pain in the arse
mike and i were snoozing along with the first murmurings of consciousness as mouse cuddled up to us this morning, hoping to get our attention as soon as we were cognizant for fresh food. not that he didn't still have dried food in his bowl. he was hoping for either fresher dried food or wet food, which i've been interspersing with the dried. since his last dental checkup wasn't great, and the cat "dentist" recommended dried food, we've been keeping him to the dried, which has made him persistent to no end at meowing and looking at the dried food then looking at me with sad eyes.
all of a sudden, we hear a loud crash, waking us to a start. we stared at each other, and i immediately yelled "henry!" and we both leapt out of bed. sure enough, henry had his paw in the literal fish tank...i have to back up to give some context.
we have a 25 or so gallon fish tank with 2 medium sized goldfish--a redcap oranda & a black moor--, 2 little white fish (not sure what kind, mike inherited from old office mate who had them at the office, but left the firm), a zebra fish and an albino algae eater. the redcap i asked mike to get in feb (actually the second one, the first one died after a week), was about 1/5 the size of the black moor. now they are almost the same size.
well, moraes, the black moor, has been sickly as of late, getting swim bladder and not enough food (i think). the redcap is quite aggressive and smart, (and poor moraes is by far not the brightest fish in the tank). when i drop food in the tank, moraes goes crazy and gulps blindly at the surface of the water. we had to separate him from the others twice now, once when he injured himself and lost some scales and again last week, so i could hand-feed him peas. that's right, i was literally hand feeding a goldfish peas from my finger tips directly to his mouth otherwise they would fall to the bottom, where he had trouble swimming to or he would swim about blindly having trouble finding the pea.
he rejoined the tank on sat. last night, i went to feed the fish, and noticed him floating listlessly sideways. he was breathing fairly heavily (the only sign he was alive), but not moving much. we were really worried, and didn't want to stress him by putting him in a tank by himself, so we had to separate the redcap, his main competition for food. i know. this all seems insane to be doing for fish. so on to the rest of the story...
henry has been eyeing the fish tanks, and we have caught him up on the counter. in fact, the last time moraes was in a separate tank, we noticed one morning that the top had been pushed off. this morning, i guess henry got more aggressive and must have stuck his paw and used some force, because he managed to push a small plastic fish tank with the redcap off the counter and onto the kitchen floor, causing the loud crash, waking us up and causing us to fear for our fishy's life. there was water everywhere, and henry ran off with no sign of the fish. we scrambled around, moving things and trying to figure out what happened to the fish (i really hoped/didn't think it was in henry's belly. he really doesn't eat much, and is rather picky. his main motivation was mainly to wreak havoc or rather, have some fun). after a few minutes, we found the poor thing at the bottom of the recycling bin adjacent to the counter. the fishy was in a bit of shock, and alive but not responsive for a bit, but was fine after about 15 min.
i was still sleepy and tired when i went to work this morning after all that. now it's time to give moraes more peas.
all of a sudden, we hear a loud crash, waking us to a start. we stared at each other, and i immediately yelled "henry!" and we both leapt out of bed. sure enough, henry had his paw in the literal fish tank...i have to back up to give some context.
we have a 25 or so gallon fish tank with 2 medium sized goldfish--a redcap oranda & a black moor--, 2 little white fish (not sure what kind, mike inherited from old office mate who had them at the office, but left the firm), a zebra fish and an albino algae eater. the redcap i asked mike to get in feb (actually the second one, the first one died after a week), was about 1/5 the size of the black moor. now they are almost the same size.
well, moraes, the black moor, has been sickly as of late, getting swim bladder and not enough food (i think). the redcap is quite aggressive and smart, (and poor moraes is by far not the brightest fish in the tank). when i drop food in the tank, moraes goes crazy and gulps blindly at the surface of the water. we had to separate him from the others twice now, once when he injured himself and lost some scales and again last week, so i could hand-feed him peas. that's right, i was literally hand feeding a goldfish peas from my finger tips directly to his mouth otherwise they would fall to the bottom, where he had trouble swimming to or he would swim about blindly having trouble finding the pea.
he rejoined the tank on sat. last night, i went to feed the fish, and noticed him floating listlessly sideways. he was breathing fairly heavily (the only sign he was alive), but not moving much. we were really worried, and didn't want to stress him by putting him in a tank by himself, so we had to separate the redcap, his main competition for food. i know. this all seems insane to be doing for fish. so on to the rest of the story...
henry has been eyeing the fish tanks, and we have caught him up on the counter. in fact, the last time moraes was in a separate tank, we noticed one morning that the top had been pushed off. this morning, i guess henry got more aggressive and must have stuck his paw and used some force, because he managed to push a small plastic fish tank with the redcap off the counter and onto the kitchen floor, causing the loud crash, waking us up and causing us to fear for our fishy's life. there was water everywhere, and henry ran off with no sign of the fish. we scrambled around, moving things and trying to figure out what happened to the fish (i really hoped/didn't think it was in henry's belly. he really doesn't eat much, and is rather picky. his main motivation was mainly to wreak havoc or rather, have some fun). after a few minutes, we found the poor thing at the bottom of the recycling bin adjacent to the counter. the fishy was in a bit of shock, and alive but not responsive for a bit, but was fine after about 15 min.
i was still sleepy and tired when i went to work this morning after all that. now it's time to give moraes more peas.
posted by bluepupae at 6:32 PM
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