Adventures in Fish-Keeping

When I first started posting this, I had a bunch written down. Then I accidentally pushed some of the wrong buttons and my page ran away! And I didn't save any of it! Crap!

Starting over: M has oficially decided that keeping fish as pets is no easy hobby. Basically, after Kitty died, we bought some new fish. We got two neon tetras and put them in with Hammy, but one died because we think he got too cold (turns out we forgot to notice that they're tropical fish) and the other one got eaten by Hammy! Cannibal!

After that, we bought a betta that we named Betta, then two African cichlids, Spitfire and Hurricane. Betta is a bluish-purple, but gets red when he fans out. He freaks out whenever he sees the multicolor light that we put near his bowl, and fans out, thinking it's another male betta. The cichlids are yellow (Hurricane) and black-white-striped with a slight purple sheen (Spitfire; I nicknamed him Kamikaze because he jumped out of the tank when we tried to clean it once). Along with that, we also have three snails: Noo-noo, Vegan, and Speedy. Then Hammy died Easter morning from ick, a disease that fish get. It involves parasites, very "icky" (no pun intended). Betta's been okay. We keep him in our bedroom and M frets over him, as it's his favorite fish.

Unfortunately, it's a bit harder to keep tropical fish in a one gallon tank without a heater (the water needs to be between 72°-78°F). After Spitfire and Hurricane give up the ghost, we'll probably just keep fish that can withstand colder temps (64°-72°F). That, or maybe we'll just get goldfish; they're only 12¢.

So, this is our adventure in fish-keeping thus far. Feel free to keep up if you wish.