Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fishies!

It's been awhile since I last posted. Sorry about that.

After we got back from our CA vacation, I kept my promise to Gabby and Sarah, and I got a fish tank. Rather than borrow one, I went and bought a 10 gallon starter kit at the local pet store. It came with most of the stuff I needed to get started, including fish food. However, it didn't include gravel, plants, test strips, or the actual fish. After setting it up, I let the water "settle" for a couple of days. Then we went and got our first fish. We've added them slowly to the tank, no more than 3 at a time every week. We are now at full capacity.

We now have a total of 10 fish in this tank: 3 zebra danios, 3 neon tetras, 2 black mollies, and 2 sucker fish. The sucker fish like to hide, and it can be a challenge to find them sometimes. They like to eat the algae. I call them Fang 1 and Fang 2. They aren't very pretty, but I guess every tank needs a bottom feeder or 2. The neon tetras are like the airheaded blonds of the tank. They're really pretty, but they seem to confuse easily. (They're either blonds or hippies.) They like to just hang out, eat when it comes, and be the cool pretty fish that they are. The zebra danios are the first fish that we got. While they are zebra striped, they also are kind of shimmery in the right light. They like to chase each other around the tank. Really fast. The black mollies are the large black fish. One of ours has a little white on the bottom of its head, so I call it Whitebeard. They like to eat the algea tablets that are meant for the sucker fish. We recently lost one of the black mollies (don't know why), and when it was sick, the other one nudged it like I've seen cats or dogs do. I've also noticed that there isn't much inter-species mingling going on.

So, Sarah decided that she wanted goldfish to call her own. So we have a second goldfish tank. It is very princess. She has named them Yellowie-Goldie and Reddy-Orangie. Hey, I just report the names. They seem to be doing well. They get fed once a day. That tank is in a different spot than the other one.
We all like to watch the fishies. I'll even stop to watch them sometimes. There's something relaxing and soothing about it.