Short Fish Break

         Because everyone else is talking about this now (that I follow) so now I have to add mine... and besides, sometimes one likes to read while watching fish ^^

My friend, the amazing, reading, knitting blogger recently posted this list. Top Whatever lists always spur discussion and debate on their flaws and merits, and this one inspired me enough to start ranting about it.

According to the BBC, this is a list of the top 100 books that everyone should read.

The ones I have read already are bolded.

The ones I have started reading, but have not completed, are italicized.

The ones in regular print, I have not read yet.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Being a theatre major they kind of make you. Not all are great)
15 Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Travellers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma- Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - William Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martell
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson
74 Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie & the Chocolate factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Fish, in the Western Zodiac

         I decided it was time for a more, mythology based entry, as fish are everywhere. And in the western zodiac there are two and a half fish, and one shell fish... I'll discuss a bit on the two and a half fish, because I don't feel like discussing shellfish right now.
        So first off, the two fish, which are, of course, Pisces.

The mythology surrounding Pisces is that when the monster Typhon started rampaging around, the Goddess Aphrodite and her son Eros, transformed into fish to escape him, tying their tails together with a bit of string to keep from losing each other. Other fish then came and helped to hide them. So later, the constellation was put into the sky in order to honor the fish that saved the Goddess of Beauty and God of Love.
     So yeah, guys. Thank those fish for beauty and love in the world, otherwise who knows what kind of place we'd live in.
     Pisces is, of course a water sign, and a mutable one. Which means that they have a longing for movement and a tendency towards restlessness. Back before this 13th zodiac nonsense people fell under this sign born between February 20th and March 20th. In case any of y'all wanted to know. Anyway, you can look up zodiac personalities elsewhere, I'm just stating the myths right now.

     The half fish is Capricorn.

Capricorn, the sea goat, actually is very hard to find the mythology behind, and there seem to be two.
      The first, similar to Pisces, is that when Typhon was attacking, Pan jumped into the water as well, to avoid him, and his bottom half became that of a fish, while his top half became that of a goat. When he saw the monster attacking Zeus, he used his pipes to make a sound that scared the creature off (who knew) and Zeus, in thanks, set his image in the sky.
    The other is that Capricorn was the father of all sea goats, and they were an intelligent species, but his children would constantly pull themselves out of the water to bask in the sun, and as time went on, they evolved into the goats we have today. Capricorn, saddened by the loss of all his children to land, was put into the sky so he could watch over them all (well, that's the abridged version anyway)
    Capricorn is one of the Cardinal signs and is said to be stubborn and unmoving. The sign again, before the new zodiac is said to start on the winter solstice December 21st and go to January 20th.

           Anyway, that about wraps up my western zodiac myths on the fish. More myths to come eventually from other places. (And the pictures are mine. please to not steal)

Eat your Peas

           So no matter who you are, or how careful you are, in all likely hood at one time or another in your fish keeping, one of your fish will get sick.
      In many cases a sick fish is easily fixed, sometimes just by letting the fish be, it'll recover, other times it requires simple, to more drastic measures to take care of. The two simplest methods are as follows.

#1: check your water conditions, often a sick fish is a sign that there's something amiss with the water quality. High ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite levels can be deadly to a fish. In an established tank these levels should be 0, new tanks can fluctuate.
      If the levels are off, simply doing a 10-20% water change can produce almost immediate results. The fish will have an easier time and their stress levels will go down, and they'll recover. Sometimes a larger water change is needed, this should be done carefully though, as you could potentially stress the fish more by doing this.

#2: Swim bladder disease. The swim bladder is present in many fish though the term is most commonly associated with bettas. This organ is basically a kind of buoyancy device, filled with gas within the fish. It allows it to stay at a particular water level without using too much energy by swimming. A fish with an issue with this organ will either have problems getting to the top of the tank or going to the bottom, (which can be confused with dropsy, but swim bladder is easier to treat and more likely to produce good results).
     One of the main causes is overfeeding and constipation. Yes, your fish can get constipated. This is mainly because the foods usually given to the fish contain too little fiber, or are very rich and fatty. Most fish do require a balance of different foods to prevent this. And one of the first things I try when I suspect a fish of this is.... the common pea.

I know right. A pea? But it's true. A pea pretty much acts like a laxative for the fish, it helps the digestive process, and it's actually healthy for your fish. And even the carnivorous fish seem to like it (Granted my carnivorous fish are just danios and tetras, but I've heard others like it too)

Now of course, a fish's sickness is not always chalked up to these, generally easy to treat, illnesses. Other such illnesses can be a bit harder and more expensive to treat.

#3. Ichthyophtihirius multifilis.... also known simply as Ich, is a common ailment of fish and is caused by parasites. It is easily spotted as small to large patches of white spots on the fish, the fish may also start rubbing itself on things in the tank, itching itself.

#4. Fungus: There are many types of fungus a fish can pick up, the most common are cottony growths around the mouth or an open wound. In most cases this is a problem when dead matter, or uneaten food, is left to sit in the tank. The fungus forms and can attach to a stressed, or damaged fish.

#5. Fin rot: This can be started by fin nipping, but it is more common in poor tank conditions and an overpopulated tank. This can be seen as the tail fin disintegrating or becoming ragged.

The good news is all of these ailments can be treatable, though it takes time. It is recommended to get a hospital tank as at least Ich and Fungus are 'contagious' and you don't want to risk harming the other fish, but sometimes this just isn't possible.
       In all cases medication is required. I had a fish with a fungus infection and I found that the Melafix and Pimafix combination worked best for me. Though I also like Maroxy in more stubborn fungal infections.

   There are many other ailments that effect fish, caused by any number of things, from parasites to bacteria. Fish can get tumors, and there's even such diseases as fish tuberculosis.
    In many cases, making sure the water conditions are good are the best preventative measures, but sometimes help is needed... and in some cases there is no cure for the ailment.
    It is best to have a separate treatment tank for sick fish, that has both a heater and a filter, and some kind of aeration device to keep the oxygen levels in the tank high, but of course this isn't always an option so one must make certain to watch to be sure the other fish aren't affected. And always wash up well after treating the water, as some diseases can actually be harmful to people as well.

       A final note, as in some cases it is better to get rid of the fish before it infects an entire tank, especially if it's something that cannot be cured. Flushing a sick fish is never a good plan, as that will be a very cruel death for the fish. The best way to euthanize a sick fish is first (of course) to separate it into a small container. Add clove oil to the water, as this acts as an anesthetic, pretty much putting the fish to sleep, the fish will stop breathing and will soon die. Some people say once the fish is asleep, adding vodka will quicken the death. As horrible as it sounds, it is a quick and painless death, that doesn't force the fish to suffer, and risk getting your other fish sick.

     But of course that is only to be used under extreme circumstances when all else has failed and the fish is obviously suffering more by fighting.

Anyway, maybe not the most entertaining entry, but hey, knowledge is power and knowing what to look for and early treatments can in the end, help keep a healthier aquarium.

Hakuryu

Hakuryu is my Chinese Golden Algae Eater. I got him when he was about the size of my thumb (~1"). In less than a year he's reached about 3". I love this fish... he's' annoying as hell, but that's okay.

          When he was in the 10 gallon, there came a period of time where this fish would just... disappear. Like, he wouldn't be there. There wasn't that much in the tank at the time, and he wasn't under the pile of rocks that I originally put in there for him. I moved everything. Could not find him. He was the biggest fish in the tank at the time. WHERE COULD HE GO.
          Hakuryu would disappear and reappear many times for weeks until one day while I was watching the tank I figured out his secret. Apparently the filter had a compartment that he was somehow swimming up into. At least the mystery was solved.
          Unfortunately a few months later the filter crapped out and I had to replace it, (getting the fish OUT of it was annoying as hell.) The new filter had no compartment... so I got Hakuryu the tree stump that Gat would eventually hijack.

          When it came time to transfer my fish to the 75 gallon, Hakuryu was one of the last that made the trip... First off because he's a scaleless fish (at least he's considered to be along with the Cory catfish) and... he's just a pain to move. He pretty much decided he was going to start jumping. But I finally got him into the tank.
           All the fish moved, I watched to make sure they weren't freaking out more than would be expected, and once they found their hiding spots and the Corys started burrowing into the sand for food, I figured all was well.

Hakuryu decided he didn't like my tank set up...
In fact. he would NOT be happy until he made it the way HE envisioned it. He had to survey the entire domain, and prepare to redesign it.

I was in my room, reading a book and I look up to see an ominous cloud of silt, slowly rising and overtaking the entire tank... What... The heck. so I get up to go check it out...

MOUNDS of sand had been moved, a hole had been dug under Gat's tree stump, one plant was unrooted (I'd put the plants in a courser substrate to prevent too much burrowing but Hakuryu was determined on that one). The stump was in it's own hole, Hazel's (my rubber mouth pleco) lantern had sunk as well, and Hazel peeked out of his now half buried home in confusion.
      Hakuryu was in the stump, tail FLYING, pushing more and more sand out of the stump and into a rising pile...
      I stared... he stopped... stared at me... then swam into the hole he'd made under the log and just... watched me from it. Like trying to see what my reaction was... Didn't I just LOVE how he redecorated....
..... siiiiiiigh....
I replanted the plant. evened out the sand, unburied Hazel's home and put a bit of sand back under Gat's (not much cuz I knew Hakuryu would just dig it back out) and left it at that.
      He hasn't made any big changes since, a few dug holes here or there, which are to be expected... I EXPECTED some burrowing. Just not like THAT.
     
      Anyway, some facts about golden algae eaters.

(note, not my fish (I haz no camera) just a googled image, but he looks pretty much like that)
Golden Algae eaters are just a color variation of the Chinese algae eater which are usually a silver color with a black stripe going through their bodies.

When small they're pretty docile and will eat algae as is their name, but when they grow larger, they'll move on to eat other things (mine likes algae wafers, the occasional pea, and sometimes shrimp pellets). They also will become more aggressive as they get larger and territorial.

As far as breeding goes, they're apparently very difficult to breed in captivity, and males tend to have larger "horns" at the tip of it's nose (those little nubs) and the females have a rounder body.

They can jump, so watch open aquariums.

Plecostomus

         A quick glance at that name and you think immediately of (... if you're me) some awesome dinosaur like creature.

That's what you think of. oh wait. This is a fish blog so obviously it's a fish. hold on.

   

There... THIS is what you think of (if you're me)... well actually they're algae eaters. So there's no teeth. And I guess they don't really swim on two legs. But regardless of these small facts, the Plecostomus is still a beast of a fish. No really. Just to prove that my young images of this thing were not completely unfounded, check this out.

  Note. This is NOT my Plecostomus (Pleco for short). It's a picture I found online. (http://badmanstropicalfish.com/species-gallery/catfish/plecostomus.html if you're interested) But this is actually still not as big as they CAN get. A Plecostomus can grow up to 2 feet (sometimes larger) They really are beasts.

    My Pleco, Gat, is only about 5" long. Still a beast. Though I think he thinks he's smaller than he is. He had a fake stump he used to hide in, but outgrew within about a month, but he was DETERMINED to stay in that stump (which I didn't even get for him, mind you, I got for my Golden Algae eater, but that's another story in and of itself) He thought he was hiding... this is what we saw.

... cute... but pathetic. I got him a respectable sized log for the 75 gallon that he actually fits in.

     Anyway, now he has a big tank to be beastly in. Soon he'll be joined by my other pleco, Hazel, who is a different kind (I was not going to have two dinosaurs in one tank). He's a Rubber-lip pleco.

        Rubber lipped plecos are like the smaller cousins of Plecostomus. They usually only get to be about 10" . I'm convinced Hazel is a midget though, because he's only like... 1.5" at best. He's tiny... but then, when they're both stuck to the glass, it's something like this...

Hilarious XD. Anyway that's a short bit on my Pleco's

some facts. (because, I should give them I guess)

        Pleco's are usually very docile though when they get bigger they can be aggressive, depends on the fish.
       
     Though algae eaters, they do require more than just algae, or they risk starving. They'll eat any veggie wafer or algae disks.

      Plecostomus can grow to be 2' long. 24", so they're suggested to be kept in a 30+ gallon tank (one gallon of water for every inch of fish)

     Pleco's seem (at least mine) to be more active at night. If you have live plants, make sure they're rooted well, they could be pulled up, and I find that giving them an algae wafer right before turning off the light is the best chance for it to be eaten and not left to disintegrate in the tank.

And that's all I can think of for now.

A Betta Story

        So I've mentioned how I started small in the lead up to my 75 gallon tank. Namely with a couple years of betta fish. So I'll tell a story about them. But first.
        
FUN FACTS:
Betta fish: aka, Siamese Fighting Fish: can be found Thailand, Malaysia, and a few other South Asian countries. The kinds you find in those little pet store cups are actually the products of select breeding processes meant to bring out bright colors beautiful tail shapes.
   Bettas make their homes in shallow streams and rice paddies, they actually have what's known as an labyrinth organ, which allows them to take oxygen from the air, rather than just the water, which is why they can survive in the muddy, and often stagnant waters of their natural homes... or those tiny cups they're so often kept in.
   In my experience, bettas seem to be fine in shallow waters so long as they have a large surface area of water so they have plenty of space to get oxygen from.
   Male bettas are known for being aggressive, flaring and attacking any other fish they come in contact with... this is not entirely true. Bettas can be kept with other fish, mainly the female bettas, but males can be kept with other fish as well, so long as they don't have too bright colors or flowy tails and fins... this I am pretty certain is totally a jealousy thing, because a male betta must be the prettiest around to get laid and he's willing to defend that. He's also violent if he gets turned down, so watch female bettas too if trying to breed them.
END OF FACTS:

Now that the learning is over I'll tell you about some of my bettas.
    My first betta was actually a gift, in one of those, vase bowls... that one didn't last too long unfortunately, but a while after it died, I decided to go pick out my own betta. I choose a nice veiltailed, blue betta, with a black face and green and red highlights. His name was Leviathan, and he was awesome.
    He was much more active than my previous betta, and liked to hide in the roots of the vase plant. Leviathan had a couple close calls with my cats, managing to get the plant out of the vase, but he was smart enough to swim to the bottom and they soon lost interest all together.
    When I first moved out, he was the only pet I took with me... He may have wished I didn't. My roommates cats were not as easily distracted from him as mine and we had to chase them away from him all the time... and one night they finally succeeded in knocking the vase from the table he was on.
    This one night... I was not as light a sleeper as I usually was, and missed the whole thing... my two roommates however, were woken by the loud crash. I was told by one that when she got out to the living room she came upon this scene...

Roommate in the middle of the room, clad only in boxers, staring uncomprehending at the fallen vase, the water pooling on the floor, and Leviathan flopping about helplessly.
       Thankfully she was more capable, and moved into action, refilling the vase, saving the betta, and putting the vase (thankfully unbroken) on a higher shelf.
       Leviathan went through a couple more close calls (those cats were determined) but he made it another year, and I moved back home, he made that move too.
       Leviathan would meet his end a couple months later... I don't know who did it or what happened, but I came home from a horrible day at work, only to find a more horrible scene when I got home. The vase, shattered on the floor, Leviathan's little fishy body curled up in a puddle that had soaked into my carpet.
      I was so upset, I picked him up, I set him in the base of the bowl, with the little bit of water that was left, and set to picking up the glass and stones. I brought it all to the kitchen, threw out the glass, went to rinse the stones... and noticed that Leviathan was staring at me... and swimming. Oh. My. God. What???? This fish... This fish was immortal.

That was my fish. (yes, his face did look like he had stubble, what) I found a little bowl, set him in it and hoped for the best.
       Leviathan lasted three more days... he had a good run, he was awesome. That was one bad ass betta.

My next betta is a red veiltail (who I swear was purple when I got him, but who knows) named Bubba, and he's still going strong. He's in a nice 5 gallon tank (upgraded from the fishbowl scorpion bowl he originally was in) and hopefully at no risk of being pushed off the table.

New Fish

        So a while ago, (i.e. two months) in a state of depression (usually how all my crazy projects begin) I decided to finally go ahead an purchase a 75 gallon fish tank and a stand. I was too poor at the time to afford anything else, so I was really only teasing myself, BUT in my head this aquarium ... or tank as that was all it was, had the potential to be AMAZING. And my brain was happy with that.
       And because my parents are awesome (and I'm sure a lot had to do with my dad, who as you learned from the first post, was the start of this obsession) they got me pretty much everything I needed to start the tank for Christmas. (Except sand, which is impossible to find apparently, but I got that on my own) And I had a nice tank all set up (still a little sand dusty) and planted about a week and a half ago.

      Now I let this tank cycle for a couple days and clear up, but it gets to the point where you really need to get some fish in there to help start the beneficial bacteria to growing. So I did some research to find some fish that were hardy enough to withstand initial set up. (I only had a few that are hardy enough, not really enough to start the cycle in a 75 gallon). So I went out and picked up some black neon tetras.
      Black neons are a shoaling fish. This is not to be confused with schooling (which they also do but not all the time). Basically a shoaling fish will stick with a group when it feels like it or when it's scared, otherwise it'll swim wherever it wants... a schooling fish rarely breaks from the school... though shoaling fish can form a school.

<- Shoaling

                                             







                                                            -> schooling  





Anyway, I don't really know why you needed to know that, except that this is a blog about fish, anyway, moving on.

I let the tank cycle with six of the neons and my Pleco... because he was quickly outgrowing the other tank, and he's also a hardy fish, so I figured it was for the best. You'd be surprised how hard it is to transport a 4" fish a foot and a half to a bigger tank (and find a large enough transport tank that still allows for easy switching). Oh, and P.S. Pleco's feel weird. I mean not weird, just not what I was expecting. like... more like  a crab shell than fishy scales... just my opinion.

Anyway, I let them swim about and create bacteria for two days, then I decided (after checking water conditions) to add my danios. namely two glofish and a golden danio. I HAD three glofish, but one got sick unfortunately and didn't make it, and I opted to wait until they were transferred to replace him...
     So I moved the three fish into the tank (after about 45 minutes of trying to catch the little buggers) and they basically sat in a corner and did nothing... which I thought, well, big new tank, maybe they just have to get used to it... An hour and a half later... still no change.

Well... technically danios are shoaling/schooling fish as well... so really, three is not enough for them to feel comfortable... so it was time to get them a bigger family.

            The closest pet stores are 20 minutes away, so I made the long trek to the place I usually go... the parking lot was a battle in and of itself with all the snow and slush on the ground, and I worried about getting the fish back without dropping them (I am not the most graceful being ever.) but I needn't have worried as they had about five million orange glofish, only a couple red, and no green... no good, I need them all. AND they only had long-finned zebra danios, also a no go, here's a short reason why.
           Danios are fin nipping fish. In larger groups it's not so much a problem, and amongst short finned ones, also not something to worry too much about unless you start seeing ragged fins, but you throw in a long finned amongst the others, and it's like they all gang up on the fish... I haven't decided yet if it's a jealousy issue, or a like... fish ADD thing? but it happens.

 

 

So anyway, I drove another 30 minutes out of my way to check another store... and they had all the colors I wanted. And only two orange glofish. So I found someone to get me the fish before anyone else could claim them. two orange, one red, one green, and one zebra danio. Now I'd have a school of 8 (glofish are just genetically altered zebra danios, so they do school together, I may discus this more later).


About five minutes after introducing them to the tank, all my danios started swimming about and exploring, retreating to their group every once and a while before venturing out again. So they really did just want that safety in numbers.

Now that that's all set, I'll give a couple days for the filter to adjust to the added fish load and then hopefully add in the rest of my tetras and algea eaters. My cory cats go in last, as they are scaleless and not as hardy. (funny how they're the reason I got the sand substrate and yet the last fish I actually add).
        For now, I get to watch my little shoal schools explore.

An Introduction

      Also, how it all began I suppose. Well first off... I got this blog because my friend told me to :) Soooo. That was easy enough. Next up.

What is this blog about?
Well, that's actually a very good question. I'm going to put out there that as of now this will be a blog that focuses mainly on fish. The ones I own (there are quite a few and growing, in size and number) the ones I've read about. The interesting facts, or theories surrounding them, their predators, their environment, and heck, maybe even how they're cooked (fish do make for good eating) So yeah. I hope this covers a wide range of fish experience... and possibly the meaning of life. Because I'm convinced they're related somehow, so I'll tangent on that once in a while too I'm sure.

Where did the obsession begin?
Well, When I was young, my father once had a big (To a four year old. It was only about a ten or fifteen gallon tank) tall, Hexagonal fish tank, it had some fake plants, and pink gravel and that's all I really remember about it at the time besides the catfish. I loved the catfish. He had what I believe was a Pictus Catfish (I was four, give me a break I'm trying to remember). I just really remember it had whiskers, like an actual cat and I thought it was neat.

There were some other fish in this tank of course. not many, but I always watched the catfish. These particular ones were jumpers, so I'd always watch when they were fed, because I'd have to save them from my actual cats if they jumped out. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where the interest began, was watching those catfish.

Years later we moved and my dad set up the tank again (at some point, the catfish died and weren't replaced and the tank went into storage for years). This time dad picked up some different fish. Zebra fish, which I believe were zebra danios but they may have been a type of tetra. He did have a small school of neon tetra, another type of catfish, I think an upside down catfish, and a few random others.

A while after the zebras died, a friend of ours said how she was getting rid of her tank and needed a place for her remaining two angelfish. Now, I LOVED angelfish. But we'd never been really successful keeping them. despite this, we took them in. A small white one, that I so originally named Angel. And a huge, beast of a black and silver, which I lovingly called Daemos. This thing... well, he sort of ate some of the smaller tetra (we didn't think they were too small I mean, they were at least an inch, and he wasn't much bigger than three really) but he survived long after all the other fish died. And the day he finally bit the bullet was actually a very sad day for me. Dad put away the tank again after that, and I'm told it eventually was given away.

Years would pass that I didn't get a fish, but whenever I was in the petstore, I'd always wander that way. I couldn't seem to help it. And one day I finally gave in and got a betta. Kept it in one of those betta vases. And I was so happy. I don't remember much about that first betta, but I remember getting him in a period where I was extremely depressed, and somehow that little fish made it all better. Unfortunately about a year later, my cats would decide that one day at work they wanted to see this fish, and knocked the bowl over...
I did get some more bettas through the years, and some died of unknown causes, some of unfortunate accidents (ok by some I mean 1 and 1). My last betta before giving in and getting the whole aquarium experience again, actually survived a number of broken bowls, and out of water incidents before finally giving in to a final spill...

That was the last straw. I got another betta. And a 5 gallon tank, not huge. but big enough a cat couldn't push over. Well, unfortunately the filter was too much for his fins and I had to put him back in a bowl... on top of a very high shelf, but now I had an open tank... and OH the possibilities!

From that small tank I've expanded now to have four (soon to be 3 again but I'll discuss that later) tanks and a small assortment of freshwater fish (one day I'll take on saltwater). And this will follow the happenings of those tanks... and you know. Other random facts and fun.

Hopefully something in this will be as interesting to someone else as it is to me.