Posts tagged fish
Mr. Spatula, REVEALED!!
Feb 22nd
Ok, this is the best picture I could manage of my new Betta, Mr. Spatula. His colors are REALLY hard to photograph properly, so I had to take the best shot I got and tweak the colors. This isn’t totally accurate, but it’s as good as I could get.
Mr. Spatula
Feb 16th
I got myself a new Betta over the weekend. I was going to post about it sooner but I wanted to try to get some pictures of him first. Unfortunately, he’s being VERY uncooperative, so I’ll have to snap some pictures later. His name is Mr. Spatula, after the iconic evil goldfish in the Sam & Max series of computer games.
I really didn’t intend on getting a new betta this weekend. I was going out to price how much a new aquarium decor setup would probably be running me when I spotted the perfect fish in Petsmart. Well, I had to rescue the poor guy so I got him right there, rushed home and re-set up my fish tank (which now has a greek ruins sort of theme to it.
Mr. Spatula is a mostly blue veil tail betta with a black head, and red streaks in his fins. He’s also as dumb as a box of rocks. He spent the first two hours in the tank freaking out over his reflection in the back wall. I figured he’d stop eventually, but I ended up having to remove the background until I can figure out a suitable replacement that won’t reflect nearly so much. I also have to feed him by practically dropping the food on top of him. Otherwise he won’t notice it.
It’s interesting how two different fish can have such different personalities. Fish was mellow (He rarely flared, and never freaked at his own reflection) and raced right out when the food came in. Mr. Spatula is a bit more aggressive.
I’ll try to get a good picture at some point soon, and when I do I’ll post em up. He just wouldn’t cooperate. Probably not used to me being around yet.
Fish, the Betta: A Memorial
Feb 9th
Last night I discovered that Fish, my betta had died sometime during the day.
He’d been pretty lethargic for a while now. After doing some research, I decided it was just old age. Their natural lifespan is about 3 years. I got him in March 2008 and they’re usually 6 months to a year old once they hit the fish stores, so it seems that he lived out his natural lifespan.
And he got to do it in a palace of a tank (just over 5 gallons, all to himself) as opposed to being stuck in a little tiny bowl for his entire life. He was one lucky little fish. Especially since I almost didn’t see the cache of bettas where he was stored. I remember agonizing over a selection, picking one and then rounding a corner and finding another cache of bettas sitting there to go through.
My current plans now are to clean out and redecorate the tank (I want to do more of a theme, as opposed to natural plants and such this time out) and get a new betta. I’ll probably start poking around this week to see what my options are and figure out how much the redecoration is going to run me.
New Fish Addition
Oct 21st
Behold, my new fish addition!
New Fish
This is my new Powder Blue Platinum Dwarf Gourami (long name though…). He’s replacing my Blue (three spot) gourami that died a couple days ago.
At the moment he’s hiding. I scared the crap out of him when I was trying to get him into the tank.I’m hoping he stops hanging out at the bottom of the tank and spends more time in the upper regions once he gets used to the situation.
Needle Roadblock (With Bonus Fish Update)
Oct 20th
I realized that I never mentioned how my plans for a productive weekend went with all the fish drama that happened.
Well, I got a little stuck working on my Mom’s website, trying to make a sewing needle in Adobe Illustrator. Specifically, I ended up fighting the program when it came to gradients. I was trying to make it look less flat and I can’t put a standard gradient on it because it doesn’t conform to the shape of the needle and looks stupid. So I played around with blends which, while cool aren’t working for what I need it to work for and then I moved over to seeing if I could do it with a gradient mesh, but that just got overly complicated really quickly.
So once I got to the point of frustration I decided to give it a rest and do some quick thumbnail sketching for a new personal site design/blog layout. That particular effort was fairly productive, but I haven’t gotten much done beyond that stage.
Mostly it was running around on fish related errands.
Speaking of Fish, my betta has apparently stopped eating as of yesterday. I decided that it might be some sort of bacterial infection and grabbed some anti-bacterial stuff for him, so hopefully something helps. After I put that in he was a lot more active for a short period of time, but returned to sulking in the corner after a while.
I’m working up ideas on how I want to restock my 20 gallon tank now with the loss of my blue gourami. I think I’ll replace her with a slightly smaller fish in order to have more room for another school of…something. Haven’t determined that quite yet. But I’m hoping to purchase the replacement on my way home from work tomorrow whatever that might end up being. I’m still considering.
Sick Fish Weekend
Oct 19th
I’ve had a bit of a rocky weekend when it comes to Fish care.
First, my betta (Fish). Fish had been very lethargic and depressed for a while, mostly sulking in his tank. I think he may possibly have velvet, but we’ll see if that’s the issue. Anyway, I decided it was about time that I should grab some medication to help him out. No change so far, but I’m going to give it some time. If you’re unfamiliar with fish diseases, Velvet is a parasite that attaches to the outside of the fish. After a period of time the attached parasite bursts and deposits spores to grow new parasites. And then these new ones swim around looking for fish to attach to. You can only kill it when it’s floating around in the water, so it’s not an instant improvement type of med.
Additionally, Saturday, after the lights came on in my 20 gallon fish tank, I noticed that my Blue Gourami had developed what looked like a fungal infection. But after doing some more research, I determined that it might actually be a bacterial disease that looks like a fungus.
Unfortunately, despite my best attempts at curing the fish, she died sometime last night. Boo.
Hopefully Fish makes it through ok.
Resting
Aug 21st
The last couple days haven’t been terribly eventful. I’ve basically been taking it easy so my foot can work on getting healed up, hopefully in time to do some walking around the state fair on Friday. It’s going to be cutting it close, but…we’ll see. It’s about the same as it has been. Not painful unless I’m walking on it. I’m also able to move my toes much more than when I had initially injured it, so that’s some progress. Not related to the fracture, I would imagine…probably some of the other damage that’s been healing up.
I also have an update on Fish. After I changed his water he seems to be happier. He’s spending more time swimming around and being happy and less sulking at the bottom. I’m trying to keep an eye on him though, just in case he’s really sick.
Lets see here…what else is going on… My roommates bought season 3 of Dexter, the Showtime series about everybody’s favorite serial killer. If you haven’t had a chance to see this show I would highly recommend giving it a try. Seasons 1 and 2 are availible on Netflix Instant Watch if you have that option.
And finally, it’s less than a week until I start school again. It still doesn’t feel like it’s something I’m really going to be doing. It feels like it’s much further away than next week.
Bad News Day
Aug 18th
Bunch of ungood stuff happened last night.
First of all, my Betta, Fish has been looking a little lethargic lately. He’s been hanging out at the bottom of the tank and not moving at all except for eating.
I shined a flashlight on him and I think I see the beginnings of an infection of Velvet. I changed his water last night and I’m planning to see how he reacts to that before I decide to do anything to him more drastic than that.
Which leads me to bad thing number 2. I was finishing up changing his water when I missed the last step on the stairs in our apartment and ended up falling. My right foot was pointed down towards the ground and I landed on it with pretty much my entire body weight, bending my toes backwards in directions which toes should never bend.
It hurts a lot and I can’t really put much weight on it. I can still move my toes so I don’t believe anything is broken, but I’m going to try to get in to see my doctor about it today in case I did something serious to it.
Updates For All!!
Nov 19th
Update Number 1: The Fish
Last night when I came home from work, Tetra #3 had died. This leaves me two tetras left, who seem to be swimming around much easier than the others were. They're still not eating anything that I can see though, so it may only be a matter of time before they crash as well.
I'm continuing to medicate for a fungal infection with the side effect of the meds being that it medicates for a bacterial infection as well, so hopefully that'll knock the problem out.
Update Number 2: The Car
I took my car into the dealer because the drivers side door wouldn't open from the outside. I dropped it off there and waited while they worked on it, playing Hearts on the computer they had set up in the customer lounge. Very handy. They also had some nice donuts which was good because I had forgotten to make myself some breakfast when I left because i was too busy playing with the New Xbox Experience update that was released for the Xbox 360 this morning. I'll probably post up my impressions on that later.
Anyway, as it turns out, the cable that was hooked to the door handle became unhooked. So they hooked it up and got it all straightened out and sent me on my way, no charge. I'm not to worried about it now…if it happens again I might start asking more questions, but fluke stuff happens every now and then.
Fishy Flu
Nov 18th
As I mentioned, my fish are having a bit of an issue with disease now in my main 20 gallon tank. The betta is fine, thankfully.
I had initially thought it was Ich, but after treating for it it eneded up not really helping. Over the past week I've lost 2 of my bleeding heart tetras with another one on the way out (I found him sitting upside down on one of the plants last night). I took the opportunity to observe him closely and it definitely looks like it's a fungal infection now. Of course I was sure about the Ich too…but anyway…I went out to Petsmart last night and picked up some more medication which I'm treating with now.
I've seperated the sick fish from the other ones in a little container floating in the water and I'm treating him along with the rest of the fish in hopes that he might get better, but it's not looking real good. He's kinda swimming on his side and not really moving very much. I have a feeling he'll be dead by the time I get home today.
Hopefully this actually ends up being what I think it is…this is getting very old.
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