Where you, the reader, take over! (Send anything about anything to peter.b.abrahams@gmaol.com.) And now, Mary L, take it away! (She ends with a great question. Wish I could ask my dad – he was a dentist.)
Mr Fish
Mr Fish was a fancy goldfish I had for several years. I have a bit of a history with fancy goldfish.
I had a goldfish when I moved into my house. He didn’t have a name. He was an orange, fancy goldfish. I didn’t know much about goldfish so he lived in the biggest fishbowl I could find. Got it at a florist wholesale shop and I think it held 2.5 gallons and was about the size of a basketball. I would change the water weekly because goldfish are quite dirty and the small, round filter I had for it would aerate the water but not filter it.
When I went to Germany for a few weeks for a vacation, I left my goldfish with my parents. They had a tank of fish in the living room and he was added to their tank. This probably wasn’t a good idea, as I later learned, goldfish are cold water fish and my parents had tropical fish with a heater to keep the tank warm. Not very healthy for my fish.
I came back from my vacation and I went into the living room to see my fish, but instead of my big fancy goldfish with the beautiful fins and tail there were two little gold fish. I heard laughter from the kitchen.
Apparently my fish had died and my Mother went to every fish store in the area trying to find a gold fish that looked just like him. Well, he was several years old and pretty big. Like golf ball sized. All she could find were little fish, like marble size so she bought two. When she told me what she had done she laughed and said she was going to tell me that my goldfish had cloned himself and split in half. She asked me if I wanted them and I said no.
After that I didn’t have gold fish for about 20 years.
Then I got a job working as a librarian in an elementary school. That year one of the California Young Reader Metal nominees was Memoirs of a Goldfish. Petco or Petsmart were offering grants and I got one for an aquarium and stuff to set up for school. I made a Memoirs of a Goldfish aquarium to match the illustrations in the book and little figurines for the characters and of course, two goldfish. Gold fancy ones like I used to have. I bought three of them, two for school to go with the story and one for me. This time I got a real tank with a real filter and lights and everything. I also did more research for the care of goldfish.
Things were going well and the kids loved the tank. About a year later I came in one Monday morning and one of the fish had died without warning. I scooped him out and told the kids I had taken him home over the weekend and forgotten to bring him back. I used to do this over the long vacation breaks. So I brought Mr Fish, my fish, to school the next morning and he enjoyed a year of, for a fish, higher education. He was a bit bigger than the original fish but no one seemed to notice. My job was eliminated that year so at the end of the year I brought them home to my original tank and brought the other tank home too as no one was interested in a Memoirs of a Goldfish tank.
The second school fish died shortly thereafter, leaving just my Mr Fish.
Mr Fish lived for several years after that. As he grew bigger I noticed one of his gills was malformed, likely a birth defect due to poor breeding. He eventually developed an air bladder problem and I had to help him with a buoyant sling. Despite regular, wild type goldfish living for 30 years or more and growing to be the size of Koi, Mr Fish eventually passed away aged around 5 just as I was getting ready to move him into a larger tank.
I do have an empty 30 gallon tank in my living room as I had intended to eventually get another fish. But then I got Diana and now Freyja and maintaining a clean, healthy fish tank is time consuming and so it sits. I might eventually get fish again as I have a lot vintage tank decor for it, mostly Egyptian themed. Statues, columns, a vintage hippo bubbler that is a duplicate of one that used to be in my dentist’s office.
Why do dentists always have aquariums in their waiting rooms?
5 Comments on “Phriday Photos”
So, may I assume Edward Julian Abrahams, DMD, had an aquarium in his office?
ML, you are one persistent fish lady! I never did have a personal fish. There were some in my elementary classrooms, but I always had a dog at home, and loved them so much I had no interest in fish. I did have a kitten once, but that was a very sad story I don’t like to recall.
Mom is another who has never had a fish as a pet. When the beta fish became a big deal, the were a couple of girls she worked with that had betas. They still sell them at pet stores but mom always feels so sorry for the guys in the little plastic cups waiting to be bought. But fish would probably not be a suitable addition in the House of Many Cats.
I can’t look at the Beta fish at the pet store. There is always at least one floating belly up. They all look so miserable. You can’t save them all. They are fighting fish so much have an aquarium to themselves or at least with compatible fish. You can’t have two Betas.
Proper aquariums have lids with lights so little paws shouldn’t be able to go fishing, as it were. Now they have aquarium filters with UV lights that kill algae so I might have fish again.
Teddy the Dog on YouTube likes to go to the pet store and watch the fish in the aquarium.
Thought there was something just a little fishy about ML’s story. My apologies, I should know better but sometimes I can’t control myself.
On a cheerier note, I understand, among other things, today is World Gin Day. Brings back sweet memories of Agent 00Wookie. He always preferred his shaken and not stirred, just like that other fellow.