R.I.P. Snowflake

[Cue music: "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen]

So it turns out that there really aren't any freshwater eels. Ralph read up on them when we got the snowflake eel, and he found out that some eels can survive for a little while in fresh water, but their quality of life is not very good. Of course the people at the pet store didn't tell us that; basically they were just trying to make a buck. Snowflake died a couple of days ago.

The boys and I dissected him/her to see what all was inside. I tried using Exact-o blades, but I think they were pretty dull, as it was really hard to slice through the skin. We did manage to find the internal organs, and saw the underside of the spine. After poking one of its eyes out and sticking their fingers in its mouth to feel the rows of sharp little teeth, the boys had had enough and we wrapped poor Snowflake up and disposed of him.

Luckily, the bichir is still kickin', which reminds me that we have to buy some more feeder fish for him on the way home today. We tried frozen blood worms, but the other fish ate them before they could sink to the bottom for the bichir. We also tried ghost shrimp, which are supposed to help clean the tank as well as be bichir food:

They really are transparent; really cool to look at!

Unfortunately, the parrot fish thought these were a great treat, and these got eaten up right away. So it's back to fatheads for feeders.

We did add a couple of new residents to the tank after the eel and bichir. We had two angel fish, a yellow-and-black one and a Raider-colored one:




The Raider mascot didn't make it unfortunately. The other one looks fine, for now...

We also got a freshwater dwarf puffer fish that has beautiful coloring:




The boys keep trying to scare him to get him to puff up. Unfortunately, he's not looking too good, either. (Can you sense a pattern here? I've never had good luck with fish.) Ralph says he's never had this bad of luck with fish, but he also inspects his fish very carefully when he gets them, whereas I naively trust the sales people.

Luckily, the dojo is doing fine. He's a bottom dweller as well, and is helping clean the tank. Not too pretty though:


Also, the pearl gourami we got is doing well too. He stays up at the top and looks like he's using those tentacle things as stilts.



I think I'll leave the fish purchasing to Ralph from now on, even if that means we do have ugly fish. Better ugly than dead, I always say...