Introduction
In case you haven't noticed, I like to write little stories intermittently
throughout the website for a bit of a break from the fact-gathering. It gives my brain a chance to regroup, and hopefully,
some of you out there read what I've written and say, "Hey, that happened here, too."
If you have a story like the one I'm about to tell, I want you to email me with it.
The "Ronaldo" page should be littered with stories of fish like him all over the country and beyond so others can
read and say to themselves, "Yeah, I should check out what I buy for my aquarium a bit better AND what I remove from my aquarium
to make sure no one's in it."
I will begin by defining a Ronaldo.
A "Ronaldo" is a fish who has managed to survive some crazy-assed situation that
has occurred because you have;
1.) taken him out of the tank without realizing it.
2.) allowed him to jump out of the tank and not noticed it til' the next commercial
break allowed you to get back to cleaning the tank because, like, Dr. Phil is sooooo informative <-sarcasm.
3.) forgot that sometimes when you clean the tank, some finned asshat might jump
out and the cat might decide to take him to where she can bat him around safely and not be caught.
4.) gets fatally injured doing something dumb but refuses to die.
Well, I have a Ronaldo in my tank. I actually have two. The one "Ronaldo"
is a German golden ram who I've affectionately named Georgette after Curious George. She constantly gets into the Python
Syphon intake tube. You'd think she'd get the hint the first time that great and interesting current ended in her nightmare
version of a lifesized Hoover horror story. But nooooooooooo. Every damned time I do a water change in the
tank, she saunters over to the syphon like she's never seen it before. "OOooo, what's this? A large, foreign object
in my home that seems to be removing all the water at a rapid rate with no escape in sight. I think I'll swim into it."
Again.
And again.
And again.
I have that stupid claw attachment ordered for the bottom of the syphon even though
I don't want it - I've found that the open tube grabs more live plant material than the stupid claw which just seems
to collect it - because Georgette is the fish-equivalent of an asshole. She's beautiful, funny, interesting, feisty
(like all 'geophagus fish), and drives me nuts. It shouldn't matter that she cost 15 dollars instead of 2, but
I always think "it will cost me more to replenish the ram population, and she might be live caught, which sucks."
Hence, I have to be careful when I clean the tank. The last time I had to do
a quick water change, I was in the middle of getting ready to drive somewhere, so she went into one of those net-covered breeding
cubes that hangs inside the tank for fry and/or injured fish.
Back to the original Ronaldo.
He's a dwarf corydoras with a zest for life. I imagine he enjoys bungy-jumping,
snorting huge amounts of cocaine off the taut stomach of a high-priced exotic dancer, and Russian Roulette. Not necessarily
in that order. I think he's a leg man. Maybe it's Freudian.
Well, whatever, back to Ronaldos' tale.
Ronaldo's Brush with Death
Once upon a time, there was a 37 year-old woman who bought a couple of dwarf corydoras
from her favorite fish store, Aquarium Paradise in Tacoma ( gratuitous business plug Aquarium Paradise online ), and took them home to a big fish tank with other corydoras who were also bronze, but were not dwarves. So,
in daphne's (the 37 year old woman) hippy household, the different corydoras got along wonderfully. They swam and ate
sinking pellets and shelled peas and basically were just cute. And they lived happily.
But, one corydoras, one Ronaldo the Wonderfish, well, he lived larger than all the
rest of them.
Possibly due to a case of Napoleon's Syndrome - we'll never know - he began courting
the largest and most mature bronze corydoras in the tank. Man, talk about last call persistence! This little guy
had it in his little bony head that he was going to make her his.
What, you say? This has nothing to do with the story at hand? Oh bullshit.
This IS Ronaldo. This little guy lives larger than life. I've personally seen him swim into the mouth of a fully-grown
hoplo because he wanted the food tablet said hoplo was chewing.
So, Ronaldo quickly made himself known to me by his antics on a daily basis.
If it was feeding time, he ate with the most gusto. If I turned on the light at the day's beginning, he swam the most
to greet the artificial dawn. At the artificial day's end, he let me know that he was still there. I'd walk
by (like I always do in hopes of seeing my big Rafael striped cat until I can afford a double-tube ballast system with both
6700k and moonlight bulbs - the hell with our retirement fund...a 67 year-old hippy can work at MacDonald's to supply her
fish dependency with the best of them....) and see him squirting around the tank looking for more food because "he likes
the night life, he likes to boogie, he likes the disco-eeeeee-ah-eeeeeee"....dammit, I digress again.
Anyhoo, he is just the best little guy. I love Ronaldo.
He's my dude.
One day I'm looking at the Amazon Swords in the tank (one large and 4 growing at
a rapid rate) and realize that I have to move some things around gradually to allow these green beauties some room.
There are 6 breeding caves in the tank, one large (8 inches by 6 inches for the Rafael cats), two flat (for the corydoras,
because they really love to swim in and out of things), and 3 "kribensis" sized (about 5 inches by 4 inches with a one-inch
door). And, there's this Kuhli loach cave taking up space by two of the juvenille Amazon Swords. I don't have
loaches in the tank anymore because, like the intelligent help at Aquarium Paradise told me, the kribs or
Raphael cats would eat them (and unfortunately, they did, and now I have fish guilt), so I decided to take this slim, worthless
cave out of the tank.
I did the usual removal procedure; pull it out and shake the shit out of it, then
listen for flopping and hold it up to the light to make sure I'm not stranding anyone. No one flopped. I put a
bit of water in it, stood it upside down on the tank's hood, and I think I watched Judge Judy reduce a single mother of four
to tears over a scratched car door owned by someone in charge on Enron. Who knows. Those case all blend together.
.....I digress......here's with what I was probably entranced....
"It was a gift...."
"It was a loan...."
"It was a gift..."
"It was a loan.......and he gave me the Herpes."
......thank you....this has been my rendition of half of Judge Judy's cases.
Dammit! Where's my train of thought here? Oh yes, Ronaldo.
So, I'm about to put the Kuhli Loach cave into my "bucket 'o fish stuff not currently
in use", and for some reason I decided to get a small flashlight to check out the cave's interior a second time. I have
no idea why. Things like this bother me. The concept of some tiny, helpless life dying slowly, abandoned, suffocating
because of my ineptitude hurts me. I'm responsible for these life forms, like I said, no matter how small.
When I turned on the little flashlight that I keep in my purse for emergencies (with
extra batteries because all Army wives hate equipment failure), I see a tiny tail set amongst a set of bubbles at
the cave's top, flopping weakly.
Holy shit. I freaked out.
"Oh shit!" I exclaimed. In the bottom (the top actually) of this little
cave is no other than Ronaldo, whom, after I take mental inventory of the past 24 hours, had been absent. He wasn't
present at the last ceremonious sundown, and he wasn't present at the morning's breaking of the fast. This little guy
had been stuck in that damned cave.
Here's the crazy part; had I not decided to take that cave out of the tank,
he would have most likely starved to death in it. What are the odds?
I figured I could just wiggle him out, but it wasn't that easy. He was stuck.
I mean, stuck. Those resin cave-making bastards. Their cave had all these bubbles in the top that
hadn't been completely sealed with one dipping.
He was hopelessly stuck in this resin prison.
The first thing I did was put the cave back in the tank so Ronaldo could get some
oxygenated water. Then, I did a mental inventory of what instruments we had in the house that could force him backwards
out of the bubble in which he was trapped. I came up with a bamboo shish kebob stick, a wooden chopstick, and a plastic
pen.
Slowly, while the cave was under the surface of the water, I began to force Ronaldo
back into the opening of the bubble he swam into, but it wasn't working. He couldn't move back at all, and after a moment
of thinking, I realized why. His pectoral fins were in the chamber along with the first half of him; if I pushed too
hard, he would be injured.
It was as this point that I began to panic.
Attempting to push his head back the opposite way from the other opening of the bubble
in which he was trapped was futile, and I scratched his head. Not good. If you didn't already know, fish survive
in an aquatic atmosphere with millions of bacteria because they have a protective slime coating. Scratching is is a
no-no. This is why we use Stress Coat or any other water conditioner with aloe in it. Remember that, because it's
going to be on the test.
The only choice I had was to break the cave open with him still inside it.
I chose a set of pliers that have been in the tool drawer since I married Mr. Kurt
and went to work gently cracking the cave like it was the most delicate thing in the world. I was lucky. The first
crack, which surely hurt Ronaldo's little fishie lateral line "ears" split the cave sideways. The second time I cracked
it, he swam loose.
He looked like he had been in the movie Hostel! Oh my God, that poor little
guy. I immediately got out a mesh breeding nest that attaches to the inside of the aquarium and placed him in it
along with some soft artificial plants and some plant flakes. Then, I poured Pond Care Stress Coat directly over top
of him. Like, all over him.
He was bleached from the stress. His head was covered in deep scratches, and
his sides were missing more than a few scales. He was beat. And yet, he ate, that dear little guy.
Over the next 5 days I watched his progress for fear of any types of white patches
(fungus) or red streaks (septicemia) developing on his injuries. Remember, I will mention a fish's protective, slime
coating throughout this site in hopes that you get the point that it's dead important that they retain it. There
were no injuries that worsened; but this could also be because I routinely dripped Stress Coat over him directly and watched
him like a hawk. In fact, Ronaldo was almost pissed I was interferring with his love life.
When his girlfriend swam up to the surface as all good corydoras are apt to do, he
would sense her, I swear, and he'd wriggle all over his little hospital.
At the end of a business week, I figured he was OK, so he went back to "gen pop",
and he did fine. Matter of fact, the other corydoras were happy to see him. There was a type of greeting and "where
the hell you been?" that one might not believe possible on "this level of life".
It exists.
These little dudes know each other; and I think, when given a huge-assed tank like
I've given them in which to swim, they do what we should be looking for, which is exhibit natural, endearing, shoaling behavior.
I could go on about giving little guys a big tank, and I will in other pages, but
for now I think it's suffice to say that because the "basics" mentioned on the main Fish page were utilized, I was able
to save a tiny, cute, precocious, and precious little life that I'd bought for mere pennies.
I'll not rant, but because it's my site, I will preach a bit.......
This IS the most abused pet group in the country. There are no regulations
for their care, their "cage" (tank) size, nor are there any animal control officers who will answer a call for fish unless
it's really crazy, like someone who breeds Koi or something else. And, then, I don't even know if these animals have
legal protection.
If you buy fish, like Ronaldo, then take care of them. Mythbusters has already
found the "10 second" goldfish memory is not true. They can navigate mazes when trained because of memory. A "simple"
corydoras is not a thing to purchase and then discard. It's a life form. Just think of this when you're in front
of the beautiful tanks in the store around the corner because you're feeling instant gratification ME time. It's OK
to want them, and it's really OK to want to have them NOW because fish are cool.
But, as I've shown in a stupid little story about only one fish in a tank that has
close to 50 happy and copesetic finned mates, they are real living things that need you to thrive. You are in charge
of their lives.
K' then!
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