Fishies

RIP Crowntail.














Running Boy adored him for about a fortnight. Both boys bought Bettas (Siamese fighting fish) and set-ups with saved and pooled money and a bit of a parental contribution for cleaning their room up - a bit.

We never saw Crowntail eat and we think he starved to death. We have no photo of him. After emergency talks with the staff at a different petshop we bought food that bettas actually recognise as food, which apparently isn't the case with the food supplied in the "everything you need" betta kits. Cheekus' Weekus' Longtail is doing just fine. Once we were sure we all had the hang of it, Running bought another fishy, totally parentally funded, which was the deal for finishing off the worst bits of the room, totally re-arranging it and clearing out Underthebed.

We also bought bristlenoses, one for each tank. I'm not at all convinced by shopping-centre claims that bettas are perfectly happy all alone in tiny bare jars. They may well survive (apparently they have a special organ that helps them cope with still, unaerated water in small spaces) but it looks a pretty wretched sort of existence to me, so our bettas got bigger tanks, live plants and a companion each. Apparently bristlenoses are suitable tankmates because they don't have bright colours to spark up the bettas' fighting instincts, they aren't going to nip the bettas' lovely tempting floating fins and they truffle about in little corners vacuuming up gunk. Perfect.

At one stage Longtail was overly interested in Fatty. Lots of experimental nips and rushing at hiding places. Fatty responded by fanning his or her tail out to an enormous size and whacking Longtail in the face. They have reached an understanding that seems to involve Longtail sulking in a nest at the top of the waterweed and Fatty gluing itself mouthfirst to the side of the tank. This allows everyone to watch its mouth and belly in action and has made him or her quite popular.

Starry Night, who is a halfmoon and therefore hideously expensive - for a fish - and Stickytape got along brilliantly from the beginning. They amicably shared the hiding spots at the bottom of the tank right up until last night, when Running realised Stickytape hadn't moved all day. Sure enough, we had a deceased bristlenose. S/he is currently wrapped in a tissue awaiting a decent burial. So far as we can tell Starry Night doesn't seem to be mourning.

BTW looking for pictures of fish for this post turned up, amongst other things, Sailor Moon characters (probably predictable) and Yoda. True dinks.