Babies in the house

I have a big fish tank which sits on my kitchen counter and I decided towards the end of last year that I needed some more fish as I was down to two neons and one of those big tank cleaning fish whose name I can never remember. So I popped into our local petshop and bought two Platies one orangey one and one yellowy one which turned out to be a pair. I only realised this when, while making coffee one morning I glanced into the tank and noticed some tiny new inhabitants looking out at me. I did a double take in surprise and then sprang into action as I knew that the bigger fish would soon be trying to eat them. I got a small bowl (since I can never find my fishnet when I need it) and after scooping and chasing for a while had caught them all and placed them in a large vase.

After a few days the water in the vase was getting smelly and I decided to visit the petshop again for a better method of separating the tiny fish. I purchased a little plastic box with tiny holes in the bottom of it which is placed in the main tank with the top of the box just above the surface of the water in the main tank. Then I separated out the slightly bigger baby fish from the really tiny ones and the bigger ones went straight into the big tank with the really tiny ones being placed into the box. I think I'm going to have a population explosion soon as I now have about six baby fish of various sizes of growth in the main tank and nine teeny tiny fish in the box. From having an empty tank Ive now got a fair fishy population from one set of parents. I'll have to start selling them back to the pet shop soon.

Anyway I decided to take some of the larger babies out of the box on Thursday but while I was pouring the water in the box into a container I was careless and two tiny babies fell into the main tank. Immediately, one of the neons was chasing after them wanting to eat them. I chased the neon away and luckily managed to catch the babies again as they come right up to the surface of the tank. I got a fright though. I also saw a tiny tiny baby which hasn't been in the box at all but it was too wily for me to catch. I have some floating bushy plants which the little fish love hiding in so I think these have helped the babies to hide away from the bigger fish when necessary.

I have started talking to the fish as well. I call to them: "Fish, fish, fish" They come over to the side of the tank that I'm on. I'm sure they recognise me.

Obviously not being goldfish, they have more than a three second memory. :)