La Dee Da.

Things are good over here in FishLand. Inherited Fish are behaving like Inherited Fish, happily eating, sleeping and swimming around chasing each other away from their respective hallowed portion of the tank. My Fish Man was right, they're okay in the warmer temperatures, so long as the change isn't drastic. Their tanks consistently stay right around 80° to 82° these days.

You'd think they'd get it after about the fifth fish bite on the butt that "hey, this territory is MINE!" But no, three seconds later, they go right back to the claimed territory to try again.

The little white fish that I separated from the others is definitely a little boy. His dorsal fin has shaped into a pretty point and if I look closely, his fins are ever so slightly electric blue. You can hardly tell, it looks like he's swimming in front of something jewel colored, but it's definitely him. He is so pretty and is around 3" long. Just a couple more inches and he'll be the same size as his father.

The other babies are gradually getting bigger, I'm not sure why they're taking so long to get bigger. Guess they're the runts of the bunch or something.

Here's a picture of the white fish...



Hard to believe he was once one of these... just about the size of an uncooked grain of rice and transparent...

The Summer Heat.

Lately, despite the outrageously warm (hot) weather we’ve been having, I’ve been attempting to keep the house on the cool side. Like around 74 to 75 degrees. Not cold by any means, but cool – I do, after all, have fish tanks and lots of Inherited Fish.

The cool temperatures all came to a screeching halt Sunday night when I checked my electricity bill online and found that, dude, for this past month the bill came to a whopping … WAIT FOR IT … $345.80. I tell ya, it’s that eighty cents that kills a person. Now I’m on a budget to pay for my stupid electricity bill.

On behalf of the fish, I do have to say that for the last several months, they have been paying for their own food and filters (nothing like selling your kids for food), but an electricity bill that size? Yeah, no. Suffice it to say, we now have eight fans running to keep the air moving throughout the house and sincerely hope that I won’t be eating any poached ornamental fish for a snack (they’re not big enough for a meal).

I guess my wish from the other day (link) is kind of coming true.

I did call the fish store and asked the owner about tank temperature. He speaks from experience. Unfortunately, his air conditioning unit has stopped working several times this summer and the store has just had to make do with fans. He said his tanks have gotten up to 90° and while he hasn't lost any fish, he has lost some coral. He said the most important thing is to keep the temperature, whatever that is, steady. It's the fluctuations (say 82° during the day, to 76°) that can kill them.

For the last couple days, I've been keeping the air conditioner at 78° during the day and turning it off completely at night. Running fans 24/7. The tanks are all up around 79° to 80°. So far, the fish seem to be doing okay.

38 Babies Moved.

I moved 38 babies over to the fish store tonight.

There are still 13 babies here at home, 4 of which are the white albinos that I'm gonna grow to adulthood.

It was time to do this move. I've hung on to them as long as I can. The bigger ones were beating up on the little ones, I had three babies in isolation tanks because they were missing one of their lower front fins. They weren't very happy either way, in isolation or free in the tank.

Moving those 38 babies out gives needed tank space to grow these final little runts up. It made me sad to move them, though. One of them had a hard time with the move. She kind of went into shock and started to swim sideways. Poor thing.

By the time I left the fish store, though, she was swimming just fine. They have a 20 gallon tank all to themselves for tonight. Who knows what they'll put in there with them tomorrow. Little babies.

One of my females in the 36 gallon tank is, apparently, getting into fights. Her right eye looks like its missing part of his lower lid and she's missing some of her gills on the front of her face. She was really aggressive last night when I noticed it. I hope she heals. I don't like seeing her like that.

After coming home tonight, I find myself feeling kind of sad about my baby fish project coming to an end. Temporarily, I know. But still... I've been growing fry now for about a year. I think I'll kind of miss it while I take a break.

Tank Temperature

My biggest problem these days is keeping the tanks cool, below 80 degrees. For some reason, their heaters, despite the tank temperate being high and the heater knobs being turned to 70 degrees, keep turning on. I don't get it. Just don't get it. It's frustrating as all get out.

I love the heat. This morning, I went into my backyard and sat underneath one of my favorite palm trees. Just sat there and soaked in the warmth and humidity. There was a slight breeze and it tickled the hairs on my arms. It felt so good.

I wish I could turn the A/C off in the house and just enjoy the warmth. But, unless I want a bunch of poached fish in my tanks, I can't.