Just one of Ishee's best lines from the past few days, along with:
"Do cats know when their birthday is or are they stupid?"
As well as:
"I've been contaminated" after her grandpa spilled his beer on her. Don't ask.
Clever girl!
Speaking of Ishee... I'm running away from her this next weekend and she isn't happy with me. At.all.
She has always been so attached to me that my sister refers to her as "Cling-on". She has begged me every day "don't go" between pauses of barking orders and yelling at her sister. "Why can't I come with you? Don't you love me anymore? It's not fair."
Oh, I'm SO leaving you home with your dad for a few days! He's scared of her. I do this every couple of years to remind him just how scary she is, too, which makes him in turn appreciate me just that much more.
He also promised to take them shopping. The boy has outgrown yet another pair of shoes. He'll hate himself after that one, I'm sure, especially after he balances his bank account as it turns out his little girlies have him wrapped around their little fingers for whatever his little girlies want, his little girlies get and I won't be here to lay down the law and say absolutely no way, no how, you cannot have that, and like every good girlie, his girlies love a good shoe store. He'll buy it for them. It's his way of dealing with their scariness.
Yes, I'm running eight hours away to visit my parents along with my sisters. It's mom's birthday this week and we've tried to make it a tradition to pay her a visit as her gift. I do need to bribe someone *ahem ~ my husband ~ ahem* to plow the driveway so that I may drive my car again, though. It only has 300 miles on it. I hate to break it in on a long drive eight hours from home, but thanks to all this snow, I have been unable to get out of my driveway in it for weeks. It's hard to put many miles on it driving it in and out of the garage, but what'dya do?
The husband did assure me he'd try to remember to put in a call to his favorite uncle Merlin today to see if he had any spare snow plows laying around he'd set us up with. Seems every snow plow in the valley has been sold. Luckily, Uncle Merlin's four wheeler dealership is just far enough out of the way to make it inconvenient for anyone in their right mind, including us, so with any luck, he has one he's willing to part with.
So... remember that new fish tank we upgraded to a few weeks ago? Turns out the instructions on the box that said "fill with water, let sit 24-48 hours and add fish"... were slightly wrong.
I joined a tropical fish message board to see if they could help guide me down the path of proper fish maintenance after my fish were dropping like flies, and all they seemed to do was tell me how dumb I was for:
A... buying from an ordinary pet store, and
B... taking the advice of an employee from an ordinary pet store.
Oh, and C... obviously killing fish just for the fun of it, which violates every ethical bone in their tropical fish loving bodies.
Well, I'm sorry folks, but around here, all you get is ordinary pet stores with ordinary every day folks just like you and me as employees. And furthermore, I wasn't killing the fish on purpose. I enjoyed the guilt trip, though.
I learned about this thing called "cycling" where you build up the bacteria in the tank before adding the fish. Seems as though the fish produce ammonia in their poop, and ammonia kills them, but the bacteria that builds up dissolves the ammonia and there's also something about nitrites being turned into nitrates... I might as well be reading farsi, it makes that much sense to me, but I have figured out that it's all required to get anything but ordinary 12 cent goldfish to live. I put up with two 12 cent goldfish for nine years. I'm tired of 12 cent goldfish.
I found that out the hard way... I was taking their deaths so personally. I felt so guilty I couldn't even bear to return their dead little carcasses back to the store for a refund.
A fishless cycle is best and easiest. "Return your fish to the store and start over" they'd say. I don't wanna. I've become quite attached to Cedric the pleco and the five shrimpies I've managed to keep alive. They are family now.
I could hear them groaning through their posts and I just knew they were thinking "what.an.idiot this lady must be." Really.
Fine then! You have to do a "with fish" cycle... which means daily, sometimes twice daily, water changes, which is humanly impossible to keep up with. Just watch me! I'm just that determined, I'll do it three times a day if I have to. I would, however, think that would defeat the purpose of allowing the bacteria to build up, but what do I know about fish other than how to kill them?
Anywhoozle... I chatted it up the other night after scouts with the scout master and his wife who know a thousand times more than I will ever know about tropical fish as they have three ginormous tanks in their house. They asked me "how are those fish we gave you a few weeks ago?" Oh, they are doing quite ... um... well... um... they're dead.
So I asked them... "what in the world am I doing wrong and how do I fix it? I researched. We went back to the pet store. We've tested our water countless times. They're still dying. I can't take it anymore."
Thirty minutes later I came away with loads of advice:
A... toss in a couple of feeder goldfish, and guess what? It's "okay" if they don't make it.
B... don't listen to the online freaks who tell you to change the water twice a day because it IS totally defeating the purpose. I knew it! Every 4-5 days is sufficient. I can handle that.
And C... quite possibly my biggest mistake of all... never ever ever ever buy or take advice even from that particular ordinary pet store (Petsmart). Since we have no other choice here, at least go to the one next to the toy store (Petco). I'll remember that next time, that.is.for.sure!
Everything else, I'm doing right, including treatment for what I assume is Ich (local petsmart fish are notorious for carrying the disease... thankyouverylittle). Now to just keep the two gold fish who survived the trip home from Petco on Saturday night alive long enough to properly cycle my tank. *sigh*
I wonder if they'll still be alive when I get home from my mini-escape? I'm afeared removing the dead carcasses out of a fish tank might be just one too many responsibilities for these people I'm leaving behind! LIVE, little fishies, LIVE! We can't take it another death in the family ............
4 comments:
Wee! More templates!
We had tropical fish for a while. I had some kind of liquid that I squirted in the tank with each water change that did something to remove or add ammonia or nitrates or something. I NEVER changed the water. 1 year with tropical fish and all I did was refill every once in a while after it evaporated down a couple inches. Warm tap water, a squirt of my special liquid and I was good to go.
Our fish only died because the tiger (forgot the rest of the name) and Blue Gourami ate everyone. And finally after my kids never took care of the fish and I was tired of it, and the water turned into a cess pool we flushed the two mean buggers who were still alive. I mean really, if they could survive a cess pool they could survive the Gulf of Mexico. I've seen Nemo!
Funny, that was back in August and not once have my kids asked where our fish tank went.
Good luck. They are fun to watch, but definitely not worth water changes!
What a delightful get away you are anticipating! Can't wait for pictures of all that the girls acquire on your time away.
My daughter has always been a daddy's girl, I am good for nothing if he is around and AH how I love that. But in the past two weeks she's developed quite an attachment to me. This weekend her brother babysat for a whole 4 hours and said 3 of those she kept whining that I was lost or taking too long to get home. Argh! No separation anxiety allowed!
Ewww, I wouldn't want to be contaminated by spilled beer, either. That stuff reeks!
A couple of years ago I had much angst in my blog about my complete inability to keep any fish alive for longer than a week. I did all the research, bought all the chemicals and add-ins and equipment, changed water, cycled water, tested water continuously, and in the end I had: a bunch of dead fish, a bunch of useless equipment, and a thoroughly demoralized self esteem. Fish are not for me, I have discovered. You clearly have more dedication, and I wish you well. Maybe I should send you all the water conditioning stuff that's still sitting in my laundry room cabinet!
Fish actually frighten me, so I would never pay for them to do so in close proximity. I wish you the best of luck, though, in your own endeavors to bring the sea to your landlocked existence:)
Have fun breaking in the new wheels. I love road trips. Love visiting my sisters and parents and love even more letting my husband try on my life. I hope it all goes according to plan.
I think cats are stupid - you can tell Ishee that!
As far as the fish - wow! What a mess! I think petsmart employees know less about fish that I know about scouts! We do petco, too! But I've never had to cycle water before! I know ya have to with salt water fish, etc -- but had no idea about the tropical fish - I think I'll mail you some fish, too - we're having an overpopulation of guppies - and I'm tired of cleaing out the poopy tanks!
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