(no subject)
Oct. 11th, 2001 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lsandersonLast night, when I went downstairs, I though I heard water running. Then it went silent as I entered the kitchen. I looked around, faucet running? No. Mouse? (The house tends to collect a few through the two-foot thick limestone blocks that form the foundation every fall.) No mouse. In the basement, I could imagine the aquarium, all 175 gallons spraying water from a separated filter hose, or a sprung seam, but the sudden silence seemed to argue otherwise. Then it started again, like the splash of water falling from a decent height, and my ears placed the sound as coming from the basement. I went down the stairs prepared to see water gushing from either a filter hose or busted seam, but one of Thong's pink-tailed something or others was flopping around on the cement floor, very much a fish out of water.
He claims the fish live in Vietnam. It's about four inches long, looks mean, but isn't as long as the other fish isn't another pink-tailed something or other. He's got two, and they both fought for weeks until they decided that they might be able to live in the 75 gallon tank upstairs, even occasionally swimming together in some type of truce. But introducing them to the 175 gallon aquarium, was like putting Bush and a defense plant together, all treaties were off and the war resumed. So, the currently reside two floors apart, one living a life nervously avoiding the almost foot long arowana, and the other stationary in the much swifter flowing tank in the basement, that is, until it escaped last night.
When I saw it flopping around on the floor, I grabbed it with dry hands, and went to lift the top of the tank, where the food canister was sitting of course, which I had to move so I could drop the fish back in the tank. It sank to the bottom, upside down, where it was almost instantly declared a found food object by the school of bala sharks. They decided that pink tail was a long unavailable delicacy. Even the gold fish, probably purchased as a treat for the arowana in the tank upstairs, came by and tried to grab a quick lunch. Tapping on the glass sent the bala's running for the other end of the tank, but the gold fish was oblivious, although it seemed to pretend it was cleaning the gravel while I was glaring at it, moving closer and closer to the pink tail all the while. I finally gave up, turned off the lights, and went back upstairs, with the pink-tailed fish lying upside down on the gravel in the tank, gills pumping. This morning, it's back up the food chain, swimming around as if nothing happened. I stuck a drill case over the hole it got out of.
He claims the fish live in Vietnam. It's about four inches long, looks mean, but isn't as long as the other fish isn't another pink-tailed something or other. He's got two, and they both fought for weeks until they decided that they might be able to live in the 75 gallon tank upstairs, even occasionally swimming together in some type of truce. But introducing them to the 175 gallon aquarium, was like putting Bush and a defense plant together, all treaties were off and the war resumed. So, the currently reside two floors apart, one living a life nervously avoiding the almost foot long arowana, and the other stationary in the much swifter flowing tank in the basement, that is, until it escaped last night.
When I saw it flopping around on the floor, I grabbed it with dry hands, and went to lift the top of the tank, where the food canister was sitting of course, which I had to move so I could drop the fish back in the tank. It sank to the bottom, upside down, where it was almost instantly declared a found food object by the school of bala sharks. They decided that pink tail was a long unavailable delicacy. Even the gold fish, probably purchased as a treat for the arowana in the tank upstairs, came by and tried to grab a quick lunch. Tapping on the glass sent the bala's running for the other end of the tank, but the gold fish was oblivious, although it seemed to pretend it was cleaning the gravel while I was glaring at it, moving closer and closer to the pink tail all the while. I finally gave up, turned off the lights, and went back upstairs, with the pink-tailed fish lying upside down on the gravel in the tank, gills pumping. This morning, it's back up the food chain, swimming around as if nothing happened. I stuck a drill case over the hole it got out of.
