Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Fish Tank Woes

We have this tank, you see, that is really big and beautiful (but not in the BBW way mind you) and is in the perfect place for some amazing sea creatures. So we added some. We actually added lots which I think may have been the problem but things were good, at least for a little while.

Then suddenly I found the dreaded white specks on a few of the fish. The ghastly Ich disease struck downtown fish world and I moved quickly to save the community. I bought medicine, aquarium salt, and some herbal liquid that was supposed to help as well according to the lady at the store. When I mentioned they had Ich she says "Ohhhhhh yeaaah, it's been real bad this year, we've had quite the problem." A red flag goes off in my head but I've dealt with Ich before and managed to clear it up with less treatment than I was doing now, this was sure to work.

It didn't. First I lost a couple fish at a time after watching them struggle for days as I diligently treated them as best as I knew how. Then more died off and I was literally scooping up batches of lost little lives and broken dreams every day. I was sad, really sad. All these pretty fish and no one was making it. What happened to the tank to wipe it out so completely? I tested the water and the pH was super high which leads me to believe we had too many in there to begin with. A hard lesson learned.

The only two to survive the holocaust was a little side sucker and our african dwarf frog. It's been three days since the last death was recorded and after stopping all treatment I continue to hold my breath as I search for the two survivors each morning. Then I found a perplexing miracle.

While searching for the eluesive frog I found something that made me blink double hard. There behind the dragon tucked away in the plant was a baby fish. A baby freaking fish! How can an entire tank die yet have eggs hatch at the same time??? I can't even tell what kind of fish it is but it doesn't matter because frogs like meat, especially little meat that can fit into their little mouths. I will be amazed and even more confused if this little booger makes it.

Riddle me this?

1 comment:

Kim said...

I had a fish tank at work and the fish got some disease and died. It was really sad.

But that little baby fish seems like a fighter if s/he has made it thus far.