Baby Fish

You may remember "baby fish" from months ago.  I had a pair of live-bearing Platys and the big fish would just eat all the babies.  But I also had live plants I added to the aquarium and Anachris grows fast and floats.  It made a hiding place for new-born fish.  Most get picked off anyway, but his time, one survived long enough for me to see it.  And over the course of a week, I kept seeing it.

It grew to young adulthood at least big enough that the other fish (including Mom and Dad) couldnt eat it.

A week ago, I was surprised to notice Baby Fish had no tail.  Mostly likely a fungal disease and I dosed the aquarium appropriately.  Sadly, it was to late for Baby Fish.  It was belly-up a couple days ago.  Bye!  Not like we had an emotional connection (well maybe I did a little)...

The other fish seem OK. 

But there is good news as well.  The guppies had 3 survivors.  I was quick to catch them with a small net and transferred then to an unused 1 quart Betta tank.   They were joined the next month by another guppy and a platy.  All are thriving and the older 3 are big enough to return to the aquarium.

And there is a new platy baby hiding in the Anachris.  It is too fast to net, which is probably why it survives.  I wish it well.  It is better to get a few new fish naturally than go out and buy them.  Store-bought fish are always a disease-threat.  I have to isolate them in a small tank for a week to make sure they aren't dying of something.

I know something about that.  My first non-Summer job was in the fish dept of a department store.   visited as a customer and left with a job.  The tanks were all dirty and had dead fish.  I complained to the guy at the cash register (turned out to be the Fish Department Manager).  He was a real lay-about.  But he asked if I wanted a job.

Being broke and still a college student, I said yes and proceeded to clean the tanks of dead fish, changed the water regularly, and made sure the fish were fed 2x a day.  When the store Manager saw what I was doing, he fired the dumb guy. promoted the lady who was Asst Manager to Manager (I've never understood the connection of that, but I suspect it was because she was senior and could balance the cash register report forms (which I knew nothing about).

She and I got along great.  She understood the store procedures (THE primary skill for a Manager) and I had all the ideas.  Which was fine with me for a first "real job".

For some reason, there was a tall lighted cabinet with shelves in the storage room.  I got 2 other guys to help drag it out

With her approval, I  set up a breeding tank in cabinet.  First, guppies because they were easiest and inexpensive and many babies found their way through a slotted divider.  So customers saw baby guppies.  We sold a lot of guppies.  Then swordtails and we sold lots of swordatils.  

Then I got ambitious.  I mean, I could do stuff I had always wanted to do FOR FREE! 

I found that the store had HUGE 1-gallon Brandy Snifters.  The store Depts had an arrangement where other Depts could take stuff by filling out a charge ticket.  I should explain that some Department Stores were actually just renters of space.  They owned a core of some depts like clothes and shoes and managed the cash register stations and rented space to specialty companies like hardware, auto, equipment, records, AND FISH.  

I quickly learned that the store never paid any attention to inter-dept "purchases".  If there WAS any bill, it went to the renting company HQ.  So I filled out the form for the huge Brandy Snifter.  

And I set up a no-food, no-cleaning self-contained 1 gallon Brandy Snifter with a sign explaining all that.  It worked, and it got attention.  After that, I set up several tanks of more complicated breeding fish like Dwarf Gouramis, Bettas (Siamese Fighting Fish), and Cherry Barbs.  All egg-layers.

Customers stopped to see the Bubble nests of the Gouramies and the bright red male Cherry Barbs (hence the name).  Our Dept went from one of the least profitable locations of the company that had Depts in many stores to at least the average.