I unfortunately have bad news. My family's Pleco passed away on Tuesday the 25th of August 2015. It all started that morning. After breakfast, everyone in the family was there to watch as our beloved catfish, longest surviving fish in our tank, began twisting himself left and right, slowly floating in the tank as he thrashed back and forth. Eventually, he settled behind his castle, not moving much. He stayed there for the rest of the day. That night, my dad decided that he was not going to recover, and that he needed to be removed from the tank. Even my father's fish-apathetic heart was softened a bit by the departure of the fish we had had for nearly as long as we had our tank. While I witnessed, he caught the Pleco, still alive, in the fish net. It tried feebly to free itself, but it's inability to even swim only further proved it's doom. Once the catfish was raised out of the water, he stopped struggling, and was flushed peacefully. After nearly 2 years of terrorizing the fish in our tank, the Pleco was gone just two days after we bought six over sized fish in consideration of his voracious appetite. Having ended the lives of countless tetras and other small fish, he went how I hope he would have wanted to go: Valiantly, explosively, and without any small fish around to see it. Maybe he has been waiting all this time to have a chance to die in peace, and once we removed the last Glowlight tetras, he was finally free. The few pictures I took for my last post are likely the only remnant of the fish we raised from just a couple inches long to adulthood.
Now if only the Angelfish would die and leave the Silverdollars, I could have some Danios or tetras again in that tank...
In other news, my brother's Betta is doing great in his five gal tank, and we have already trained him to tap my brother's finger to get his food. We are feeding him a halved Cichlid wafer twice a day, and plan to fast him on Thursdays. My brother's ultimate goal is to train his Betta to jump through a hoop, but for now we're focusing on simpler tricks. Seeing that cute little Betta gives me even more reason to go through with my plan to change out the fish in my tank.
Speaking of my tank, the Danios are doing great. Today, I spent a while trying to get some pictures of them, as they tend to group up on the surface after evening feeding, but they were moving so fast that only 20 out of the 140+ pictures I took were any good. The Glowlights haven't changed much (I still can't bring myself to tell them that their old nightmare is dead), but all the Danios are doing great. In fact, I feed them too much, so I am planning to fast them once a week just like the Betta to let their insides have a break. Here are a few of the decent pictures I managed to take. Sky and Streak were almost non stop chasing each other, doing crazy acrobatics as they roamed, while Darter would retreat to the bottom every once and a while for a second or two of rest before joining back in the fun. I wish I didn't love these fish so much, it would be so much easier to get new ones.
All three fish together. I think the one facing down is Darter, the left one is Sky, and the top one is Streak.
Here's another threesome shot. Darter is doing something really weird, and I can't tell which girl is which with all the blur.
Here all the fish are moving really fast. As usual, I can spot Darter on the top because he is smaller, but I need a good view to tell Sky and Streak apart, which I don't have here. I love the long fins on my Danios, they are beautifully patterned and give them a regal look.
And here is possibly my best pic of Sly yet. You can really see her regal dots, though her face is a little out of focus. I guess when you take as many pictures as I do, some of them are bound to turn out good.
And those are the fish. Aside from playtime, they still have much the same habits as before, though Streak has mostly stopped bothering Darter. They tend to team up to annoy a Glowlight or try to oust Sky multiple times per minute. Because they are such voracious eaters, I have to feed extra so some of it will drift down to the Glowlights, but this means that all my Danios, and especially Sky, who seems to be the best eater perhaps due to her experience in the currents of the top, Are getting kind of fat. Not fat like the Glowlight's all-round fatness, but more of an overly large belly kind of fat. That is why I am not going to feed them tomorrow.
School is going good so far. I may end up taking another AP, but hopefully I will be able to keep up this every other day posting. My parent's dislike of fish shopping means that at least this weekend, there will be no news on that front, but I will still have all of our fish. Now that I have finally found my phone after losing it for a day, I hope to find time to take good pictures of my brother's betta and the fish in the main fish tank. Maybe I should figure out if I can make a photo album for all the pictures I don't use in my posts. Hopefully the internet could handle that kind of massive folder.
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