Today, I went for the first time to the 6th Ave. Aquarium & Flowers. Odd name for a fish seller -- or for a flower shop -- but I had known of this place since shortly after setting up my first tank.

Imagine my awe when I walked through a vestibule filled with flowers and then into an emporium packed tightly with the most wondrous array of tanks. In the front of the store, just inches from the floor, were massive cubes filled with all kinds of goldfish. If you look up, you'll notice that a balcony runs the perimeter of the store: on the second floor are more tanks. Long before you get upstairs, there's the back of the store. It's like magic. Sharks as long as your arm, neon blue sea slugs, manta rays, lobsters, tropical oddities shaped like sci-fi submarines, charcoal black jellyfish, creatures that actually frightened me so alien were their countenances. All of these strange critters were in a network of fully transparent tanks, like a glass ice tray with 10-gallon cubes.

After all of this (my eyes were medallions, my mouth a little "o"), I found the plant tanks. I blinked a few times because I couldn't recall a shop I've been to in which the plant tanks were so pristine. I mean so clean I thought the plants were fake.

I don't need any plants. Not really. But my eyes fell on the red and green Myriophyllum I describe below and I was sold.

What's funny...I didn't even make it upstairs. Wanted to save something cool for the next visit.