We have a fish tank. Our fish tank is full of freshwater fish. We have three neon tetras, no less than 4 dozen over-sexed fancy tail guppies, a very lost looking zebra danio (all his other danio friends have died), and an algae eater - not a plecostomus, just an ordinary algae eater. Or we did...
Yesterday I noticed that the algae eater - who is named Great White due to his enormous size - was not in the tank. It is a ten gallon tank with nowhere to hide. Now we have a little hollow tank ornament - a Shinto tower - that he tries hides in, but due to his large size, his tail always hangs out the top or bottom by at least an inch. We have been fooled a couple times by this fish - we thought he was dead due to complete lack of movement - until we tried to scoop him out and the darn thing shot across the tank faster than greased lightning!
I called my youngest son, the one who named the fish, to help me look. Where does a fish hide?? All the family assured me they had not seen him dead and surreptitiously disposed of him. We checked the filter - which, let me tell you, would have been a trick for him to get into as it hangs above the water off the back of the tank. No Great White.
We started looking suspiciously at the cat. She loves to sit on the arm of the couch and watch the tank. She seemed as perplexed as we were. Since the tank cover had not been disturbed and there were no kitty prints in the dust, we let her off the hook. We looked behind the tank - maybe he jumped - but again - the only open space is that which leads to the filter and he was not in the filter. Curiouser and curiouser...
We finally decided that there are some things in life we are just not meant to know and left it alone.
Until this morning. I cannot leave things that make no sense and accept them without investigating. As I was feeding the fish, I checked on the shelves below the tank - had he flipped out and gotten caught on the table? No. Finally moved a package of my sons water colors which live under the table - don't ask why, I have no idea.
I admit it. I screamed. Just a short yelp, but louder than an "inside voice." There was a somewhat desiccated Great White - lying flat on the floor as if he were trying to eat the algae there. My husband and son came out and got a plastic bag to wrap him in. (We no longer flush big fish after an old roommate tried to flush our dead pleco and a plumber was needed to extricate it!) There was no sign of violence to the body of Great White - no teeth marked fins, no injury. Yet we still cannot figure out how he got out of the tank.
The mystery continues...
Yesterday I noticed that the algae eater - who is named Great White due to his enormous size - was not in the tank. It is a ten gallon tank with nowhere to hide. Now we have a little hollow tank ornament - a Shinto tower - that he tries hides in, but due to his large size, his tail always hangs out the top or bottom by at least an inch. We have been fooled a couple times by this fish - we thought he was dead due to complete lack of movement - until we tried to scoop him out and the darn thing shot across the tank faster than greased lightning!
I called my youngest son, the one who named the fish, to help me look. Where does a fish hide?? All the family assured me they had not seen him dead and surreptitiously disposed of him. We checked the filter - which, let me tell you, would have been a trick for him to get into as it hangs above the water off the back of the tank. No Great White.
We started looking suspiciously at the cat. She loves to sit on the arm of the couch and watch the tank. She seemed as perplexed as we were. Since the tank cover had not been disturbed and there were no kitty prints in the dust, we let her off the hook. We looked behind the tank - maybe he jumped - but again - the only open space is that which leads to the filter and he was not in the filter. Curiouser and curiouser...
We finally decided that there are some things in life we are just not meant to know and left it alone.
Until this morning. I cannot leave things that make no sense and accept them without investigating. As I was feeding the fish, I checked on the shelves below the tank - had he flipped out and gotten caught on the table? No. Finally moved a package of my sons water colors which live under the table - don't ask why, I have no idea.
I admit it. I screamed. Just a short yelp, but louder than an "inside voice." There was a somewhat desiccated Great White - lying flat on the floor as if he were trying to eat the algae there. My husband and son came out and got a plastic bag to wrap him in. (We no longer flush big fish after an old roommate tried to flush our dead pleco and a plumber was needed to extricate it!) There was no sign of violence to the body of Great White - no teeth marked fins, no injury. Yet we still cannot figure out how he got out of the tank.
The mystery continues...
