Aqua Culture

my aquarium is like a weird science experiment. i mean, i appreciate it and all, but with the amount of time i spend away from home i'm not a real good aquarist (??) who checks the chemicals and stuff all the time. i did at first, i was convinced that if i didn't do it every few days everything in there would be poisoned and die. but then i was on a trip and let it go for a few days, and when i came home everything was fine. after a while i stopped checking anything much at all. once all the water turned a hideous green and i just knew that when i got it cleared up all my fish would be floating at the top. nope, they were happy as, well, clams. now i have moved into a different room from the one where the aquarium lives, and i don't think my roommate (who lives in there now) really ever feeds them. so once in a while i pop in and put in some food. still, everybody seems perky. i think with all my neglect i might be raising a super-hardy school of fish, and no matter what i do they will live. most of the tank residents are about two years old. that seems like a long time for a bunch of little tetras to live. and i haven't even told you everything yet.

one fish in my tank only has one eye. he was that way when i got him. i bought him and about four others (he's a glo-light tetra) two summers ago, and when i saw him in the bag, i told the clerk to give me another one because of his eye situation. he did, and when i tried to give him back, he told me to just keep him because he would die in a couple of days anyway. he's still here. he is the fastest guy in the colony, and possibly the most skillful. with only one eye, he has to go about eating in a very competitive way. he swims around until he spots a piece of food in the water with his good eye, then he turns 180 degrees and grabs it really fast. it has to be really fast or else another fish will get it and he won't know because he can't see it.

another fish in my tank i also tried to give back when i got him. he is a serpae tetra and he has no fin on top, just a short little piece of stringy flesh. i made the fish guy give me a replacement, and once again he said to keep the gimp because he'd die soon. two years later, the only sign that he's got a bad fin is that he wobbles back and forth when he swims.

finally, and what made me think to post this, is my fat harlequin. when i got this little fish he was a bit round. nothing to make me think he was sick, he just had a round belly when all the other fish are nice and flat. i thought maybe it had babies in there or something, but months later, it looked about the same, maybe a little bigger. fast forward two years, he's started getting insanely large. now i am worried that he has a tumor or something. i watched him for a while today and it is like a little marble with eyes and a tail. he needs a lesson from one-eye, because he's having trouble getting food. when he tries to swim he kinda goes in a circle. i am afraid the end is near for fatty. i will be sad, he will be the first of my little colony of crippled fish to bite the dust.

Monday 22-Dec-03