My Big Black Pleco

In the year that I was born my father bought a 55 gallon fish tank.  He decided to raise guppies.  Along with the guppies he bought a very small Plecostomus, AKA a pleco.  It's also known as one of them "Sucker Fish" that gets rid of the algae on the side of your tank.  I ended up naming him, "Big Joe" as he was six inches long and much bigger than any of the guppies in the tank.

Big Joe lived to twelve years old.  That's not bad considering how much care was put into the tank.  Dad kind of gave up on it.  When I was old enough to really start taking care of the tank I cleaned it up, and changed the kind of fish we had in it.  That's when we bought, "Joe the 2nd."  We bought him at about two inches long.  He ended up growing to about six inches and then passed away.

Well, I'm a bit over forty years old now.  The last fourteen years (or more) we've had "Joe the 6th."  Honestly, I didn't expect that Joe would even make it in the tank.  The store employee didn't treat Joe all that gently.  First she didn't put in the a bag that was big enough.  You see, Joe was about six inches long when I bought him, and the bag she put him in wouldn't let him turn around.

So I said something to her about the bag not being big enough.  So she grabbed another bag, and went to put him in it.  Unfortunately, Joe fell out of the bag and into a small dish where they kept the brine shrimp.  The employee then grabbed Joe by the head, and chucked him into the much larger bag.  I thought to myself, "There's no way he's going to survive the night.  She had to of hurt him too much."

But the next morning I found him alive and well.  Joe the 6th actually grew to be my biggest pleco (of all the Joes.)  He was about seven inches.  That's when I read up on feeding him supplementary foods.  Even I figured there wasn't enough algae in the tank to feed him.  So I started adding shrimp pellets and algae wafers.  Everything in the tank loves the shrimp pellets so that worked out well.  Joe would end up snacking on the pellets and wafers.

 Little by little he started to grow.  But lately his growth has just taken off.  It seems he went from nine inches long to much larger.  One day he was hanging on the side of the tank.  I happened to have my tools with me for a project inside the house.  So I took my measuring tape out just to find how big he had gotten.

He had grown to exactly twelve inches.  That makes him the biggest pleco I've ever had by a whopping five inches.  Here is a photo of my giant angelfish Blackie Lawless (yes he's named after the lead singer of W.A.S.P.)

Here is a photo of Joe next to Blackie.

You can see just how big he has gotten.  The only real problem I've had is when Joe gets excited, swims too fast, and jumps out of the water.  He ends up hitting his head on the glass canopy.  I'll admit, it's scared the bejesus out of me a few times.

I've heard aquarium owners say they've had plecos live up to twenty years.  Now, Joe was already pretty big when I bought him.  I know he has to be around sixteen years of age at least.  I'll keep taking care of him as I want to him keep hanging around the tank.  I mean, look into those eyes.  He's kind of adorable, right?

Douche Canoe: The Tale of the Worst Outdoorsman I Ever Met

It occurred to me that I hadn't told one of my classic, "Tales of Old" in a while.  When I started this blog it was about destruction.  But after about ten blogs of destruction for fun and profit I thought I should expand into other ideas.  I ended up writing posts about all the weird things that have happened to me.  I just haven't done it in a while.

So, it's time for me to tell the story of the "Douche Canoe."  Yes, this is the story of the worst, most stupidest, outdoorsman I have ever met.  Let me start at the beginning.  Dad and I were out duck hunting at Cockroach Bay.  It's out of Ruskin, Florida.

I have drawn a map to help everyone out.  As you can see Dad and I would make our blind in an small island.  The water around the island was anywhere from one to three feet deep.  It depended upon the tides.  Here's my hand drawn map.

We would lay out our decoys in candy cane patterns.  The mallard, pintail and Florida mallard decoys were laid out to the left.  The green and blue wing teal decoys were laid out to the right.  We would put them out forty yards since that is the furthest a hunter would want to shoot at ducks.

We would try to be in our duck blind just before 7 AM since 7 - 8 AM is the best time for duck hunting.  That day, we had seen a few ducks flying around, usually about 300 - 500 yards out.  We tried calling a few in to no avail.  Now just because ducks weren't coming in didn't mean other birds weren't coming into the decoys.  We always had kingfishers flying by.  Storks, cormorants, ibises, blue herons, and other wadding birds would drop by. 

However, at 8:30 AM all wildlife movement stopped.  Nothing was coming near.  Heck, no wildlife was even on the horizon.  Now, I sat on the left hand side of the blind.  Dad sat on my right.  As I looked as far left as I could, I saw something I had never seen.  It was an idiot in a fishing boat within 120 yards of our blind.

I said to Dad, "Surely he can see our decoys?"  It's standard outdoor courtesy that if you see duck decoys you avoid them because that means there are duck hunters trying to duck hunt.  I mean, it's just common sense.  Especially since duck hunters are shooting guns, and you want to stay out of shooting distance.  Again, this is not a hard thing.

So this guy comes around the island in a flats boat.  He's operating a trolling motor while casting a fishing rod.  I keep saying to Dad, "He has to see us, right?"  Dad said he had been duck hunting since the early 70's and never had anyone do something like this.  So I blew my duck call at the boater.  But he kept coming around the island.  I blew my duck call again.  Still, the guy kept fishing out there.

Of course, I don't have explain that no birds or wildlife were coming anywhere near us due to this moron being out there.  I'll admit, I can be an angry guy.  I said to Dad that if the boater didn't get the hint with the duck calls, maybe I should shoot a few shots across his bow.  Dad, of course, wanted to handle the situation in a calmer way.

So Dad made a point of putting his gun down.  He waded out to where the guy was fishing.  Like the map shows the boater was only 120 yards from us.  So Dad wades out and nicely lets the guy know that we are duck hunting.  The guy says, and I'm not kidding, "Are you having any luck?"  I'm sitting in the blind, and I can hear the conversation.  The guy's comment caught Dad off guard.  The boater also said that, "He wondered why the ducks weren't flying away?"  Yeah, that's because they're decoys.  Seriously, I'm not making this up.

Honestly, Dad was being too nice.  I felt like yelling from the blind, "Tell the fuckwad to get out of shooting distance!!!"  But I didn't.  So Dad comes back to the blind believing he got his point across.  So we sit there for another ten minutes.  The douche canoe keeps fishing behind our decoys.  I asked, "Does this guy have a death wish?"  I'm not going to lie.  I was getting very upset.  I was really considering shooting pretty close to his boat and yelling, "Duck!!!"

Dad told me, "We have to share the outdoors.  And if we start shooting at people it will give all hunters a bad name."  But Dad had also had enough.  He said if the moron was going to ruin our hunting he would ruin his fishing.  So Dad set his gun down again.  He waded rather noisily towards the boat.  The guy tried moving away with his trolling motor, but it wasn't that strong of a motor.

So Dad had another conversation with the guy.  To be honest.  It was just like Jerry Seinfeld, a conversation about nothing.  So Dad talks to him for a few minutes.  It was a bit tense, but cordial.  After the conversation Dad waded back to the blind, and the moron boated away from the island.  This whole event took around twenty minutes.  By this time it was almost 9 AM.

Dad and I would usually hunt until 10 AM.  After 10 AM, the wildlife decided to take a nap.  So that's why we stopped hunting at 10 AM.  However, after the boater had hung around our decoys, nothing was coming near us.  So at 9:30 AM we decided to pack it in.  We never fired a shot that day.  We never had a duck come near us.  It was decidedly one of our worst days duck hunting.

I am still hostile about the whole situation to this day.  I can't believe anyone could possibly be that stupid or uncaring.  Here's some sage advice, if you are within 100 yards of ducks and they aren't moving, they're decoys.  I still think I should have fired a few shots across his bow.  But if he didn't get the hint with decoys and a visit, I don't know if shotgun fire was going to work either.  

Spring Cleaning For The Fish Tank

As all my friends know, I constantly remind them to clean their fish tanks on the 1st and the 15th of every month.  Which is strange because I don't think any of my friends have fish tanks?  But as sure as the sun come up in the morning, and goes down in the evening, I make sure my fish tank is clean.

I had noticed a problem the last time I was cleaning my fish tank.  It seems there was a lot of debris from my fake plants.  My pleco, Joe the 7th, had been chewing on them so long they were coming apart.  So it was time to buy some new fake plants.

Here's a tip a friend of mine shared.  Since aquarium plants sold in pet stores have a ridiculous markup, buy your plants at Michael's Arts and Crafts.  They have a wider selection, and are much cheaper.  Now, they aren't copies of underwater plants like you would find in pet shops, but some of them can pass very closely.

So not only did I throw out all the old plants, I gave my aquarium a heck of a cleaning.  I mean, I changed 40% of the water vs. the 20% I usually do.  I also gave the tank a good shaving.  As in, I took a straight razor blade, and shaved the algae off most of the tank's sides.

I've learned that since I have a bubble sprayer I have to shave my glass lid when I clean the tank.  Otherwise, there is too much algae buildup, and it cuts back on the amount of light that can come through.

So onto the photos.  Here are photos of the aquarium during the daytime.

These are the photos of the tank at the "Dusk" setting.  My light has about 20 settings, and this one is pretty trippy.  I put it on this setting at the end of the day/night, from 9PM to 10PM.

And this is the "Ocean Blue" Nighttime setting.

I have to say an aquarium can be an awesome thing.  But it depends how much time and money a person puts into it.  I want a clean environment for my fish so I put a fair amount of time into my aquarium.  And as you see it pays off.  Like Professor Moody said, "Constant vigilance!"

Fish Fight In The Parking Lot!!!

The story of my life is I'm always trying to do the right thing, and it backfires on me.  Here's the latest incident.  I was browsing Craigslist (no, not that section.)  I was looking at the free section.  I saw an ad giving away a pair of mated angelfish.  I looked at the included photo, and saw they were pretty good size.  It seems they had outgrown their tank, and needed to be rehomed.

I thought, "perfect!"  Since I had two angelfish pass away a few months ago I could use two angelfish to restock the tank.  Long story short, I brought them home.

As you can probably guess, that's when the trouble began.  The big male (the marble colored one) and the male that was already in my tank decided to have a fish fight.

I mean, they really went at it.  I'd never seen anything like it.  They would actually bite each other's lips and hold on.  Then there was posturing and maneuvering.  Despite my attempts to break up the fight they went at it for a couple hours until they were both worn out.

Since it was near the beginning of the month I decided to so something I had heard about.  Generally fish like their own territory, so if I were to rearrange the tank with natural breaks in it, I believed they would leave each other alone.

So I gave the tank a great scrubbing, and performed my first of the month cleaning/water change.  Next, I moved my rocks and plants around to create natural barriers.  It ended up looking like this.

It seems to have worked.  They are somewhat passive aggressive and engaged in what I would call a "fin measuring" contest.  But at least they aren't attacking each other.  The two males have claimed their own parts of the tank.  However, the loaches have no idea what's going on.  But in all honesty, they don't care.  Neither do the giant danios.

The new fish (the male and female pair) hang out together.

While the three fish (one male and two females) I originally had hang out together.

But every now and then the two males give each other dirty glances.

So my plan has somewhat worked out.  It's strange because I never had any problems with angelfish before this.  They had always gotten along.  But now that I think about it, they tended to be very young when I brought them home.  Hopefully after a week they'll figure out some sort of rhythm to the fish tank.

Angelfish: Gold Evolution

I have written quite a bit about the angelfish in my fish tank.  I have to admit they are some of the best fish I have ever raised.  I'm still learning a lot about them.  They have great personalities and are really friendly.  They've started taking food from my hand.  That's pretty awesome.

Due to the high cost of angelfish, every one I have brought home has been young and tiny.  (So I can buy them cheaper.)  Most of them were no bigger than a quarter, counting only the main body, not the large fins.  So I've had the chance to watch them grow from very tiny to pretty good size.  And boy, do they grow.  They have grown faster than any fish I've ever had.

But now, something new has happened.  My two oldest angelfish have started to have some orange/gold develop on their bodies.  I was kind of shocked at first.  One day they were black and white, and the next day they have this beautiful orange/gold color.  Let's go to the pictures!

This one is my oldest. 

You can see the orange/gold on the nose and dorsal fin.  It's like highlights for fish. 

Here's a picture really close up.

This one is my second oldest.

Again, you can see the orange/gold developing on the nose, lips, and dorsal fin.  It's an amazing look.

This next picture is of my most recently bought angelfish.  Boy, has this one grown up fast.  Again, this is one that was no bigger than a quarter when it came home.

When I bought this one it was transparent.  I'm not kidding.  You could see right through it.  Now, it's starting to develop some black on it's long fins.  I hope it will continue to have some color patterns develop on it. 

If it does, you know I'll post about it here.  I love talking about my fish.  It's my thing. 

View From The Recliner: Feed Me

My fish tank sits right by my recliner.  I like having it there.  Namely since I can look directly to my right, and see the fish tank in all it's glory.  However, I have noticed something.  My Angelfish are starting to become a little too smart.  I grabbed my camera, and took a photo.  Do you notice something?

They say to have a large fish tank for Angelfish to live in.  But do you notice what they are doing?  All five Angelfish are over in the corner looking right at me.  This is pretty much what they do all day.  I have a 46 gallon Euro-tank, and all they do is sit in the corner waiting for food.

I don't want to give the wrong idea.  Believe me, they get plenty of food.  I actually worry I'm overfeeding them.  It's just the giant danios and other fish don't hang out in the corner.  Only the Angelfish.  They sit there eyeballing me throughout most of the day.  Well, at least I know they are in the corner when I'm in my recliner.  I'm not sure what they do when I'm not there. 

I do like having Angelfish.  They are more personable than any other fish I've had.  I just wish they wouldn't eyeball me all the time.  There's a lot more tank to explore.  Maybe they can swim over to the other side and hang out there?

Time To Spruce The Fish Tank Up: New Fake Plant Day!

It was time for me to spruce the fish tank up.  I was kind of tired of the bare rock look.  The fish tank really needed some pizazz.  To start, I needed some plants as the tank had none.  I was talking to a friend/ fellow aquarist, and I was complaining about the cost of (not so) cheap plastic plants at pet stores.  They can't cost over a few pennies to produce.  I'm betting that the packaging they come in costs more than the plants themselves. 

My friend mentioned that he goes to Michaels to buy fake plants for his aquarium.  I go to Michaels on a regular basis, and it never occurred to me to buy some of their fake plants. 

I was worried, and asked if he had ever had any problems with them being in the fish tank.  Namely, are they fish safe?  He said they were made of plastic, and he never had any problems. 

So this evening, I went to Michaels and bought four plants.  Two of them were huge (for my tank.)  The other two were medium size, but great for a fish tank.  I let them soak in a 5 gallon bucket outside for a few hours just to make sure the dust and dirt were knocked off. 

So here are the results.

It looks pretty awesome.  They have a lot of movement just like in real life.  And the best part is yet to come.  I have a new LED fish light on order.  And the things it can do are just over the top.  It has all sorts of settings.  But that will be my next blog.  So stay tuned.  

Welcome Bob A. Fish To The Fish Tank

I was aiming to post this a little while back, but as you can see down my blog feed my Grandmother passed away.  So this post had to be put on hold for a while. 

A few weeks ago I dropped by Pet City to see about adding some more fish to my fish tank.  I had five angelfish already so I wasn't looking to add anymore.  I was checking the price on certain tetras or other fish that would get along with angelfish.

But that's when I saw him.  Bob.  Bob Angel Fish.  He was so tiny, but had some amazing markings.  So he had to come home with me.  This is Bob.

You can see just how tiny he is for an angelfish.  I was worried he might be picked at by the larger fish.  However, I have not had any trouble with these angelfish.  Honestly, I've had more trouble with mollies.  That's right.  Those "community fish," that are supposed to get along with each other?  I had one molly flat out kill another many years ago.  I have had no trouble at all with these angels.

I have to say the five angelfish I bought a couple of months back have been some of the smartest fish I've had.  They know who feeds them.  I can sit in my chair, and they will stare at me or at least come over to check on me.  Yes, I've had fish do that before, but none learned to do that within three days. 

Here's a picture of Bob with some of the older angels.

Here's one of the bigger angels in what is one of my better pictures.

It's funny in that, they were so tiny just a couple of months ago.  I remember commenting on how their bodies (not counting the fins) were no bigger than a quarter.  Now, they are much, much bigger.  Bob is no bigger than a black tetra at this moment.  But I think he will get some size on him in no time.  Much like his tank mates.

So maybe I will get a few more fish in the tank.  I do have the room.  I think some black neon tetras would get along well with everyone.  I've had great luck with them before.  But we'll see.  If I do, you can be sure that I will write a blog post about it. 

Restocking the Fish Tank: Angelfish Sunday

Today was the day I finally put some angelfish in the fish tank.  There is an independent pet store called Pet City that had the smaller marble angelfish in stock.  So a few were purchased, namely five of them.  Also purchased was some specialty food, aquarium salt, and a new Marineland jet sprayer.  Let's take a look at the pictures.

For clarity, the funny looking white things are the air bubbles shooting from the sprayer.  The angelfish are still schooling together.  Since they are in a new environment, they don't like separating that far from one another. 

Here's a short video clip that I took of the tank.

I'm glad I was able to get the angelfish while they were small.  That will give them plenty of time to grow.  Since they are young and small, they are getting along well with the danios.  Everyone is getting along nicely. 

The old Marineland jet sprayer finally bit the dust last week.  But honestly, it hadn't worked well in years.  I should have replaced it back then.  But the good news is I assembled it correctly, and it's working just fine in the fish tank.  It looks pretty, and I'm sure the fish are yelling, "BUBBLES!!!!"

I could put more fish in the tank, but I'm not sure what kind.  I think some glo-light tetras would get along well with everyone.  I could add some clown loaches since my last one passed away.  I'll get on the internet, and see what fish get along with angelfish.  I'll try to pick something that I haven't had before. 

Fish Post Friday: More Danios

In my last post I wrote about how I had bought a few Longfin Zebra Danios to add to my mostly empty tank.  Here's the original post:

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2016/09/long-finned-zebra-danios-and-mike.html

So today I went to a different pet shop and bought some "mixed" Danios.  Basically, there were three different types.  So I bought six total.  Two white ones, two regular zebra ones, and two that I could only describe as "speckled." 

This time I thought I would be smart.  Since they won't hold still I decided to take some pictures of them in the bag.  It didn't work out.  They are still just too fast for my camera.

So I decided I would let my camera work for me.  I took a short video of the Danios swimming around.  Take a peek.

Everyone seems happy, and they really fill the tank after it being empty.  I really like having them.  I'm not sure why I never had them before.  So, please look forward to more updates when I add some Angelfish in the tank.