Fishy Update - Betta Love
Aug. 9th, 2007 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseIt's probably a good thing that I didn't start my fish keeping hobby with bettas. They're difficult to kill and have a startling amount of personality for a fish. Plus, their colors are amazing. Johnnyt/Giant Girl is such a blast to watch. I've set the tank up so that he has a lot of fake duckweed "floating" at the top and he loves to glide around in it and peep out with his bulldog face at me. He's very good at hiding. Shawn discovered the other day that if you knock on the dresser that his tank sits on, he'll come out and "answer the door." It's true. If I'm ever worried that he's sunk to the bottom or stuck somewhere all I have to do is knock and out he comes as if to say, "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees?"
Bettas, apparently, also like to, after patroling their territory, rest. Johnny/Giant Girl will stick his little upturned "nose" into the fencing around the pagoda feature and let himself float. He looks like a kite stuck on the feature. Or he'll draped himself on the stairs as if to say, "Don't my colors match divinely?" (And they do.) He'll lay perfectly still for three seconds and pop back up. It's hillarious.
He also taunts me. We have a ten gallon filter in the tank which I worry is too strong for him. Shawn once discovered him plastered to it, and I instantly unplugged it so he could float off. I worry about this because bettas actually NEED to take in air at the surface and can drowned if they don't have a chance to do that. We've since discovered that he can pull himself off of the filter. But, Johnny/Giant Girl will wait until he knows I'm watching, stick his nose into one of the suction sections of the filter and then spread himself out and get slapped up against it. He waits until I get that panicked look in my eye and shout, "Argh! You stupid fish!" and then he pull himself off. Tauting.
Because Johnny/Giant Girl is still in the conditioning phase of his tank occupancy, I've been cleaning the tank on a fairly regular basis (geek moment: his conditioning is faster than our bigger tank. The nitrite levels are already noticable, which means he's in the second stage already!) Anyway, when I stick the siphon nozzle in, Johnny/Giant Girl comes out to investigate. Mason and I have to say, "Watch out for Mr. Nozzle there, Johnny!" Or he'd stick his nose right in that too!
I love bettas.
Downstairs, meanwhile, I'm still getting a powerful odor from the 30 gallon tank. I suspect the culpret might be... me. I've discovered that Joe and Fergus will take food from my hands and I think, as a consequence of this fun new activity, I've been overfeeding them again. I just read an article in my fish magazine that excess undisgested food bits can cause ammonia spikes. Probably my problem. The good news is that we're going on vacation starting tonight and all the fish will fast. Maybe that will help. Plus, I'm changing everyone water before we go.
Joe and Fergus are now completely golden. The only way to tell them apart is that Fergus is smaller than Joe.
The ghost/glass shrimp colony in Bob (New Bob)'s tank is now down to three as far as I can tell. I discovered a dead body the first time I cleaned the tank and chalked it up to "old age" or other natural causes. But, with the disappearance of shrimp number four, I'm beginning to think that I ended up with a bag full of male shrimp who are sorting out their territory now. Still we have three and I'm hopeful that if, in fact this is aggressive shrimp behavior, that means at least one of the remaining is female and we could get eggs.
Fingers crossed.
Bettas, apparently, also like to, after patroling their territory, rest. Johnny/Giant Girl will stick his little upturned "nose" into the fencing around the pagoda feature and let himself float. He looks like a kite stuck on the feature. Or he'll draped himself on the stairs as if to say, "Don't my colors match divinely?" (And they do.) He'll lay perfectly still for three seconds and pop back up. It's hillarious.
He also taunts me. We have a ten gallon filter in the tank which I worry is too strong for him. Shawn once discovered him plastered to it, and I instantly unplugged it so he could float off. I worry about this because bettas actually NEED to take in air at the surface and can drowned if they don't have a chance to do that. We've since discovered that he can pull himself off of the filter. But, Johnny/Giant Girl will wait until he knows I'm watching, stick his nose into one of the suction sections of the filter and then spread himself out and get slapped up against it. He waits until I get that panicked look in my eye and shout, "Argh! You stupid fish!" and then he pull himself off. Tauting.
Because Johnny/Giant Girl is still in the conditioning phase of his tank occupancy, I've been cleaning the tank on a fairly regular basis (geek moment: his conditioning is faster than our bigger tank. The nitrite levels are already noticable, which means he's in the second stage already!) Anyway, when I stick the siphon nozzle in, Johnny/Giant Girl comes out to investigate. Mason and I have to say, "Watch out for Mr. Nozzle there, Johnny!" Or he'd stick his nose right in that too!
I love bettas.
Downstairs, meanwhile, I'm still getting a powerful odor from the 30 gallon tank. I suspect the culpret might be... me. I've discovered that Joe and Fergus will take food from my hands and I think, as a consequence of this fun new activity, I've been overfeeding them again. I just read an article in my fish magazine that excess undisgested food bits can cause ammonia spikes. Probably my problem. The good news is that we're going on vacation starting tonight and all the fish will fast. Maybe that will help. Plus, I'm changing everyone water before we go.
Joe and Fergus are now completely golden. The only way to tell them apart is that Fergus is smaller than Joe.
The ghost/glass shrimp colony in Bob (New Bob)'s tank is now down to three as far as I can tell. I discovered a dead body the first time I cleaned the tank and chalked it up to "old age" or other natural causes. But, with the disappearance of shrimp number four, I'm beginning to think that I ended up with a bag full of male shrimp who are sorting out their territory now. Still we have three and I'm hopeful that if, in fact this is aggressive shrimp behavior, that means at least one of the remaining is female and we could get eggs.
Fingers crossed.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 11:29 pm (UTC)