Fishy Update - The Saga Continues

[lydamorehouse]

Petsmart is really weird. 

Mason and I went there on Friday because the big thirty gallon tank is still stinky and the ammonia levels keep spiking and when I tested the nitrite levels I got a zero reading (it’s like that thing never conditioned).  So, I thought, “Maybe something is killing the good bacteria.”  There’s a lot of brown algae in the tank, but my books all say that’s natural.  My other thought was that maybe the good bacteria that I was putting in (you can buy bottles of pre-mixed stuff) was somehow corrupt or rotten.  I decided to buy a new bunch of bacteria.  We also ended up switching the filter to the one that came with the tank, but that’s another story.

 

Anyway, off Mason and I went.  While we were there, Mason talked me into getting a bunch (15) of new shrimp.  We decided Joe and Fergus could eat the lion’s share and the rest could go to Bob and Johnny/Giant Girl (the beta).  But, if some survived… awesome, you know?  

 

The weird part is that when the woman who assisted us in getting the shrimp accidentally got a white cloud danio into the bag she said, “Oops, well, I guess you get a fish.  No charge.”  I thought, “Um, shouldn’t you be more worried if I have tank for the fish?”  I mean, did it need heat?  What pH?  Before we left I checked and was stunned to discover that the danio could stand coldwater (65 – 72 degrees F), which would make him an ideal tank mate for Bob[2].  Thus, along with five shrimp, I dumped in the danio, which Mason has promptly named “Kenya.”  Kenya, though tiny, seems to be enjoying her new home.  Like tetra, danio are community fish that like to live in schools of seven or more, but, given the disaster that followed getting companions for Piranha (goddess rest his soul)… I think Kenya can just cope with being separated from the herd.  Besides, she’s got Bob[2], who is certainly large enough to pass for six or seven danios.

 

Bob[2] ate two of the shrimp almost immediately, but is leaving the rest alone (so far – after all, the previous residents all disappeared eventually) including one that I’ve been calling “Braniac” because he has what appears to be a ginormous brain.  You can actually see through the ghost/glass shrimp and watch food digest.  Having spent a lot of time staring at the little bugs, I’ve pretty much figured out what’s stomach.  This guy’s got a big black spot where I figure must be brain and it’s much, MUCH larger than any of his/her fellow arthropods’.  

 

I took the remaining shrimp upstairs to give to Johnny/Giant Girl.  The instant I scooped them in, Johnny/Giant Girl pounced!  It was amazing.  Given how tiny his mouth is, he just slurped them in like a string of spaghetti.  He’s left three of them also.  They have a better chance at survival, I think, if only because, from what I’ve read betas are surface feeders.  Plus, I accidentally broke the light (don’t ask. Okay, I just put it somewhere stupid and it fell with a snap, crackle and pop), so the shrimp have the advantage of the cover of darkness.  

 

After breaking the light, however, I watched as Johnny/Giant Girl’s tank temperature began to plummet.  I had to replace the under-the-gravel wimpy heater with the one that’s actually meant for our thirty gallon tank.  I spent several anxious hours checking to see if I was accidentally cooking Johnny/Giant Girl with the powerful new heater, but the temp has remained a steady 81 F since I set it (this heater can actually be adjusted, which is kind of nice.  The other one only raised the temperature a couple of degrees above room temperature, and it tended to fluctuate a lot since it was so small.)  

 

I’ve been having fun using a flashlight to scare the shrimp, however.  Bad Lyda, no biscuit.  Still, it’s kind of hilarious to watch them scatter from the light.  Plus, Johnny/Giant Girl gets a menacing look in his bulldog eyes and starts to head for them like a shot.

 

The downstairs tank seems to be doing better.  I got a high ammonia reading on Saturday, but I also found traces of nitrite, so I’m hopeful.  It smelled a bit rancid (not like rotten eggs, more like pee) tonight when I fed them, and I’m planning on checking again in the morning.  At least I’m used to changing their water often, so that’s not such a big deal… although I’ve been doing seven gallons at a time (almost thirty percent) and that’s a lot of water to deal with.  Still, we’ve had Joe since the first day, and I’d really, really, really like him to continue to survive.

 

In other news, I'm still deeply addicted to comicbooks. We went shopping for Mason's school supplies and I ended up picking up (for myself!) THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (New Avengers) Vol. 10.  This series was written by Babylon 5's very own J. Michael Straczynski, and I have to say, it's awesome.  I continue to love how writers deal with Captain America, in particular the fact that Steve Rogers was a soldier in WWII who was frozen in an iceberg for decades and revived sometime in the late nineteen seventies.  There's an awesome scene in which Peter Parker, MJ, and Aunt Mae are temporarily being housed in Stark Tower because their Brooklyn house burned to the ground.  All the New Avengers are standing there in costume, and, of course, Captain America is the first to take his mask off and introduce himself and make nice (particularily to Aunt Mae).  Aunt Mae is awed because, well, her husband once saw Captain America (THIS Captain America, Steve Rogers) give a speech in the trenchs. Wolverine turns to Spider-Man and says, "Looks like old red, white and bloomers found himself a groupie"  and Peter says, "Makes sense... their both from the same generation, right?"

Right.

I also, in my Captian America obsession, picked up two Captain America graphic novel collections: CAPTAIN AMERICA -WINTER SOLDIER and CAPTAIN AMERICA - RED MENACE.  In that series I was particularly struck by how the writer (let me fetch it from the bathroom....Ed Brubaker) manages to make Cap's long time companion "side-kick" Bucky actually kind of sexy.  Not sexy in a pedophile way, but sexy in a twenty-something assassin for America, who in Cap's own words, "did things I couldn't.  I was the icon.  I wore the flag... but while I gave speeches to troops in the trenches, he was doing what he'd been trained to do..." (the picture shows Bucky slitting the throat of a NAZI)  "And he was highly trained."  Omnious, and, well, kinda sexy.

God help me.

Oh, and last night?  I was Spider-Man.

Comments

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and last night? I was Spider-Man.

Hee! I've dreamed that I've been Spidey a few times. It was frikkin' sweet. Dreaming that I was wearing the Greatest American Hero's garish suit and debating if I should jump off of a roof to fly? Not so sweet. :)

Nice to know that I'm not the only one who routinely dreams of (and sometimes being) fictional characters from movies, books, and comics.

[lydamorehouse]

My Spidey dream was particularly funny because I spent a lot of the time jokingly complaining about the crazy mess I was in -- very Peter Parker-esque, actually.

Oh, when I was napping with Mason just a few hours ago, I was Spider-Man again and this time I even had dialogue bubbles.

[starborn-scribe.livejournal.com]

Dialogue bubbles! LOL!

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

Wow.

We feed our fish, change the water occasionally, and make sure the heater is working. Period. Any more, and I think I would simply just get all of my fish at Coastal Seafood and be done with it. :)

[lydamorehouse]

I'm hoping to get to that point, honestly. I need to stop starting new tanks.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

See, I never got past that point, so that may be the Zen of it. :)

[smadronia.livejournal.com]

You are a lot better fish mom than I ever was. I only ever panicked when they stareted dying, or later in life, when the cats went after them. Seeing you post about the fish makes me want fish, but there's no way I can have any right now.

[lydamorehouse]

I don't know if I'm a better fish mommy. I tend to over-think things, generally, and my fish caretaking is no different. :-)

[holy-toledo.livejournal.com]

I hope your fish appreciate you. The fish I had when I was a kid commit suicide to escape us! We never cleaned the bowl on time, so once I found this crispy goldfish next to my dresser when I got home. I would never put so much work into fish, you are DEVOUT.

-Mel

[(Anonymous)]

Steve Rogers was thawed out in the early 1960s, not the late 1970s. He joined the Avengers and argued with Hawkeye throughout the turbulent 60s. "I've about had it with your attitude, bowslinger!" was the kind of thing he was always saying.

I read a great series in the early 1970s, when I was just a whip of a boy, when Cap was teamed up with The Falcon. A different Captain America and Bucky showed up. They were also products of the Super Soldier program. But they were vicious racists. It caused Falcon and Cap's girlfriend of the time (who was a SHIELD agent, but I can't remember her name, skinny, blond thing she was) no end of trouble. Good Cap eventually shows up and takes out the bad CA, which was difficult because the Bad CA was stronger and faster than the good CA. But Good Cap eventually triumphed while teaching us that Racism Is Not American.

This was just before Rick Jones began switching atoms with Mar-vell and Captain America was...er, anyway.... uh, I'm glad I'm not a geek like you....

jpj

[lydamorehouse]

You're not a geek at ALL, John. Okay, okay, okay, so it was the LATE-sixties (wikipedia tells me that it was 1964), but I remember reading it in the 70s.... so there.

[(Anonymous)]

I've about had it with your attitude, fishslinger!

jpj