Inherited an Aquarium Yesterday

Yesterday, I “inherited” a small aquarium courtesy of a friend of Lisa’s who’s moving back east by car. Meet ECHO and FOXTROT and their friends!

 

In this shot, the evening “blue” light is on overhead.I turn all the light off when I go to sleep so they can hunker down and sleep, too.

(I added the large shells you see in these images to give them privacy and hiding places…)

 

I’ll introduce you to them in the same clever way their former owner did, in a THANK YOU greeting card:

 

“Echo is roughly 3.5 to 4 years old. I bought her as a baby. (She is the Purple Lady.) She is sweet and sometimes asks for pets.

 

“Foxtrot is not quite a year old and is a typical young person. Sometimes she can be a bully so keep an eye out. But she’s a very funny person. Sometimes she takes on a masculine persona.  (Kris Aside: Aha, a fellow Two-Spirit!)

 

“Both love shrimp and blood worms. (Foxtrot is green and blue.)

 

“Kris, thank you ever so much for giving my girls a home. I was concerned about taking them on such a long road trip and their quality of life.I hope they bring you as much joy as they have brought me.  Love, Liz.”

 

So, there you have them, in a nutshell.

 

But wait! There’s more! 

 

They came with food, treats, water treatment, an aquarium cleaning kit including a siphoning hose and magnetic glass cleaner, and everything else they’ll need to be healthy and happy for what I hope will be a very long time, although I read last night that most bettas live only about four years, so Echo is a senior citizen already. She doesn’t act like one, though!

 

I raised the level of their aquarium water slowly over the course of 24 hours from just a few inches deep (transportation mode while in Lisa’s van) to almost the top of the aquarium. (Bettas like room at the top and, because they can jump, they also need a “roof” over their heads so they don’t wind up on the floor.)

 

I’m enjoying the heck out of getting to know them. They’re definitely spoiled.

 

Every time I show up outside their tank, they rush over looking like puppy dogs ready for an adventure. (Remember that “Open! Open!” TV commercial for Mervyn’s years ago? Yeah, like that!)

 

And I have already petted Echo once. (I thought you weren’t supposed to do that with fish, but hey, what Echo wants, Echo gets!!!)

 

But wait! There’s even more!

 

As Lisa and I were watching them yesterday after they’d received enough additional water to give them more swimming room, Lisa said, “Hey, what’re those? Is that a snail and one–no, two!–shrimp?”

 

Sure enough! I looked down toward the bottom of the aquarium and there they were!

 

The shrimp are hard to see.

Very small and transparent; you can see their innards!

In the first shot, the shrimp is immediately underneath Echo’s head.

In the second, it’s in front of Echo, who is peeking around the shell.

In this shot, the living snail is ensconced inside the decorative shell (which my mom, rest her soul, picked up in Mexico, I believe, on one of their sojourns south thirty or more years ago).

 

After reading about betta care, I added the shells Mom found in Baja California (or wherever south of the border) because they like to hide out when they sleep and it didn’t seem to me that the live plants that came with them looked lush enough to make them feel secure.

 

 

The snail took to the shells right away. It slid along cleaning them up. (I had done that, too, before putting them into the tank.)

 

I will probably get them a larger tank when I’m back on my feet. This aquarium is just two and a half gallons and what I read said they should be in a five gallon or larger space, so I’m looking to find a ten or twenty gallon aquarium (used, if possible) so I can doll it up for them and even add a small aquatic African frog or two and maybe some neon tetras.

 

Larger tanks can be cleaned less often, too, than smaller ones. Smaller tanks get polluted with fish waste fast and should be cleaned every week. Cleaning distresses the inhabitants, so the less often you have to do it, the better!

 

I’ll have to be careful adding fish, though, because bettas aren’t known as fighting fish (especially the males) for nothing, and IF Foxtrot sometimes acts like a guy (I haven’t seen her act the bully yet), I don’t want her stressing out the few additional ones I get, for sure!

 

I’ve ordered a heater because the instructions says bettas are from Vietnam and swim in warmer streams, so 78 degrees or thereabout is good for them, and it’s good for the other critters, too…

 

I will do more research to see what a community tank can include, and how many fish per gallon so I don’t overwhelm the ecosystem and the filter.

 

It’s immensely relaxing–almost meditative–to just sit and watch them go about their business.

 

Of course, whenever they spot me (if I move), they swim over and go up and down the face of the aquarium glass trying to get me to engage and feed them, but their stomachs are only as big as their eyes, and overfeeding can cause bloating and other problems, so I have to be careful not to indulge them, much as I want to. A couple grains twice a day, morning and night, are what’s prescribed. But, yeah, I give them a tad more than prescribed.

 

The shrimp and snail get a pellet of food made of seaweed plus whatever else gets to them from up above that the girls discard. (They don’t discard much!)

 

I’m having a blast with them.