Fishy
Fishy
On my last ‘official’ day of
work in
Now my fishy does not play well with others. He is just a little guy, but has a very large mean streak. I tell people who I don’t really like that they should stick their finger in his bowl. Actually, I am the one with the mean streak!
Anyways, Lord Stanley Axl the III, the Heartbreak Fish needed a new home. I discovered that I was slowly killing my little Stan by keeping him in a bowl (he was choking on his little fishy poop), so the idea of a fishy palace was on my mind for the last few weeks of the summer. When I got home with the Taj Mahal for fishies I couldn’t wait to set it up.
Then the problems started.
I couldn’t just plop o’l Stan into the tank. “Oh no” (Says Dr McFishman on the internet), “you have to ‘cycle’ the tank first”.
“Cycle?” I ask the wise old Doctor of Fish Sciences.
“Yes, cycle.” Dr. McFishman,
that old decrepit geezer who probably has been around since the first fish
crawled out of the ocean and started to dance around on land, said. 
“You need to build up the Ammonia levels in the tank first,
then let bacteria build up to convert the ammonia to Nitrite, and then convert
the Nitrite to Nitrate”
Holly crap! What was this all about? No one said anything about Ammonia, and nitrite and nitrate. By the way, what the heck ARE ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? And what the heck is the difference between nitrite and nitrate? Did old Fishy McFishman just forget that he already said nitrite, and tried to cover his behind by making up a new substance? Something fishy is going on here, no pun intended.
So, off to the fish store I go to buy ammonia. And would you believe that they would not sell me ammonia! Something about it being a risk to sell it in small doses – you have to have a licence to purchase it. The dude at the counter said that it was a security risk.
Wait a minute. Wait just one gosh darn minute. I am supposed to put some chemical that is a “security risk” into my fish tank. The very same tank that my baby Stan will be swimming around in?!?!?!?
“No no, there has to be a mistake”, I hear myself telling the salesperson. “I want the ammonia that goes in fish tanks.”
The kid looks at me like I just escaped from an institution. “Umm, yes I know what ammonia you are talking about – there is only one kind of ammonia. It is called AMMMONIA”. He took a great deal of time pronouncing each syllable of the word, as if I was stupid or hard of hearing (or both). “And I can’t sell you any ammonia”, he continued.
Great. So how am I supposed to follow McFishman’s advice and ‘cycle’ my tank? I went back to McFishman’s website and emailed the old coot.
He replied with: Well well young grasshopper, it appears you have come into some fishy difficulties”. (Man, what is with this geezer? Does he LIVE in la la land, or just vacation there?) “To solve your problem, you will have to turn to a more traditional method of cycling. This involves several smaller varieties of hearty feeder fish”
Feeder fish? What? I want ammonia! I should have paid more attention in Chemistry class.
I take a trip to Petsmart and figure out that I need to put the feeder fish into the tank, let them poop, and apparently that is ammonia. WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST SAY FISH POOP! OK OK , I can do that. But what about Stan? He doesn’t like playing with other fish! Will he eat them? Do I have to kill these little sacrificial fish once the “cycling” has finished? Oh no, I can’t do that! Not those poor little fish! This is horrible, what kind of world is this! I am so confused and disturbed at the thought of sacrificial fish that I run hastily from Petsmart trying to hold my tears back.
I am way over my head, and I don’t think I am going to make a good Fishy mama.
To be continued…