Worse things could happen...

And worse things ~have~ happened, but I'm still a bit bummed.

My angel fish died... the jewel of my aquarium is gone! Now I don't have any mid to high level swimmers in my tank. It looks empty. The angel fish taught all the other fish who's boss, and they all swim near the bottom.

Surviving are: 1 Pictus catfish, 1 Ruby/Rainbow shark, 1 Pleco, 1 black molly, 3 blood fin tetra, 2 black skirt tetra, 1 siamese algae eater, and a tiny little cory that's cute and has a mustache.

Now what should I do?

Score! (Needle in a hay stack)

I have the algae problem in my freshwater aquarium. Not the green algae that you just put a couple drops of chemicals in to kill it, but this "black" algae, which is actually a tenacious form of red algae. It's hard to get rid of.

Enter the Siamese Algae Eater -- one of the only fish known to munch on "black [red] algae." So I go to the pet store, and I find the tank where the algae eaters are held... well, let me explain something here first.

It's apparently quite rare to find actual Siamese Algae Eaters [SAE's] in pet stores, as they more frequently stock "false SAE's" and pawn them off as SAE's. The differences may be hard to pick up on at first glance (Images snagged from http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/saes.htm):


<--False SAE






True SAE!-->


It's a good thing I usually read a little about things before I just dive in. Anyway, so here I am at the tank simply labeled "Algae Eaters." They all look the same... kinda dirty yellowish with a black stripe, all swimming around in an undifferentiated cloud of fishies -- except for one, sitting alone, on a rock.

"I'll take that one with the black stripe that goes from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail," I told the shop keep, as I remembered that as one of the distinguishing features of a genuine SAE, the kind that eats the algae blooming in my tank.

He's in his new home now, and sure 'nuff, he's eating that black junk like Pac-man. Wacka-wacka!

YES! I found the one genuine SAE in a field of imposters. I'm sure there's some life lesson here for us all, but I'll leave it up to you to ponder what it is.

Flammable is to Inflammable; as Duh is to No Duh.

From the "1+1 equals, oh yeah... TWO!" files come this brilliance:

Over the past couple days I'm wondering what is happening to my neon tetras. One day, there's ten. Then there's only nine. Then eight. Seven. Okay, now I only see five. What gives? No dead body's floating in the water. Hmm... a mystery.

Today I noticed that my Pictus is looking quite pudgy. This evening, he looks down right bloated.

Wow! What's going on with my tank. First my neons are disappearing, now my pictus has some "fat disease."

Then the light bulb went on, shining right on the grim reality of what's going on in my tank...

During evening worship, it looks like two more tetras "disappeared" (and the big fat pictus just sits there grinning).

UPDATE: TWO NEONS LEFT, AND ONE GUPPY NOW GONE. THAT FAT CAT ATE MY GUPPY!!! HE'S GONNA EAT ALL MY FISH!

I kill fish and crabs

I wish I was better at fish-keeping. Our cool Catfish died today, and our little fidler crab kicked the bucket a few days ago. Our other Catfish is acting funny and one of our guppies don't look so good.

If I ever offer to keep you in a tank, it would be wise to decline.

Fish Experiment NOT going well.

Well, poor Henry didn't make it through the weekend. Squirt ain't looking to hot today either. :-(

Our new hobby

We picked up some used aquarium equipment a couple weeks ago. I got it up and running a few days ago. Today, we introduced our first two fish to the aquarium. I decided on...

(drum roll)...


The Blue Gourami!

Let's see if they can hang in there for a while. The Ph level and the temperature are A-OK, but aquariums can be fragile environments sometimes. Gouramis are pretty hardy, though.

Well, I'm tired and feeling kinda... ugly... really for the second half of the day, for whatever reason. Time for family worship, and then BED.