Well, just to update everyone, I seem to have recovered from my two-day fever. I stayed up too late finishing a research paper Wednesday night, spent my Thursday at school with bad chills and shakes (but I stuck it out), got through work (with the help of pride and off-brand Ibuprofen). On Friday (no school, thankfully) I spent almost the entire day sleeping and feeling horrible. I called in sick for work (it took two tries, I fell asleep on the phone book once) for the first time of my year and a half career. I spent most of today sleeping and cleaning the house. Went to work tonight and am feeling okay. I made $46 to boot!
Sorry if that seems like a bit of a complaint, it is just what is happening in my life right now. For something different, I'll write a bit about my fish, shall I?
My dad was a big fish keeper for a number of years, so some of my fondest early memories involve looking underneath his 110-gallon tank at convict cichlid babies. Unfortunately, when we moved to our current house (about six years ago) we ran into a problem with getting water. We're hooked up to a well, so the water is pretty iron rich. It's fine for washing dishes and things (although we use a bubbler for drinking), unfortunately, it doesn't work well for fish. After iron poisoning killed off the fish that had survived the move, my family sadly shut down our fish tanks.
I started up a ten gallon about six months ago, and my dad started a second one a week later. After some tragedy, mechanical malfunction, tragedy, fish moving, mechanical malfunction leading to tragedy, and expansion leading to fish moving, I currently have three fish tanks equaling forty gallons of water.
First of all, I have my oldest ten-gallon tank, with a single jewel cichlid. Her name is 'Devil-fish' a couple of the earlier tragedies are her fault. I don't know what I was thinking by buying any, let alone a pair, of African cichlids. I'm normally a fan of nice fish. Nevertheless, I bought a pair of jewels for the tank that my dad set up anyway. Within a month, one of the two laid eggs. I was happy with this, as it showed that I had gotten the water chemistry right. Then my jewels started fighting. This lasted a day. Then the fish now known as 'devil fish' killed her mate (I wouldn't be surprised if, in my naïveté, I had bought two females, a big no-no). I was upset about that, but I didn't know what else to do. Devil seemed to be tolerant of the fish after that.
However, a while later, she suddenly got pissed off at my Raphael catfish. Ralph, as he was called, was the cutest little guy in the whole wide world. He was little, fat, and would swim racetracks around the tank whenever I would feed him. The devilfish started chasing him. When I finally decided what to do (move him into the other tank), she killed him before I was able to make a move (I made my choice during the night, and was going to move him the next afternoon, his fins were complete shreds by then). I buried Ralph in my backyard. Heh, writing this brought tears to my eyes.
After this, Devil decided to pick a fight with my biggest fish, a long-finned sydodontious catfish by the name of Cid. I was hopeful here. Most Sydodontious catfish are tough, carnivorous fish. In addition, Cid is only one small step away from normal, long fins (two maybe, he has some upside-down catfish blood in him as well). I fully expected Cid to stomp the bitch flat. However, he just took it. At that point, shit got serious. I was not going to have another precious (and big(ish) catfish like cid are like $20!)fish killed.
I went into the basement and found a one-gallon betta container. She went in their. I hooked up an old air pump and bought a little heater for her.
Remember how I talked about the water situation at my house? I have to get all of my water brought in (usually, I just fill jugs at the local grocery store). When it's a covered, ten gallon tank going a week without water is okay (but not recommended) when it is uncovered and a gallon when full (I kept it closer to 3/4 of a gallon to reduce splashing, as I moved her to my room in the hopes that a cat would get her). At some points, she would literally have just enough water to cover her. I expected (really, I had condemned) her to die. But she didn't no matter what, that damn fish kept living. Eventually, I found a five-gallon fish tank on clearance and moved her there (with the hope that another tank change would kill her, leaving me with a nice tank for a betta). The tank was in the main room in my basement, a bit away from my bedroom. One night, I was awoken by the frantic meowing of my sister’s cat, Kaisy (she’s a big puffy cat, but nice in a standoffish way). I went to see what was up, after fighting my way past some assorted junk (I just dumped the five on an old table in the corner), I found devilfish lying on the floor. I’m not sure if it was fatigue, but I threw her (the fish, not the cat, Kaisy wouldn’t fit in any of my fish tanks, too narrow, certainly not a five gallon) back inside. Everyone survived. My least favorite fish owns her life to a cat.
Once I did my most recent tank swap, she got my first ten-gallon tank to herself. I'll put a picture of her up some time; she's about two and a half inches long, rusty red, with brilliant spots of sparkly color all over her body. Her tank is getting pretty overgrown with algae now (one of the reasons I moved the other fish from is an algae problem). I'm not going to risk a pleco's (sucker mouth fish) with her, but I might throw in a Chinese algae eater sometime, to see what happens.
I started with two ten gallons; I had a Cory catfish tank, and a loach tank. The loach tank is the one that featured Devilfish, the late Ralph, and Cid. It also had a leopard-print pleco (name of Leo, I have a system for naming these guys). There was also a Pakistani loach named Yo-yo, and some sort of loach (probably) named Uno. For top cover fish, I had three giant Dannos (really, they're just like minnows), but one died upon introduction. Ralph died, and Devil was removed eventually. I later added a skunk loach from my Cory tank. He had been a mean bastard, biting my cute armored catfish. Skunk loaches are small, so I had been hesitant to add him at first. After the devilfish, I didn’t care much. Things went okay for a while. Cid’s a weird fish. He’s naturally nocturnal, but he prefers to spend his day pacing back and for underneath a piece of ironwood (driftwood that sinks) while upside-down. He’s cool to look at though. I worried about Yo-yo a bit, he would occasionally act crazy and thrash around, or tilt to the side, but he never died. The skunk loach did though. He swam up the outtake of a diatom filter. The next time I turned it one, it sent out him mangled corpse. I buried him as well, although I didn’t like him. Things went on in the loach tank, although not much happened. The dannos swam in circles, Cid sat, Yo-yo looked at Cid, Leo sat by Cid, and Uno sifted through the gravel. Eventually, I got the twenty gallon long in the basement running, and I decided to move them there instead of my Cories (as had been the plan) so Cid would have more room. I also added some fish from the Cory tank, my blue grami name Cosmo (or Blue, I call her both) and a red tailed shark named Sharky. All of the fish there are doing great right now and enjoying the room. I recently added two more Dannos to fill out the space (they tend to form duckling loops, but seem happy about it)
Because I put the twenty gallon into my bedroom, at the foot of my bed, it is at an easy height for my cats, especially, my kitten, Lily (who unsurprisingly adopted me as much as me adopting her). The preemptively sealed the top of the tank tight. For a few reasons, keeping the dannos from jumping out among them and retaining water among them. Even though the top is secure, the sides are level with my bed, and the table (which was made for a tank of about twice the size) has enough space for a kitten to walk around on. Lily spends a fair bit of time batting at fish. Strangely, whenever the kitty comes a-knocking, Uno the Loach (maybe) comes out to play. He’ll swim right up against the glass and shake around, then move to one another corner, getting Lily to follow him. Then he’ll get her to chase the fish all around the outside of the tank. Lily always gets bored before he does. At that point, the kitten usually retreats to my blankets to stare crossly at the tank. Uno does of course, get as close as possible and move a lot to mock her. I’ve never seen Uno act like this when Lily isn’t around. Even if it’s another cat.
I’ll talk about my cute Corydora catfish contingent some other time; this has gotten a bit on the long-winded side already.
Workout logs begin Monday, probably.
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Topic: Life and Times of Strife26 (Read 140783 times)