I am too Stupid to Keep Fish

I finally managed to make myself clean my aquarium. What a drag.

When I started keeping fish two years ago, it was a breeze. I could do no wrong. My plants grew. My fish were healthy. Everything was swell. Then tuberculosis hit the tank, and my fish started dropping dead. And I got weird staghorn algae and a plague of snails. And the loaches I bought to eat the snails turned out to be vegans.

I ended up with only maintenance fish. Otocincluses. A Chinese algae-eater. And three loaches. And the tank looked like an algae display at a horticultural park. So today I took everything out and bleached the tank. My remaining fish are in a glass vase with 2 gallons of water. I believe I threw out an elusive Otocinclus with the dirty gravel.

Fish are fun when they work, but mine have been hopeless for quite some time. I don’t know what all I did wrong. I think I started the ball rolling downhill by getting overconfident and going a long time between water changes. I feel like I gave it the old college try. And I would like to have my three square feet of wasted space back.

Problem: what to do with the remaining fish?

I have killed zillions of fish without a second’s thought. I have crushed their skulls with clubs. I have tossed them in fish boxes to suffocate. I have run hooks through them and used them for live bait until they died. Frankly, I think fish do not suffer. Many times, I’ve seen mortally wounded fish–even fish heads–continue to behave normally. On top of that, the disciples killed fish by the tens of thousands, and Jesus endorsed the use of hooks. I think I should toss a handful of ice cubes in with these fish and let them drift off to Slumberland. But it seems coldhearted. I know absolutely no one I could give them to. Maybe a pet shop would take them.

In other news, Mike has tentatively decided to look for an SW1911 at the gun show. I had a hell of a time getting him to narrow his choices. I’m attention-deficient, but Mike is so bad, he actually asked me for help making a decision. Hopefully we’ll get to put in some range time this weekend.