First Casualty of the Great Northern Adventure
Well, we have had our first casualty. One of my goldfish died. It appears as though it was suicide by filter. Let me back up...
As many of you know, I have an aquarium, not that I've ever mentioned it here, but people who know me and are reading along, know that I have an aquarium. I gave away the survivors of Aquarium Cape Breton to my friend K. before I left and didn't get around to setting up again until last Monday when I took a scoot into town to see what was open and discovered the fish store. The gal there recommended I begin with "feeders" which are just goldfish and so that's what I did. I took two souls home with me, and proceeded to fill the tank, drawing great interest from both felines, particularly Stormy.
They seemed to be doing okay and I had gotten into the habit again of feeding the fish at regular intervals, and set the timer up on the light again (even though the goldfish don't need it, I kind of like how it looks with the light on...otherwise it just looks kinda spooky. ANYHOW...the feeders were doing fine, tank was doing fine, and all looked well, even tonight when I fed them both.
Then I glanced up again from my laptop where I was focussed on my on-call notes from my first shift tonight to see one of the feeders in an awkward position. He appeared to be hovering around the filter, which I had seen my fish do around the heater, particularly the gold garifunas, Then I realized what was awkward was that he was tail first halfway into the filter tube. It is a circular intake piece of plastic with the end coming to a point and grid-like supposedly to keep the fish from getting sucked up the filter...too bad the fish didn't know that. He was stone dead. I reached in to pull him out, hoping he was just tired and needed to rest a second before fluttering agian. Um, no. He floated belly up to the top. Awwww.
Well, at least I know the water's fine...time for more fish before the other goldfish commits suicide from the loneliness.
2 comments:
Damn eh? I still have the 3 feeder fish I bought for the rain barrel 2 years ago. Good 45-cent investment, there. I thought I'd lost one, but he's grey and the water gets murky, especially when the barrel's full.
The expensive fish I used to get for the indoor tank had the names of British kings... I made it through way too much of the lineage before finally giving in and not buying anymore.
my tropical fish have generally done well in the tank...its when I cleaned it that we had the most casualties...so I stopped taking them out to clean it and things were fine. Then I tried one of those feeding tablets for when I went to Newfoundland last summer and it ruined the water and turned it into a toxic waste that glowed green...out of 15 fish, only 9 survived that ordeal. So I think today I shall get a couple more and see how they do.
Post a Comment