a few fish stories

An easy, yet amusing start for your first peek into our little asylum.

Recently I took my children on a road trip, to visit their grandparents.We were gone roughly 3 weeks, in which my husband stayed home for work, and to care for the animals.

The first time we called to check on the critters, he was freaked out about daughter's betta fish. The directions were very simple : the betta gets two food pellets every other day.

Husband was freaking becasue he had accidently given the betta FIVE pellets. the pellets are small, and you have to push your finger into the cup to get them. the pellets stick to your finger and you push off the extras. Half awake, he had put five pellets into the tank, which betta ate very happily. That night he had checked and the poor thing was lethargic- just slowly hanging around at the top of the water.

oh boy. so daughter and I both gave him the same directions- do NOT feed the fish again for two days.

thankfully, the fish turned out ok.

Several days later, Husband called me, and said "there's something wrong with the frog."

oh no... what's it doing?

"well, I was sitting here watching it, and it went to the top a few times, really fast, I think it was gulping air bubbles, but the last time it did this, it just froze at the top, and sank back down- its laying on its back on the bottom."

well, I couldn't help but laugh, and of course he became upset with me, he's thinking somehow, after the close call with the betta ,he's managed to actually kill the frog. The idea of explaining the dead water creatures to his children was not a good one. He certainly didn't appreciate me laughing at him.

I was laughing though, because this odd behavior is normal for the frogs. It scared me silly the first time I saw it myself. Like he said, they don't move around very much, and spend most of the time in hiding.But there are occassions when they look as if they'd gone crazy,going to the top then down again over and over as fast as they can, then sinking like rocks. (until they release all the air they'd gulped. )

I explained to husband this is normal, calm down. Even laying there "belly up" is fine, just wait a few minutes and they'll burp up the bubble. He kept me on the phone until it did. And when it did, it went happily back to its hidey hole. "well, there he goes. Why don't we have NORMAL animals like everyone else?? " well honey, because we're US, and it wouldn't be normal for US to have normal pets, now would it? Insanity seems to be contagious.

Yet another frog story, since we're at it here.

My son takes great pride in caring for his tank. It is a big large for him to clean though, so I get the pleasure. we've told him that if he does well, we'd get him an algae eater- the fish that suction to the sides of the tank, and suck all the grime.

when we had returned home, I had cleaned both tanks. One of the requirements for an algae eating fish, is, of course, to have an algae buildup in the tank. Mama wasn't thinking of this when the tanks were cleaned.

last week I noticed a funky looking patch of white blobs floating on the surface. Oh boy! a nursery! is it the frogs, or the tetras? most likely the frogs.

off we go to the pet store, a handy picture of said blobs in my phone. its confirmed that we have a frog nursery. we buy the seperating net for keeping the fish from eating the eggs, and go to look at the "suckerfish" .

Son has been VERY diligent about his fish, as I mentioned, and has noticed that each time we get new fish, I ask about the compatibility of the breeds, the temperatures and foods. We allowed him to inquire about the 'suckerfish' . The man told him which kind would be best for his tank.

son's inquiries continued-

will the water be warm enough?

what does it eat?

and the big laugh- "will it suck my other fish?"

The mans eye's went huge, as he wasn't sure exactly how to answer the question to a 5 year old without being overly "naughty". so he simply said, " um no, son, it won't suck anything but algae. It probably won't even suck the eggs."

Husband and I had to wander a bit to keep from exploding our laughter.

much to his dismay, we did not buy the 'suckerfish', becasue I had cleaned the tank, the poor thing would have starved. so we'll give it a few weeks and see if we can find a 'normal' algae eater.