Last weekend I went back to the fish market. I didn’t get there until about half an hour before the end, thanks to yoga, but there were still fish on offer.
Some of the sellers remembered me from last time, and some I spoke to for the first time.
One, when I asked him what his fish needed in order to be happy, shook with laughter and said he’d never heard of happy fish before. Apparently I am the first person he’s spoken to who wants their fish to be happy, as opposed to healthy, or the right colour, or good at producing young.
I think happy is a good criteria.
I came home with 21 new fish…
I’m going to need a fourth aquarium soon, at this rate ;).
Are you hooked on fish now Jesska? I think it is great that you want them to be happy, everything should aspire to that.
I probably am… although that was never my intention 🙂
Yup – sometimes very hard to tell when a fish is happy tho
🙂 perhaps you need fish that change colour when they are happy – then you would be sure. On second thoughts, maybe not! Not sure you can take fish to a happiness counselor 🙂
Love it! 🙂
The discus are a bit like that – they go much darker when something’s wrong. And then the guessing game begins. Change some water, change the temperature, change the food, add vitamins and/or minerals, move the wood around, add new plants, get rid of some plants, change the lighting, get rid of the algae…. There’s a lot of trial and unfortunately also error involved 🙁
And that’s just to create the foundation for happiness…. The other fish are a whole lot less fussy 🙂
Wow, we have only ever had a goldfish, or Siamese fighting fish. No mollycoddling with those.
do you know how many fish you actually have, or is it hard to count them when they swim about in and out of the reeds, or whatever the fish greenery is called?
I know how many I bought.. If that counts… I don’t always know how many are left, because I don’t keep track of births and deaths very well 🙁
We currently have 3 aquariums:
750l with 10 discus, approximately 25 Trauermantelsalmler (we bought 22, then they produced several babies of which probably 8 survived, since then, a handful have died of some kind of lurgy), 3 Fiederbartwelse, 2 Schmerle, and 5 Stromlinienwelse, 1 Antennenwels
250l with 11 Panda Panzerwelse, 7 yellow stripe Panzerwelse, 30(ish) Rotkopfsalmler, 14 Blutsalmler, 24(ish) Phantomsalmler.
20l with 7 rote Keilfleckbarben and 1 ill Rotkopfsalmler (it was originally a quarantine aquarium, but he’s been in there since March without getting better or dying :S so I bought the Keilfleckbarben as company. Rotkopfsalmler need more space than I can provide for a single sick fish, and putting even more of them into the already too small AQ seemed unfair.. leaving him by himself seemed unfair too, simce he’s a school fish. Keilfleckbarben don’t grow so much and don’t need so much room.. and aren’t as at risk of catching whatever disease he has)
I’m sure you’ll keep them happy …
I hope so 🙂