades are rabbit holes.

Plants are brilliant at cleaning water, but the first-time
buyer is usually in blissful ignorance of things like the
right substrate for Cichlids and plants, the right plants DAINFERN COLLEGE AUDITORIUM
that Cichlids won’t eat, and how to establish plants so EVERY SUNDAY @ 9H30
that the Cichlids don’t dig them up. (Non-stop energy
and bullet-proof aggression aren’t the only attributes 4 DEC | Outdoor Carol’s Picnic | Dainfern College | 18h00
they share with Jack Russells). It’s not long before the 25 DEC | Christmas Family Service | 9h30
chaos that they cause leads to research, which leads
down an expensive rabbit hole, and into a sump filter.

Sump filters have different compartments of various
types of material. You can even grow plants in them,
safe from little yellow marauding monsters. They are
simple to make and wonderfully effective, but there’s
a catch. You need to drill holes in the glass of the www.familychurch.online
aquarium to cycle water through them.

Drilling these holes looks deceptively easy on the DIY tempting to apply just a tiny bit of extra pressure.
videos, but they all stress one factor. Patience. You
should allow the weight of the drill to slowly grind So, as I pulled away the pieces of cracked glass, I
away at the glass and never under any circumstance discovered that I had made it through four of the
apply any pressure. The slightest bit of pressure can five-millimetre-thick aquarium wall. It seems that
cause the whole thing to crack, and then it’s off to it’s during the last millimetre that the glass is most
the glass shop for a replacement. No pressure then, delicate. One last millimetre and all would have been
that’s easy to say, but when the minutes tick past and well. Isn’t it always like that? It’s hard to stay patient in
it seems like you’re getting nowhere, it gets really the last few moments when it matters most.

When we’re faced with uncertainty and difficult
decisions, patience is harder to hold but more
precious too. We need to keep doing the right thing
in honesty, integrity and obedience to the Bible’s
teaching, and then patiently trust God with everything
else. Whatever your Cichlid, Jack Russell or rabbit hole
is, you may be one millimetre away from victory.

Keep going.

36 DPL issue 10 2022