And now it’s tropical fish
Well the new goldfish only lasted a few weeks. So we then had a £50 empty tank.
After a few weeks research, we decided to try tropical fish instead. The tank was thoroughly cleaned (cleaning gravel is not fun), a new tank thermostat/heater was bought (yet more expense) and the empty tank allowed to cycle for a week.
Next on the agenda was a visit to the local fish shop (henceforth known as the LFS) where we came away with 4 balloon mollies, one betta ( aka Siamese Fighting fish) and a tiny albino cory. As I anticipated, muggins here does all of the weekly tank cleaning and water changes.
In hindsight, the balloon mollies weren’t a good idea. As cute as they look, they are not the most hardy of fish. This as borne out when we lost one after 2 weeks and another after 2 months. This was balanced out by some new guppies from my dad that were carefully transported home (with some live tank plants), by train, from North Wales! They all survived without so much as batting an eyelid (although fish don’t actually have those) but, I have to say, they’re rather boring. The other fish seem to have much more personality.
Of the 3 remaining mollies, we have a large jet black male (christened Will-I-am because he’s rather flashy) and a silver female called Leda. now that there are only the two of them, I’ve been checking that Will isn’t pestering Leda too much but it seems he’s far more interested in eating than mating.
The cory (named Edgar) has almost doubled his size and is by far the fastest moving thing in the tank. He looks like he’s on speed & is most definitely not timid! Later on though, I just might get him a friend as, apparently, they do prefer to be in small groups.
The betta (called Shadow) is a beautiful dark blue/purple and spends his time mooching around in a sleek and vaguely intimidating fashion – breaking off every now and then to play games amongst the plants. He’s far from intimidating in reality. In fact, he’s a bit of a wuss who keeps getting pushed out of the way at feeding time by guppies that are a third of his size. However, bettas are supposed to be pretty intelligent (compared to guppies & mollies who are pretty dim), so I’m currently trying to train him to respond to a pencil light shone into the tank just before feeding time. From what I’ve read, this should take about 6 weeks. I’m on about week 3 — though knowing my luck, we probably have the only betta who is not only a wuss but somewhat challenged in the IQ department.
Still, “tank watching” does make a change from watching the TV…
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