31 posts tagged “fish”
Fish (my betta) is swimming around quite nicely now, exploring everything. He just discovered that there's a middle bit to his tank with plants and stuff in it and has been examining them up close and personal. He's getting blown around a bit by the filter though so I'm going to be changing it out to a much calmer sponge filter as soon as I get some parts I need via mail order.
And now I'm going to go from fish to the Eliot Spitzer thing, which has to be one of the strangest transitions I've ever done on here. I try to avoid commenting on political news events because I'm sure nobody really wants to read it, but this is kinda big and I've got some stuff to say. First of all, I've seen a lot of people asking why this is such a big deal and how it's any different from what Bill Clinton did (for example). Normally I'd agree. I think somebody's personal life is their own business and if Spitzer simply had an affair I would probably not vote for him again, but I wouldn't call for him to resign either. That situation would be between him and his wife.
This however, is different. Spitzer ran on a platform of stamping out corruption in government, using his record as Attorney General as proof of what he's done over the years. And he's done some really good stuff as AG which is why I voted for him in the first place. And then, as it turns out, he's involved in this prostitution ring which violates several state and federal laws. Once he starts breaking laws, that's the point where a personal matter becomes an issue for the public.
I just read he's going to resign, effective Monday which is good for everyone involved. Hopefully people can put this behind them and keep working on the important business of running the state. And I hope that with the passing of Spitzer, Upstate New York isn't forgotten becaus he really started to focus on upstate which is typically ignored by the state government.
So, as you may have noticed if you checked yesterday or looked downward first, I have my betta now. Fish the betta (yes, I named my betta Fish) is, as of this morning, alive and well but we had a bit of an adventure getting him. We being myself and Wassy because she likes to come along on my fish getting excursions. The basic plan was that I was going to go over and pick her up sunday afternoon and we'd get the fish, go back to my place and then we'd head back over to her's and we'd hang out.
The first thing that should be mentioned is the weather. It was very windy and we were having some lake effect snow. Well, when I say "we" I mean "me" because as soon as I got about halfway to my friends apartment the snow stopped immediately. Sigh. I hate lake effect snow.
I picked her up and we went off searching, checking out a few different shops to see what they had. We also made a unscheduled stay at Wild Things (local pet store for those reading from outside the area) so that my friend could visit with possibly the coolest looking ferret around. After that we ended up going to petsmart to look at their bettas.
I was looking for a blue crown tail type because I think they look pretty cool and petsmart happens to have those so we tried to browse through all of their little cups to find a good one, Wassy was looking through the selection and picking out ones that would work, and we had a little lineup going on the shelf above where the bettas were kept. It was an agonizing process but eventually I settled on one betta, so we moved to the next stage which was the actual purchase. I turned to go down an asile heading to the cashier but then discovered that there was another cache of bettas that we hadn't seen the first time. So that started the process all over again.
In the end, I ended up with that guy right there. Not the blue I was looking for, but suitably interesting. He's actually a little more black than that now. I think the body color was mostly because he was stressed out.
We got him back to my place and I started to get him used to my tank water. I had a little problem though, because he was in a cup with a bunch of chemicals and other crap and I didn't want that in my tank, so I had to pour him out of his cup into a net over a bucket (in case I missed him with the net) and then plop him in my tank, which was quite the production. Everything went well though and there he sits.
I think, however, that the filter that came with the tank is a little too much for him, so I'm going to scout around tonight a bit to see if I can find him a sponge filter and get things going that way instead. I tried doing some more modifications to my power filter but without flow control it's hard to regulate it.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing over at Jay and Wassy's place, which was much needed. We watched Stardust, had a wonderful turkey dinner along with some wine and just hung out. Some much needed relaxation.
Just a couple quick pictures because I don't have time to do a writeup but...here they are!
First up, and update on my Betta tank. I got the temperature stabilized and now I'm working on getting the filter and such ready. I'll probably be getting my betta this weekend since I have another filter with which to seed my new tank. All is proceeding according to plan. I also purchased some new/better (hopefully) plants for it over the internet as I'm having trouble finding the decor I'm looking for locally.
Wassy came over last night for mid week activities and that went pretty well too I thought. We watched Silence of the Lambs which she loved and I had never seen before. And by the end of the movie I was ranking it up there as one of my favorite movies of all time. VERY well done, and makes me want to read the books now, which I will do at some point in the near future.
We also listened to some music (Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane to be specific) and hung out and talked. While we were hanging out she mentioned that I really needed to get a fish in my new tank because it draws your eye but it's all empty now. So since on my origami calander for today was a goldfish, I figured I'd try to fold one up. But, uh...lets just say it didn't go well. It didn't look much like a goldfish, or even the picture on the calander when I was finished.
All and all, the evening was a good de-stresser which was something I really needed this week due to stuff happening at work.
As I mentioned yesterday, I've started preparations for getting my betta tank going. I've wanted a betta ever since I first started looking into getting fish but I passed originally because they're loners and I really wanted a slightly larger tank. But now I'm finally going to get my betta.
I had originally intended to wait until friday when I got paid but I couldn't wait and ended up going out shopping last night to pick up supplies. I got myself a 6 gallon tank (and Eclipse System 6 to be specific) along with the heater, gravel and some decorations. It came to more than I thought it would, which I'm finding is normal when fish projects happen.
I set everything up last night and let it run. The (fake) plants I bought ended up mostly being not quite what I wanted. I also need to find some rocks and stuff that would work well in the tank too, as well as a good background, so I'm still not done purchasing stuff quite yet. I know I want a larger reddish plant as the main thing, I just haven't found the right one yet.
Another snag is I woke up this morning and the temperature was up to 84 which is a bit much for a betta even though they could survive in it. I'm trying a few things tonight and I may have to swap the heater out for something different. I think it might have to do with the way the hood is designed, not having enough room for the heat from the filter and such to escape, causing the water to heat up further. I'll make it work.
This weekend was spent doing a lot of lounging around and relaxing. I spent a good majority of the time playing Tales of the Abyss, which is a really good RPG for the Playstation 2. I've had it for over a year now and only played about 12 hours of it to start with before something took me away and I'm regretting not finishing it sooner. Very good game. But it wasn't all fun and games this weekend.
I had some fish trouble, nothing major though. I noticed Saturday afternoon that my tank's temperature was inching downwards towards room temp, which is bad if you've got tropical fish and your room temperature isn't 79-80F. Needless to say, I was a little concerned. As it turns out, my heater was broke, so I grabbed my backup heater and threw it in there until I could go out the next day and pick a new one up. Luckily that seemed to work pretty well until Sunday. I also took the opportunity to redo my aeration setup, with new tubes and a valve to control flow so I don't need to use my potato chip bag clip to stop some air from going through. Probably should have gotten a smaller air pump, but...oh well. Everything seems to be working fine now, so I'm hopefully done playing in the water for a while.
Other than that, nothing else of particular note really happened this weekend (that I can remember right now anyway). Just your standard relaxation totally lazy weekend. I was going to do stuff with Wassy and Jay, but she got sick over the weekend and had to cancel. Bah to illness (and not just because I wanted to do stuff either.)
I don't have much to say at the moment except that I took a good picture of my Three Spot/Blue Gourami last night that came out pretty good. So I figured I'd share.
Well, I couldn't get a decent picture of my new fish since he's really moving around a lot, but I do have a video! It looks like Vox did a number on the compression, but it's still watchable if you want to see a fish swim around.
Just a quick update for now. I have a new fish in my aquarium. Like I mentioned yesterday, I was going out last night to pick up a new fish for my aquarium and I have returned with a Blue Gourami/Three Spot Gourami which I believe is female. I also picked up a few new plants to fill out the back a bit.
I was trying to take a picture but my camera is hard to work with at the moment (since I broke it) and I need to access the menu to change some settings so aquarium pictures don't look horrible. Luciky I was able to order a new LCD for my camera yesterday afternoon. They said it would be here in 1 business day, which I'm hoping means today and not tomorrow...that'd be pushing it though.
Pictures will be coming later, in any case.
I was saying last night how I would like to invent a time machine (or buy one, since that would probably be easier...) and zap myself back to when I was first considering getting my fish. At that point, I had said to myself "I can do fish...fish are easy!" I would like to go back in time so I can slap myself.
This sudden outrage at myself is caused by the fact that I spent about an hour last night with a toothbrush and my aquarium decorations cleaning of gunk. I only got about halfway done too, before I decided my hands were far too pruny and I should probably put the rest off. Some of those plants have an awful lot of leaves.
The tank does look much, much more colorful now though. It was starting to look pretty depressing.
Those fish better appreciate everything I do for them...
