(no subject)
This got longer than I intended, but, oh, well...
So, towards the end of the summer we got an aquarium (and a couple of fish in it.) Well, the aquarium came from Patrick’s dad, who in forever and a day thought himself to be this great aquarium owner and bought one with all the fixings (which is awesome for me, because I know own said aquarium with said fixings), and set forth to populate his aquarium with ALL THE FISHIES IN THE WORLD. Which, of course, failed massively. It’s only a ten-gallon tank, and he treated it like the town lake. Over-populated it, until the fishies died and then did it again and again. And again. Without ever realizing his big mistake. Men. Anywho. In a fit of whatever, the tank, which used to sit empty in the living room (well, it had a ship in a bottle in it - don’t ask), disappeared one day. And I saw my opportunity. And got to take it and all its fixings home. Patrick spent his allowance on two mollies and a couple of decorations, and we were set. One yellow molly I named Starbuck, and a dalmatian one I named Apollo. Patrick got his rights to name things revoked because the cat (previously named Rodney) is now, for some bizarre reason Dr. Schmookums. Whatever!
One of the taekwondo dads and I got to talking one day and he gave me sort of a crash course on setting up a fish tank. So, once the tank was all set and Starbuck and Apollo swam around and checked things out and ate what I fed them and the tank still hadn’t crashed and everything was just sunshine and daisies, taekwondo dad said it’s probably time to change some of the water in the tank. So I did. And after all the swirling water calmed down a bit, well, I see six little teensie tiny mini fish. And I’m all OMG where did they come from? Research showed that I had a girl fish and a boy fish. The sales clerk forgot to mention that, although he probably didn’t know himself. I even named them right. But, turns out that Apollo isn’t necessarily the daddy, since mollies carry for four weeks and I only had the two of them for three. Further research showed that, should I want to keep the babies, I should get a breeder net. Otherwise they get eaten. So I did, and one day after work I spent an hour fishing in my aquarium, trying to get the babies out and into the breeder net. I got five out (out of the six I’d seen) but I chalked the sixth one up to being mommy’s and daddy’s lunch or something. And OMG there are seven fish now where they were supposed to be only two and my tank is going to crash from having too many fish in there if it doesn’t crash because of me bathing my left forearm in it for an hour first. This sucks!
The tank is still clear (thank you very much) and today I discovered baby #6. The little fucker survived his mommy and step daddy. And now I’m worried with a whole new host of worries. If she’s “with child” again, and the little fuckers make it to adult size, I will have the town lake in my aquarium by Christmas. Soon I shall be weeding out the girls from the boys. I have to see which sex has the prettier colors as for now all the babies are still black with a little silver and maybe yellow. I’m keeping the one that got away in with the adult fish - he’s made it this far, he shall have bragging rights over the other five once I release them into the tank proper.
So, towards the end of the summer we got an aquarium (and a couple of fish in it.) Well, the aquarium came from Patrick’s dad, who in forever and a day thought himself to be this great aquarium owner and bought one with all the fixings (which is awesome for me, because I know own said aquarium with said fixings), and set forth to populate his aquarium with ALL THE FISHIES IN THE WORLD. Which, of course, failed massively. It’s only a ten-gallon tank, and he treated it like the town lake. Over-populated it, until the fishies died and then did it again and again. And again. Without ever realizing his big mistake. Men. Anywho. In a fit of whatever, the tank, which used to sit empty in the living room (well, it had a ship in a bottle in it - don’t ask), disappeared one day. And I saw my opportunity. And got to take it and all its fixings home. Patrick spent his allowance on two mollies and a couple of decorations, and we were set. One yellow molly I named Starbuck, and a dalmatian one I named Apollo. Patrick got his rights to name things revoked because the cat (previously named Rodney) is now, for some bizarre reason Dr. Schmookums. Whatever!
One of the taekwondo dads and I got to talking one day and he gave me sort of a crash course on setting up a fish tank. So, once the tank was all set and Starbuck and Apollo swam around and checked things out and ate what I fed them and the tank still hadn’t crashed and everything was just sunshine and daisies, taekwondo dad said it’s probably time to change some of the water in the tank. So I did. And after all the swirling water calmed down a bit, well, I see six little teensie tiny mini fish. And I’m all OMG where did they come from? Research showed that I had a girl fish and a boy fish. The sales clerk forgot to mention that, although he probably didn’t know himself. I even named them right. But, turns out that Apollo isn’t necessarily the daddy, since mollies carry for four weeks and I only had the two of them for three. Further research showed that, should I want to keep the babies, I should get a breeder net. Otherwise they get eaten. So I did, and one day after work I spent an hour fishing in my aquarium, trying to get the babies out and into the breeder net. I got five out (out of the six I’d seen) but I chalked the sixth one up to being mommy’s and daddy’s lunch or something. And OMG there are seven fish now where they were supposed to be only two and my tank is going to crash from having too many fish in there if it doesn’t crash because of me bathing my left forearm in it for an hour first. This sucks!
The tank is still clear (thank you very much) and today I discovered baby #6. The little fucker survived his mommy and step daddy. And now I’m worried with a whole new host of worries. If she’s “with child” again, and the little fuckers make it to adult size, I will have the town lake in my aquarium by Christmas. Soon I shall be weeding out the girls from the boys. I have to see which sex has the prettier colors as for now all the babies are still black with a little silver and maybe yellow. I’m keeping the one that got away in with the adult fish - he’s made it this far, he shall have bragging rights over the other five once I release them into the tank proper.