Urban Piranhas

I have fish as pets. I would love to have a dog or cat as well, however I just wouldn’t have time to take care of them properly. Personally I don’t believe that is fair on the animals. Taking care of myself is a big enough chore. The beauty of fish as pets is that they require very little of your time. Can’t feed them for a couple of days ? No problem. They will still be alive and healthy when you get back to them. People always under estimate how hardy fish really are. They are like underwater cockroaches. As long as you have a few basics right they will live their happy aquatic cockroach existance for many years.

Now I better explain that mine is not your average small household tank, neither are the fish. The tank is a decent size. 6 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot. The inhabitants are not little guppies either. The biggest is about the length of my forearm.

Occasionally you do have to clean their home. These aqua roaches are not domesticated. Like all animals, fish have their own personalities. One of mine has come to the conclusion that trying to pull out my arm hairs when I am cleaning his domicile is a really fun game. It is very disconcerting when you don’t see him coming. Cleaning the tank today the little bugger got me multiple times. The problem is that every time I jump. I just can’t help it. As far as I am concerned this is a natural reaction. It has been passed down from our forefathers, way back from when they had to dodge giant piranhas and other evil species that could strip the flesh from your bones before you could say ugg.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Remember this from school science class ? In this case that means copious amounts of water fly out of the tank at high velocity every time I involuntry jump and jerk my arm. The area around my tank soon takes on the look of a water amusement park. There is water running down the walls and dripping from the ceiling. For a little while there was even a mini water fall running over the edge of the step. I kept expecting Kevin Costner, complete with a set of gills, to come sailing in on a makeshift boat.

At least it is done now. The beauty of my set up is that I don’t have to worry about it for another three months or so. By that time I will have forgotten just how bad it is. Now I better go remove the lake from the middle of my house before a family of ducks decide to move in.