fishy activities

Here are some photos of my lovely fishies! Today I bought a beautiful piece of Chiyogami paper and taped it to the back of the tank for a nice contrasting background. Eventually I will do some paintings of these fishies, after I have gotten used to taking care of them, and all the things I hadn't bargained on set in (like changing different parts of the filter every month, two months, and three months, feeding schedules, and the feeling that I will wind up killing the poor sods by some act of carelessness). Only the other day when it rained to beat the band, the power went out and the filter ran dry for an hour before I realized what had happened. And you can't just add water willy-nilly, but de-chlorinate it, make sure it isn't too hot or cold, and all these other details. It was much easier taking care of a betta, but it was pretty boring too. One can't have other fish in the tank or it will kill them, and putting more than one of their own kind would also result in death for one or both. It makes one wonder how they survive in the wild. "This rice paddy ain't big enough for the both of us!" Do they just hide all day and then have melees at night like a bunch of gangbangers? But I digress. Fan-tail goldfish are quite tame in comparison.

I have approached the tank as a sort of wet still life setting, and have really enjoyed arranging the gravel (in blue, to make the fish's orange pop out nicely), choosing rocks for them to hide behind, and setting some smooth stones in a pattern as well. The smoother stones are from our trip to Canada with dear friends, and I found so many perfectly round rocks in Lake Huron to take home with me. Also, there were several fossils that are now proudly displayed under water. The larger rocks came from D's labor-intensive garden digging. There was a quantity of quartz that his shovel found (painfully) as he dug dirt for our borders. He would have been more than happy to get rid of the rocks forever, but I salvaged the prettiest ones for the tank, scrubbed them thoroughly, and now they look lovely as a home for my fish.