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I'm a grandfather
Jun. 30th, 2009 08:05 am I was on travel for work for a couple weeks recently, which meant a lot of unattended time for the aquarium.
The trip was 2 weeks long, but I was able to come home for a day and a half or so in the middle of it. Knowing the trip was coming well beforehand, I'd gotten an automatic feeder for the aquarium and fiddled with its settings until it was giving the amount of food at the times I wanted while I was away. Since I wouldn't be around to give the pleco his daily algae wafer, I stepped up the amount of food in the feedings. My hope was that the extra food would end up on the bottom of the tank where mister pleco would get it. That ended up working out well.
Of course, when I got home in the middle of the trip, the first thing I did was to check to make sure everyone was still alive. They were, though I couldn't find one of the zebra danios for a long time. I'd given up hope on him, figuring he must've jumped out or something, then spotted him later. The second thing I did was a cleaning and water change.
Upon returning at the end of the second week, I again checked to make sure everyone was alive. Platys? Check. Danios? Check. Pleco. Check...hey, what's that moving under the driftwood near the pleco? A baby platy?
Yes, while I was away, the platys made like an 80s teen movie and obviously had wild parties and fooled around. I knew I shouldn't have put the aquarium near the tv. I spotted 2 babies. From the size of them, I'm guessing they were born not long after I'd left the weekend before. Two seems an awfully small number of fry for a platy to have, so I suspect that any others either got eaten or sucked into the filter. The two newfish are doing okay and growing like weeds. Soon they'll probably want to start dating and borrow the keys to the car.
On another front, I got a betta. I'd picked up a 2.5 gallon mini bow aquarium recently, planning on getting a betta after the trip. I'd been lamenting not being able to get one before the trip, having seen some truly gorgeous ones when at the store. I ended up bringing home a beautiful red fellow. He was a common betta but had fins and a tail that would make some half moons envious.
Unfortunately, the little guy died 2 days later while I was at work. I still feel bad about it. I posted on fish forums and discussed it with Andrew, the fish guy a the store (who looks and sounds a LOT like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ruwhei ) in hopes of finding out what I'd done wrong. After asking assorted questions, everyone said it sounded like I did everything right. Sometimes fish just die.
Talking some more with Andrew, I took a chance on another betta and hoped that the first was just bad luck. This little fellow is still going strong after a week. I hope he continues to do so. He's another red, but has some purply blue toward theback end of his body. He's quite the handsome fellow. He's also kind of funny in that when I put a mirror up against his tank, he predictably flares at it and looks tough. That only lasts a moment before he scoots away. I guess he's so tough looking that he scares himself. A couple times, he's just run away from the reflection without even flaring. Silly fish.
With the new guy's survival for a week, I'm thinking he needs a name. I've also toyed with the idea of setting up another mini bow and getting a blue betta for it. Then it could be Horde red against Alliance blue....
The trip was 2 weeks long, but I was able to come home for a day and a half or so in the middle of it. Knowing the trip was coming well beforehand, I'd gotten an automatic feeder for the aquarium and fiddled with its settings until it was giving the amount of food at the times I wanted while I was away. Since I wouldn't be around to give the pleco his daily algae wafer, I stepped up the amount of food in the feedings. My hope was that the extra food would end up on the bottom of the tank where mister pleco would get it. That ended up working out well.
Of course, when I got home in the middle of the trip, the first thing I did was to check to make sure everyone was still alive. They were, though I couldn't find one of the zebra danios for a long time. I'd given up hope on him, figuring he must've jumped out or something, then spotted him later. The second thing I did was a cleaning and water change.
Upon returning at the end of the second week, I again checked to make sure everyone was alive. Platys? Check. Danios? Check. Pleco. Check...hey, what's that moving under the driftwood near the pleco? A baby platy?
Yes, while I was away, the platys made like an 80s teen movie and obviously had wild parties and fooled around. I knew I shouldn't have put the aquarium near the tv. I spotted 2 babies. From the size of them, I'm guessing they were born not long after I'd left the weekend before. Two seems an awfully small number of fry for a platy to have, so I suspect that any others either got eaten or sucked into the filter. The two newfish are doing okay and growing like weeds. Soon they'll probably want to start dating and borrow the keys to the car.
On another front, I got a betta. I'd picked up a 2.5 gallon mini bow aquarium recently, planning on getting a betta after the trip. I'd been lamenting not being able to get one before the trip, having seen some truly gorgeous ones when at the store. I ended up bringing home a beautiful red fellow. He was a common betta but had fins and a tail that would make some half moons envious.
Unfortunately, the little guy died 2 days later while I was at work. I still feel bad about it. I posted on fish forums and discussed it with Andrew, the fish guy a the store (who looks and sounds a LOT like
ruwhei ) in hopes of finding out what I'd done wrong. After asking assorted questions, everyone said it sounded like I did everything right. Sometimes fish just die. Talking some more with Andrew, I took a chance on another betta and hoped that the first was just bad luck. This little fellow is still going strong after a week. I hope he continues to do so. He's another red, but has some purply blue toward theback end of his body. He's quite the handsome fellow. He's also kind of funny in that when I put a mirror up against his tank, he predictably flares at it and looks tough. That only lasts a moment before he scoots away. I guess he's so tough looking that he scares himself. A couple times, he's just run away from the reflection without even flaring. Silly fish.
With the new guy's survival for a week, I'm thinking he needs a name. I've also toyed with the idea of setting up another mini bow and getting a blue betta for it. Then it could be Horde red against Alliance blue....