55 Gallon Paradise

Welcome back visitors and fellow cave dwellers! The time has come for more musings from my lair. So make yourself comfortable and let’s dive right in shall we?

I like video games. I really like video games. A quick view of the title graphic above should make that abundantly clear. And while immersing yourself from time to time in one of the countless available offerings of the hobby is for the most part harmless, it’s not exactly… enlightening. I myself have indulged in “epic” gaming sessions on more than one occasion, in fact I seem to recall playing Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune from beginning to end in one sitting (minus bathroom breaks). It’s happened before and I won’t lie to you, it’s gonna happen again. But, just as “Man cannot live on bread alone”, a well-rounded caveman needs more than simply blowing crap up in high definition. If after reading this you think I’m suggesting that you merely add a racing or sports title to your collection, you’re missing the point… entirely. Read on friend, read on.

The well-rounded caveman also devotes some free time to constructive activities that allow for growth… for learning… for interacting with other members of the species in a setting that requires more than (shudder) “chat speak”. To achieve this in my own life I read, play the cello, and sing tenor in the church choir (just to name a few). My latest and greatest interest, one which will most likely be lifelong, is the topic for today. That’s right, we’re almost there. See how a little patience pays off?

Fish

I am now an amateur aquarist. I suppose we can blame this on Mrs. B, although I maintain that it would have happened eventually anyway. I’ve always loved fish. As a youth I was instructed by my father in the fine art of fly-fishing, and most summer weekends would find us at one of our favorite spots showing trout or bass “just who was higher up on the food chain”. I’ve always had a healthy respect for fish and their habitat. At the few opportunities I’ve had to visit an aquarium such as the one in Monterey, I could just stand there with my nose next to the glass, content to watch for hours.

And let’s not forget our first trip to Hawaii last March. If you’ve never been snorkeling, I’ll try to describe it to you. You walk out from the beach until you are in water a couple of feet deep, which is MUCH harder to do than it sounds, what with the flippers and all. And the water washing in and out doesn’t do you any favors either, but I’m getting sidetracked. So you’re standing in water just above your knees, all geared up with the snorkel, goggles, yadda, yadda, yadda, and someone is telling you about all the colorful fish that are swimming around you at that moment. You look down skeptically at the relatively shallow water. You can’t see any fish and start to feel a bit ridiculous. Then you lay forward to float, face down (naturally). And that same shallow water you’ve been standing in, that couldn’t possibly have had anything swimming in it just a moment ago, is absolutely teeming! It was incredible! Beautiful fish of every shape and color, I even saw a couple of different eels up close as well. And as long as you don’t make a lot of quick, sudden movements, the fish pay you no mind and just go about their business. So…. basically that is a lengthy way to express that while some like dogs, cats, or maybe horses (all of which are just fine by me), I’m interested in fish.

On to the aquarium! One day Mrs. B decided to purchase a Betta fish and a bowl. In a matter of months we quickly progressed from that bowl to a 5 gallon aquarium, and again to a 10 gallon. Along the way we learned some hard lessons and made some beginner mistakes, which unfortunately resulted in a few losses. After lessons learned and with more experience, behold, my 55 gallon paradise!
This has been a wonderful and beautiful addition to our home, as well as a great source of motivation to seek out knowledge. I think that as adults in the “real world” there can oftentimes be a tendency to become complacent with our roles in life. We have our jobs and our family, and it can be easy to simply maintain a routine. As I may have alluded to above, my experience with freshwater fish as a fisherman has basically been limited to trout, bass and bluegill. I, like many others I’m sure, had no idea about the great many varieties of freshwater tropical fish that exist in the world. But ever since this endeavor began I’m reading books and internet forums, always learning something new and maintaining a fascination as well as a thirst for more. Now enough of that, let me introduce you to the critters that currently inhabit this piece of living art.

First, the fish that started it all, the Betta. The crown jewel and “king of the aquarium”. He’s by far the largest critter in the tank, and the most graceful. The Betta splendens is also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish because of their aggressive behavior towards others of the same or similar species. Mrs. B has named him “Xavier”.



Next we have the Danios. There are 3 Zebra Danios and 1 Golden Zebra Danio in the tank. These Danio rerio are the most active fish that we currently keep and the most difficult to photograph, always darting around the tank playing tag. The golden is named “Dash” and the zebras… still undecided.

And now the Otos, or Otocinclus. There are currently 4 of these little catfish in the aquarium. Although they aren’t nearly as colorful or exotic looking as the others, they are fun to watch. They have a small sucker mouth that they use to attach themselves to the glass or a plant and with a rasping motion, they eat the soft algae they find. Otos are also very fond of blanched zucchini slices and other vegetables. My wife insists that “School of Suck” is an inappropriate name for the group (I thought she liked Jack Black), but she hasn’t come up with a better one yet.

You can’t miss these guys, as Neon Tetra or Paracheirodon innesi are one of the most colorful and popular fish in the hobby. Because of their schooling nature we have 7. My favorite trait of these fish is the iridescent color and more particularly, the tetra’s ability to “turn it off” at night. After the tank lights have been off for a few hours they become completely pale as they rest through the night (most likely a defense mechanism to protect them from nocturnal predators). We call them the “Rainbow Coalition”, and so long as one of them is decidedly larger than the rest, he is dubbed “The Reverend”.

The next critter is completely and totally the fault of Mrs. B. She just had to have one. And once she did have one, she just had to have a second. So now we have two African Dwarf Frogs. This is a small, fully aquatic frog that lives it’s entire life underwater. However, since it still breathes atmospheric air, it regularly darts to the surface to grab a lungful before diving straight back down to the bottom. This frog was the bane of my existence for the first couple of weeks due to it’s poor eyesight and less than stellar swimming skills. It just can’t compete with the other fish for food and must be target fed using a long turkey baster type apparatus to drop food right in front of it’s mouth. Mrs. B has named the male “Topher” and with all of her creativity hard at work she then named the female… “Mrs. Topher”. It works.

The frogs are the first of two non-fish inhabitants that we have (intentionally anyway, we’ve had a few snails stow away aboard recent plant purchases). The second kind are the Cherry Shrimp or Neocaridina heteropoda. These little guys are great! whatever types of algae the Otos won’t eat are dutifully tended to by these hard working invertebrates. Although I’ve purchased 37 of them, I have no idea how many are currently present. They hide when they molt and are very prolific, so it’s likely that they are now more than their original number. Even though the other inhabitants (except the Otos) would gladly partake in a shrimp snack, they jump almost like grasshoppers whenever a hungry fish shows any interest. The are known collectively as “The Rockettes”.

Finally we come to the Endler’s Livebearer or Poecilia wingei. Probably the fish I am most proud of. They have only been documented to have been found in one lagoon in northern Venezuela, and due to the upstream placement of a dump site, may now be extinct in the wild. They breed very easily in the aquarium and many hobbyist breeders of the fish can be found. They breed so easily in fact, that they will cross-breed with guppies, diluting the remaining population of the pure species. I currently have one mating pair, although we did spot a single fry swimming around on Monday. I haven’t seen it since, so it is either hiding or being digested. The brightly colored male is constantly displaying to the female, spreading his fins as far as possible. It’s funny to watch him court the female who is easily twice his size. We’ve come up with no names yet, but seeing as there will most likely be a small school of them after a few months, a group name will be more fitting.

And now you’ve met all the inhabitants of my aquatic utopia, thanks to the excellent and ever growing photography skills of my wonderful wife (I tried to take pictures of these guys first, but that was an exercise in futility).

Setting up and maintaining this aquarium has been an awesome experience. And surprisingly easy… once you understand how the nitrogen cycle works. It doesn’t take any more time to feed the tank than it does to feed the cat, and I only spend about an hour each Saturday to do a partial water change (about 20% or 10 gallons) which has kept the water crystal clear and more than habitable (water test kit is a MUST). And the payoff has been immeasurable. For example, some time back I had a pretty rough day at work. I forget the details but it was just one of those days where nothing went right and you end up feeling the need to break something. Add to that the unusually horrendous traffic on the way home and I was in a BAD MOOD. Coming home to an empty house (the Mrs. was away visiting her family for the weekend) I fully intended to lock myself away in the Man Cave for a long night of… well, blowing crap up in high definition. However, I didn’t make it past the fish tank. With an ice cold Mt. Dew in hand I sat alone in the quiet dark, only the bright aquarium lights illuminating my underwater world. Feeling the stress just melt away, while peaceful tranquility took it’s place, I watched my fish for two or three hours… and was then better equipped with the calm mind needed to pwn some n00bs (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Thank you for visiting my cave. Comments are always welcome (especially if you have any clever ideas for school names, I still need to name the Zebra Danios and the Endler’s Livebearers).