A Five Course Fish Dinner
And Mother Nature yet again teaches me a hard lesson.
Yesterday, daughter and I headed off to our favorite local petshop... another establishment we are well-known in for our many dog, cat, gecko and fishy needs. I wanted to re-stock our aquarium and it didn't take long before we spotted something we had never seen before: a single male specimen called a "Kribensis". When I asked if he could be added to our 30 gallon tank with 3 Tiger Barbs and a 4" Angelica catfish, the store owner said "No problem... it's an agressive fish, but so are the Barbs. He'll grow to be 3 to 4 inches long."
Perfect.
Next we asked him to catch us five Neon Tetras to create a nice school of flashing blue and red.
They looked so great in our aquarium last night, keeping close together and turning in unison, like a little group of Olympic synchronized swimmers. Even the Kribensis settled in and began to display his bright orange highlights once more.
Then I woke up this morning and checked out our new family members. Happily, I found the Kribensis swimming and poking around the tank.
But where was my school of Neons? I checked behind the plants. I checked behind the rocks. I couldn't find a single one.
And then I saw the Angelica... his distended belly scraping the bottom of the tank.
*Sigh*
Yup, I actually bought a $10 meal for the greedy thing. Not only were the Neons pretty... I guess they were tasty too.
Needless to say, the Angelica cat has been sent to his "room" (his side of the now-segmented tank), while I yell at "Ben" the Kribensis on the other side to "Hurry up and GROW!!!"
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Oh, my goodness. A little food chain action right under your nose. I have all kinds of aquarium tales of horror...I should blog about them sometime...or not. Janet
Oh dear . . . not what you would've wanted for sure . . . are you going to let the pet shop owner know so that someone else doesn't experience the exact same thing?
Oh my, that wasn't very nice, was it? Eeeks!!!
Oh dear! A fish eat fish world in there and all that...at least the CAT ate my fish!
Oh no! We had a placostamus eat some of our fish once...so much for the docile bottom feeders, huh?
In my experience with certain pet stores, most of the help really don't know what the heck they are talking about. We had a wonderful fish guy for many years until became ill and closed and he would tell you right up front if it could be in a tank with what you had.
I love neons they are really beautiful all together. Sorry to hear that Ben decided they tasted good.
Ohhhhh.....nooo...poor little guys!! Sounds like ya did the responsible thing sending the naughty fish to his room! Hope he learns his lesson!! ;)
We had exactly the same thing happen with some fish we bought years ago when I was a kid! Remember being so disappointed to see all the little neons gone!
Yikes! Fish are ticky. We never had much luck.
That's a great story!
I almost couldn't read the rest of your post because I knew where it was going! How sad. Poor neons. I can't have fish. They always seem to die. One way, or another!
I'm another one with a bad history of fish as pets...I hope your others behave themselves now!
Yes, yet another example of the Circle of Life (as Elton John music plays in the background)....
I keep meaning to get a fish tank, watching fish are so soothing. As long as I don't see any of them eat each other. That is a little too National Geographic and a little less Little Mermaid for my tastes.
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