A Bipolar Tank

(I just found I that this post never got published, so I'm doing it now.. Let the record show that I wrote this on June 12th, 2014.) 

Hello again! Well, I come again bearing bad news... Hippocrates, our dear sea snail, has passed. In all honesty, I have to say that his death was the most disgusting one to have to deal with... You know way back when when I thought Socrates might be dead (he was actually napping..) and I looked up how to know if a sea snail is dead, and they told me that they would stink. Yeah, well they weren't kidding. He smelled SO BAD. Only to make things worse, when I lifted his shell out of the water (with the net..) this nasty, smelly, brown liquid poured out into the water (I assume it was what was left of his actual body.. 😳😁) I'll spare you the rest of the juicy details. I'm still not sure if I should worry that the water is contaminated now.. I had a small funeral and buried his shell, remembering how tiny he was when I first got him... I'm gonna miss him a lot! He was a great snail! I other news, a couple of days ago I was cleaning my tank and I accidentally scrubbed something I shouldn't have on the filter..ll which ended in it making horrid noises every time I turned it on... So I kept it off for a few days until I could get a new filter and just for kicks I tried turning it on again today ans voila! It works! I also got some new goodies... A new bubble curtain and this stuff that's supposed to minimize algae (which I could use now that Hippocrates and Zeus are gone!). So, we'll see how this all goes.... Y'all can expect to be introduced to some new fish soon! 

Productivity?

Hello there, blog! Haven't seen you in a while! Well, to say nothing has happened in a while would be a major lie... I've just continued to be lazy and forget to maintain all these things.. I've decided the most painless way to update you is in the form of a list, so here ya go! 

-Persephone died (3/30)

-I did a ghetto water change (it involved filling up plastic Tupperware and dumping, then repeat as necessary, then reverse.) 

-My cousin is moving and all over her fish died except one, so I adopted him! Please welcome Hera (4/21) to the Underwater Empire! She will be a great friend to Aranyani after the fairly recent death of Persephone (Hera is a fancy guppy..). 

- Speaking of Aranyani, I am lightly considering changing her name to Dionysus.., just cause whenever I look at her, that's what I want to call her... Thoughts? (Leave a comment!)

- I FINALLY buried all of the fish we've lost! What's it been? 3 months? 4? Sheesh. It felt good to finally be caught up with that. Now they can finally rest in peace! (In my defense, the ground was still frozen until like March, so really my laziness as an excuse only really applies to the last month or two.) I also rewrote all the gravestone markings because they were all rubbed off after all the winter snow. Hooray! 

Is that all? I felt like I had so much more to tell you all... Huh. Well, If I remember anything dramatic, I'll be sure to update you guys (hopefully 😁)! 

Oh yeah, and as a sidenote: none of my other tabs are updated right now because I have to be on a computer to do that (I'm writing all this via ipad..) and I haven't gotten around to it yet.. But expect it soon and goodbye!

My Extreme Negligence, and the Consequences Thereof

HELLO AGAIN. (As you can probably tell from the title..) I have been one very negligent person as of late... Posting to my fish blog being one of the many things on the list of things I haven't been doing... Anywho! Probably at the top of that list is cleaning my fish tank. Before you ask, yes. Yes I finally did it. But it was nasty. I hadn't cleaned it in weeks.. Feast your eyes on the before/after below to see what I mean. It seems the dirtier my tank gets, the less motivated I am to clean it and even take care of my fish at all....(Yeah. I know, right? Usually it would be just the opposite.) Due to my laziness, we lost a couple fishes :(. Poor Nyx and another Pachus were lost as a result of my lack of responsibility. They shall be deeply missed. Because of the snowy weather, I couldn't bury them at the time of their death, but now rain and sunshine have come and melted the snow so now it's the next thing on my list, so expect a new post soon! Anyways, there's your quick little update! Happy end of February! 

Before/ After (above)

And in case you wanted to see some close ups of the fifth that I allowed to plague my tank, here ya go! (Below)

 And viola! A whole new tank!

Once again, I have been negligent to post to this blog even though stuff has happened. Claudius disappeared, and Messala died, just to keep things simple. My tank now has an emptiness that I hope to fix in the coming days/weeks. Messala's death was very drawn out and painful to watch. He started swimming on his side (see picture below) and seemed unable to swim right-side up. He looked like he was suffering a lot. I almost wanted him to die, so he'd be put out of his misery. He was like this about 3-4 days before he passed away. Messala was another one of those fish that spent a lot of time in my tank (8 months to be specific) and I am more attached to than others. He was a wonderful fish and I'll miss him a lot. Now there's just the 5 Pachi, Aphrodite, Persephone, and Socrates.

A chalk memorial to Messala

(No, he's not dead.) Messala swimming on his side.

Oh Claudius, where art thou!?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Athena, who I have always thought to be immortal, is dead. She has been the only guppy to live over a year in my tank. She survived through the Black Plague of my tank, and has been friends with guppies from Eiosepa to Claudius! (That's FIFTEEN GUPPIES! :O) She was always the familiar face to make me happy in hard times. Nothing ever brought her down. Even when Aphrodite continuously nipped her tail it would always grow back. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and War is a fitting name for her after the many battles she's fought and the long life she lived. I can easily say she has been one of the best fish I've ever had in my care and I'll miss her a lot! 

Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and War

One of the last pictures I took of her. (about 2 days before she died..)

(Here's an example of the algae I mentioned in my last post.)

Cemetary Touch Up and Tiberius' Burial

After burying Tiberius, I thought I'd touch up the cemetary for spring...

An Awkward Discovery and a Burial at Last

The Fish Cemetery 

Sparta

Xerxes: A great grave for a great fish. (I don't pick favorites;) 

Constantine

The fat Tiberius

                       

As I went to take out the trash this afternoon, I noticed that the dirt around my fish cemetery was finally thawed. So, taking advantage of the opportunity, I grabbed the dead fish bodies from the freezer... (yes I know it's macabre, but don't they do it in real mortuaries?) So I finally buried the 3 Pachuses and Xerxes, and made a tombstone for Constantine and Sparta. The dirt was pretty much mud because of the melted ice but I could still dig deep enough, so at last they are laid to rest. As for some awkward discoveries (see title), I've found out that Tiberius is a GIRL. I know, I know, it's crazy. Well, I never bothered to try and figure out his- er- her gender because it's really hard to tell with corys. So how do I know? Well, I noticed that she had been getting really fat. I thought she had just been overeating, but just out of curiosity  I did some research. Turns out she's carrying eggs! Ahhhhh! But because there are no longer and males in my tank (*sniff sniff), it won't go any further than that. I also found out that Nefertiti and Akhenaten are married.... I think it must be more awkward for them than for me...... My tank is probably the happiest I've seen it since the summer with my new guppies! I've asked my sister if she can photograph them for me, because she has a professional camera. I want good pictures of them because they are so pretty, and the pictures that I took don't do them justice. So, expect some real nice, fancy pictures real soon!

RIP

I meant to write 'God of the Underworld', but there was not enough room!

I'm glad to report that Hades has finally left the freezer and has been buried successfully (that enough snow has melted...). And I'm glad I didn't put it off, for it's snowing hard again today!