Fish Story

One hobby I've had since childhood is aquarium keeping. Note that how active a fish keeper I am depends on the circumstances. Which, I guess, is true for anything but what I want to emphasize is the going to college is a killer for the hobby. Renting or moving three states over also jacks it up. And each time you strike your tank and reset you face the start up cost. Tank, filters, substrate, chemicals, patience, and fish.

To give some bonafides to my fish keeping I want to write about my evolution. From a single gallon unfiltered fish bowl* to then 10 gallons and 20 gallons. Ive never gone bigger due to the aforementioned. Moving tends to strain relationships in ways reserved for assembling Ikea furniture. Moving a fish tank? With the soaking weight of the substrate and water? You better be either swole, clever, or blessed with a patient (and hopefully swole and/or clever) bud. My father in law has a long neglected 50 gallon tank that is more filth than water. In its ever decreasing depths lurks a monster plecostomus the length of my forearm. Plecos (as is easier to refer to the miscellaneous species by the generic) are those "tank cleaning" fish. And that is a bold face lie because plecos do not clean your tank (they don't eat algae or poop) and are inherently messy fucking monsters. They grow to the size of the tank until, like the basement monster here, all the they can do is barrel roll in what is now a coffin of many errors.

Gaze upon my works and despair

Source

That said, I made that mistake because getting a tiny one inch pleco and turning it into a monster is a common fish keeping mistake. So is getting live bearer swordtails, mollies, or guppies that have dozens of fry gobbled by their parents. I grew about three generations before the cannibalism, not all the bad genetic cross breeding,** wiped them out.

As I learned about the fish I leveled up into caring about the tank. No more plain beige river stone but instead living substrate like black sand. This stuff comes in sealed bags with water and living bacteria. Perfect for plants. All the anxiety of gardening above ground but now do that underwater. And then success is when they get so large you need to prune them back. I got some broad leaf sword plant to flower! It had an anthurium flower look with a pale white flower and a scaly and swarthy stamen.  Marimo moss balls like green Star Trek tribbles. I don't go cheap an buy the ones that are tennis balls wrapped in moss. Eventually they grow too big and blister open so its a coiled carpet of moss on the bottom of the tank.

I have tiger barbs the size of half dollar coins that I've nursed for five years and at the peak of fish keeping I had three tanks. And a commitment to half water changes each week.

Now, I no longer have that energy. I condensed my two 20 gallon tanks into one, especially after the light hood failed on another. And it looks pretty good with a thick jungle vibe that hides the archway of my mopani wood. Got cory cats (my favorite fish) and snails to for a vertically designed tank. Wasting nothing, and to keep the good biological bacteria going, I have three HOB filters on the back of it making for a way overfiltered and densely planted/living system. For the unitaited this is equivalent to hooking up three Xboxes to make one SUPER Xbox albeit...its still just an Xbox. But you never have to delete any data!

Merging the two tanks brought a dozen or so assassin snails into the now solo tank.

What a poetic incongruity! Assassin snail! I bought six tiny ones from RMS Aquaculture*** two years ago to neutralize a plague of pesky pond snails.And, they've grown into giant (well for a snail) helical terrors.

Im going to wreck it

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Because, in the new tank I came across two hollowed out husks for my nerite snails! Nerite's being "good" snails bought to actally eat algae and general shuck off film from the tank. They are the secret to a great aquarium. And they are expensive, like $5 a pop for something the size of a chick pea. Here was $10 left to squander, dispatched from their life too early.

First thought? They just died naturally. But then I saw six assassin's rugby scrum style piled on top of a hapless nerite! The bastards are ganging up on the "good" snails! I had become an ecological terrorist. God letting loose the satanic serpent in the garden.

The combined tank had few pond snails so the assassins must have shucked those and then, in hungry rage, "chased" down the nerites to hollow them out.

I spent minutes (Its a small tank) knocking assassins off the stalks of plants. On top is where the nerites like the graze on the biological film of the leaves. Get down, you bastards. I will be back in...a couple of hours. I  also crushed some smaller assassins in between my fingers. But while it felt satisfying with pond snails, here I wanted to cry. Sorry, boys. But, you left me no choice. Of course, in their snail voices, they would counter me saying what idiot would not expect this. Assassin is in our name. We EAT other snails. Fuck, you snails. SQUISH!

Is anyone in the market for an assassin snail?

*It was actually a cube. It was meant for hamsters. Or hermit crabs. Really just a plastic cube with a slit top for air.
**Copies of copies of copies of copies. Ever have a professor in college who gave you pamphlets of "their" textbook. The unpublished one? Or the out of print book of which they have the only dog eared copy in the state? My fish were like that.
***Its big and has a TON of fish but there is no joy. Eeveryone who works there I swear is just minutes away from bugging out for a smoke break. A store with joy locally in the NEO is Pet's General. That is the truth.