Friday, January 31, 2014

New Additions

So we gots us some fish.

Yes, the water's cloudy in this pic--no worries, it cleared up quickly after this thanks to the nitrite and nitrate levels balancing.

Six, for now. Since it's a new aquarium (I keep wanting to spell it acquarium—weird, eh?), we need to wait until it's established before we toss some more fish in there, and start the cycle again. It's a 20 gallon bad boy, so we can add quite a few fishy friends before it's at capacity, but we need to do it slowly.

Cool cool, I can be patient.

What? [Insert baffled self-righteous gasp here.] I totally can. I waited over 20 years to finish reading The Wheel of Time, didn't I?

Anyhow.

Since Moggie ran away (selfish a-hole) and possibly got herself eaten (what a tool), we decided to add to our family—but knowing how much of an jerk Moghedien is/was, we'd better not choose someone who might infringe on kitty-cat territory should she actually turn up again (like an asshole would, so my money's on her returning in time for updating shots then bailing on us again).

Enter: the aquarium.

Minette is nonplussed—couldn't care less about the fish. Honestly, she spent a day glaring at them and us in turn—pretty sure she was projecting indignant displeasure as how could we do this to her again?! until I explained to her that unlike Hamster (another asshole pet) if the fish were to escape their cage, they'd dieand now she completely ignores the entire setup.

Cool. I can accept that.

So. Rigged up the aquarium and over the Christmas holidays we went and picked out guppies.

Yep. Guppies. The aquatic equivalent of puppies—and not just because they're phonetically similar. These wee peeps come a runnin' swimmin as soon as anyone approaches the glass, eager to get a look-see at who's on the other side.

Cool. The kidlets already love that the guppies come to say hi. Perfect. That's about as interactive as I can expect a pet fish to be, so I'm pleased.

There are six guppies all told for now, and we tried to grab ones with different colouring (all males)—though two accidentally match. They're now The Twins.

Their names are Bluety, Spot, Candy Cane, Shine, Sharp, and Rachel.

Sharp and Rachel are The Twins.

I don't judge—they're all naming improvements after Hamster. ::snort::

We'll see how this goes...



3 comments:

  1. Yay fishies! They will, of course, be your fish, in that you will feed them and clean their tank and they will in return give you no special treatment. This is the arrangement I have with my fish. And ours got equally creative names... Stripes, Baby Fish, Sunny Fish, the Tiger Fish (there are five of them, all identical with tiger stripes, so they're all Tiger fish), and Alexander the Great (the only one I named, Alex for short. He's a big jerk and has decided the tank is his). Baby Fish and Sunny Fish are gone now, so we just have Stripes, Alex, and five Tigers. Next time we get something nameable, I think I'll do the naming.

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  2. Ah, see? Welcome to why I name cats for the family. I can't live with cats with stupid names. Fish and hamsters are unimportant enough (read: short-lived and less interactive) to allow kidlets naming rights.

    If I'd let R name Shakespeare, he would've been Tinkerdoodle (or something like that--it was a word that 3 y/o R would repeat and giggle inanely over). Can't have that. Shakespeare is a much more dignified name for a tom cat, as undignified as he turned out to be... ha!

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  3. Yeah, I've learned my lesson. Next time we get a pet that is going to be essentially mine with incidental kid entertainment shifts, I get to name it.

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