An Aquarist's Journey

[wesleydnunder]

I posted this at another fish forum and it was received well. Thought some may get some useful info from it and decided to post it here:

Howdy folks. My name is Mark and I'm a lifelong aquarist; 48 years or so. In that time I've learned a lot of what it takes to keep my captives alive and, I hope, content with their lives in my glass boxes. I do not, and never will, profess to know it all. None of us does. Over the course of the next few days, I'm going to list some observations I've made about some facets of our hobby. I expect to upset some folks; the stocking police mostly, and some of the purists. Feel free to make any comments along the way. I may or may not respond.

Mark

[wesleydnunder]

In the beginning...

I won a goldfish at the Contra Costa county fair when I was 8 years old by throwing a ring, with an amazing amount of skill, around the neck of a coke bottle. With an equal amount of expertise, I went home (after mom had stopped at the five and dime to buy a bowl and some goldfish food) and unceremoniously plopped Mr. Goldfinger into his bowl. I filled the bowl to the top from the kitchen tap and set it on the desk in my bedroom. I was absolutely enthralled. As I sat mesmerized by my new best friend, I noticed the way his mouth moved rhythmically along the bottom and it soon dawned on me (I, at the time, being a very bright boy...or so I was told) that Mr. Goldfinger was hungry. I promptly tore the entire top off of the small cardboard box of goldfish food and, still very bright, dumped about half the box on top of my new best friend. As the cloud arose around him the first of the misgivings insinuated itself into a primitive recess of my brain. It quickly dispelled as my new best friend dove face-first into the 1/2" layer of supper settling to the bottom of his new home.

An hour later, after being called in by mom from playing in the back yard (time to bathe and get ready for bed) I ran straight to my room to look in on my new best friend. He was doing the same thing my puppy did after a large meal; sleeping peacefully on his back.

More to follow...

Mark

[ptran]

I'm tuning in.

[mredman]

My first fish were bought by my mother in the 1960s. It was a one-gallon goldfish bowl. She bought several fish, including goldfish and added tap water (heavily chlorinated), without heat control and without aeration. All but one fish died overnight. The survivor never made it past the second day (can't remember what species).

After talking to some older friends with fish tanks, I learned some of the ropes. It wasn't long before I upgraded to the 10-gallon Metaframe tank - this time with a pump, box filter (with activated carbon and glass wool). That glass wool would really make you itch.

This time I had much better luck, except for swordtails - they often were found the next day on the floor.

Mike

[Alex1]

Yes I have a similar story.
I went to the elementary school carnival during October. I won a gold fish in a plastic bag. I was so excited I jumped on my bike and ride home right away. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with water from the sink. I dumped my fish in there and watched him playing.
I then got some bread crumbs and put them in the bowl. I said good night to my new friend and went to sleep. You know the rest of the story. It was that fish that got my Intrested in animal behavior. My goal was to start educating people on how to care for a fish. So no child should wake up to such horrors.


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[ptran]

I won a gold fish in a plastic bag.


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This is why I hesitate to take my kids to a carnival. LOL. They always want to bring home a gold fish in plastic bag.

[Alex1]

I don't think they still do that anymore, at least they are not supposed to. It's is a bann on that right now.


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[ptran]

Not sure but last year at the county fair, there was still "win a gold fish" game.

[Alex1]

Oh my god! Animal activists pass a law that it was considered cruelty to animals. I don't think they are allowed to do that.


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[ptran]

I agree. Most of those gold fish won't see a bright future. They will end up dead or heavily abused till death.

[Crush]

The carnival that sets up in greenspoint mall parking lot still does it, my daughter won 2 goldfish. That's how we wound up keeping fish. It broke hear little heart to see them die. We did everything right but those were feeder goldfish that aren't really ment to last. It did make a great teaching tool though and from that we got bigger and bigger tanks. Now we are "unintentional" breeders of mollies and ghost shrimp.

[wesleydnunder]

After bathing, scrubbed clean...ish, I was careful not to disturb Mr. Goldfinger's slumber as I crawled into bed. Mom came in to kiss me goodnight with scarcely a glance at the latest addition to our family. I lay there with thoughts of coming adventures with my new best friend swirling through my mind. I envisioned walks together; me carrying his bowl as I triumphantly displayed him to friends and neighbors. I'd take him to the school for Show and Tell, beaming as my classmates ooh'd and ahh'd appropriately. They'd forget all about Carla Britmore's hamster then! Why, I could even take him swimming with me at Contra Costa County College's public pool!

Just then, Charlie Brown, my 7-month-old beagle pup, jumped up to the foot of the bed, padded two circles and dropped to his accustomed position. He chuffed as he tucked his nose under tail, oblivious to the fact that his best friend status had been supplanted by whatever that thing was in the bowl on his boy's desk.


The next day was Sunday, mom and dad's sleep-in day. I had learned that when I awoke before them on Sundays to keep any activities quiet as evidently it was important for adults to indulge in this weekly ritual. I silently walked Charlie Brown to the back door and let him out into the back yard so he could do his morning doggie business. He'd learned not to make messes in the house but it was important to let him out first thing in the morning so as not to strain his self control and incur mom's wrath.

I hurried back to my room to say good morning to Mr. Goldfinger only to find that apparently the Sunday morning sleep-in protocol applied to fish. He was in the same position as when I went to bed! As I looked down into his bowl there was a distinct odor wafting up and the water was slightly cloudy. For the second time in as many days a vague unrest tiptoed into my consciousness. I stretched a tentative index finger towards him.

[wesleydnunder]

The blood-curdling wail erupting from my room without the preamble of a falling dresser, snapping of a bed slat or the splintering concussion of an F-111 hitting the house caused my parents to move in a fashion heretofore unwitnessed. WHAT HAD HAPPENED!!? Mr. Goldfinger was DEAD! Potential explanations for the calamity flashed through my mind; did I not feed him enough? Did he get cold? We hadn't bought him a tiny sweater at the five and dime like the one Charlie Brown had!

As a pair of disheveled and agitated parents materialized in the doorway I concluded that the world no longer made sense. How could my new best friend just die like that!? I sobbed inconsolably as mom checked for blood or protruding bones. Discovering an absence of enough injury to account for the caterwauling, concern for her chick quickly turned to something approaching the look she assumed right before I "got a whoopin'". "What's wrong?", she growled. Still unable to speak coherently, I could only point at the fish bowl.

Mom shot a quick glance at the bowl and her countenance softened. She took me in her arms, crooning softly, "Everything will be ok honey". I didn't see dad come into the room and the sound of the toilet flushing a moment later barely registered. I was devastated and hardly touched my breakfast of fruit loops and toast as I sat slumped at the table, snuffling. Afterward, sitting in the back yard under the plum tree hugging Charlie Brown while he nuzzled my neck and licked under my chin, I decided that I'd get another fish. There was a pet shop on 23rd st. called Fins and Feathers. Being very bright (did I mention how very bright I was?) I knew that fish at Fins and Feathers weren't free. I needed a way to earn some fast cash.

In Richmond, Ca. in 1968, earning opportunities for an 8-year-old boy were few...well, really, one; mowing lawns. A plan began to form. I'd need dad's cooperation. I found him in the driveway working on the engine of his 16' Chris Craft ski boat; a teak and mahogany beauty outfitted with a Chrysler Hemi and inboard drive. I was too young to appreciate his "baby" which was destined to one day become a "Classic".

[wesleydnunder]

I presented my case to him as he grunted over the head bolts he was torqueing down. Could I please use the lawnmower? Oh, and I'd need some gas, too. The previous summer had been my indoctrination in lawn mowing. Dad had a Montgomery Ward mower with a 2hp Briggs and Stratton engine. You started it by pulling on a cord attached to the top of the mower a couple hundred times. Dad could do it with one pull. Looking back, I realize how lucky I am that I emerged from those first few years of landscaping with all my toes. The mower's safety features were primitive, at best.

Dad gifted me one of his rare smiles ( he was a stern kind of man) and spoke around the Camel filterless dangling from his mouth. "Sure," he drawled "you can use the mower, but you won't need gas". Puzzled, I followed him. He went to the back of the garage and began pulling yard tools out of the corner. He emerged with this squeaking, rattling contraption that I'd seen before but never out of its repository among the gardening implements. "What's that?", I queried, as he halted in the garage doorway. "The mower.", was his reply. Whaaaaat?

You had to have seen this thing. It looked like something out of one of Torquemada's interrogation rooms. It certainly looked old enough to be. It had two wheels separated by a cylinder-shaped cage of twisted metal bars. Two pieces of pipe stuck up from the back and curved outward to form handles. As you pushed it forward, the wheels caused the cage to spin and the twisted metal bars contacted a flat bar on the bottom to form the shear. You pushed it along and the twisted metal bars ("blades", dad explained) pulled the grass back between them and the bottom flat bar, lopping it off cleanly. That was the theory. Dad demonstrated on the small patch of grass alongside the driveway. He then showed me how to adjust the height of the cut via a nut and bolt on a bracket at each wheel. He pointed to a large pegboard mounted on the wall of the garage from which depended a whole array of tools and said, "It takes two 7/16" combination wrenches to adjust it. Make sure you put 'em back where they go when you get done."

I literally swelled with pride. I'd never been allowed to touch his tools before and here he was, allowing me to use them all by myself. He had a small smile on his face as he walked back toward his boat, which I mistook for pride in his very bright and industrious son. I sprinted next door to ask Mr. Kennedy if I could mow his grass for $.50 cents.

[wesleydnunder]

Yeah, I know. At age 8 I knew what money was for and could make change and so forth, but I had no concept of its real worth or what one asked for mowing Mr. Kennedy's lawn. Even though I was a bright...ah, never mind. I was a dope, but I'd learn.

He and Mrs. Kennedy were sitting on their front porch in the high-backed rattan chairs they'd brought back from the Philippines where he'd been stationed in the Navy. I made an impassioned pitch, explaining the loss of my new best friend and the urgent need for income to purchase a new fish at Fins and Feathers. He listened expressionlessly while puffing on an old yellow-brown Meerschaum. When I concluded, he set the pipe in the ashtray atop the small carved wooden table (also from the Philippines) between their chairs and said, ""Well, son, I just cut the grass yesterday". My shoulders fell. My vision began to tunnel. Before I could respond, Mrs. Kennedy took pity on me. "You can mow the yard next Saturday, hon.", she offered, "How'll that be?"

'Next Saturday!!!', I thought, 'That's YEARS away!' Looking down at my feet I mumbled, "Thank you Mrs. Kennedy", turned and slouched my way back home.

Only two other things known to mankind can serve to alter space and time for an 8-year-old the way that time crawled through the following five days; one is the hours between bedtime on Christmas eve and the next morning. The other is the last hour on the last day of school before summer vacation. By Wednesday I was convinced that Saturday would never arrive.