Being Pet Starved

I was so pet starved! As in I crave for pets and I'm not getting any. Ever since my father got ill, I've been having no pets at all. Then when I moved to my brother's house, there's absolutely no chance of me having furries. No dogs, no cats, no hamsters... I felt like I've been caged for months without food but I'm still surviving (okay, that don't make sense)! So I did the unthinkable. I bought fishes.

AUSMAT (Australian Matriculation) was having a charity drive on Friday. They had a fishing booth whereby you pay RM1 and for 15 seconds, you get to fish your own fish, as many as you can get, using tissue paper wrapped around hard wire instead of a real net. It was so exiciting to see the little things swimming around and my head spun with the prospect of having a pet. Even if it was just a fish. Filled with anticipation and excitement, with my eyes wide open and a stupid grin plastered on my face, I dragged Catherine to accompany me to fish. I gave RM1 to the guy behind the booth and happily dipped my handmade fishing net into the tank when the time started.

I didn't get any fish at all. Which was disappointing. I was just aiming a single fish because it was the only attractive one in that tank. What got me more disappointed was when the guy told me he gave me extra time to fish and he stopped the time when I almost got the fish. Then it jumped out of the net! Frustrating! So I went back to my group of friends wailing that I want a fish and Izzat was like, "Aiya, I go pay and you get one la!". So I went with Izzat to the booth and suddenly Aliza popped out and said she wanted to play too. So I gave her my RM1. I tried my best and finally got the fish I wanted! Yay! I had extra time too cause the guy behind the booth was being kind. Aliza caught 3 fishes but I was just happy with my 1.


Introducing my guppy fish named Fish!

If you look beside Fish, there's Chloe, Zaleha's fish. And to Zaleha, that fish is a male. I think you'd better rename it ;). Aliza gave me the other 3 fishes too but she wanted to carry them around 'til I go back home. So I only carried Fish, the fish I caught myself, around to my Biology and IDC class.

So I met Eng Yew when my break was almost over and asked him to take home one of the fishes. He said no. Pfft! But he followed me around with my mom after school to buy the stuff required for my fishes. My mom bought me a tank (I thought I had one at home but she gave the old one away), fish food and 4 more other guppies! Then Eng Yew helped me fix it up.


Cleaning the small tank.

Just a simple filter.

Getting some water in

Fishies!!!

Hm, so anyway, here comes the sad part. Fish died and the following day and the next day and the next, the fishes caught from the charity drive all died. So I was left with four very stressed fishes (yes, fishes do get stressed) from the local aquarium shop and one had its tail ripped to shreds because the other three kept bullying him. I lost that one this afternoon while I was in school.

I, unfortunately, learnt the hard way that it's not the fishes that I need to pay attention to, rather the water condition. I learnt that the tank was overcrowded with eight fishes. I learnt that new tanks are not really good for the fishes. I learnt that fishes need specific water conditions to be happy in and that my tank is very, very small, which makes it harder to maintain than a bigger tank because if ammonia builds up, the fishes get poisoned faster in a small tank than a big one. I learnt a lot about water. It was a lot to digest in a few days.

So now I know and now have three happy fishes swimming around the small tank. They seem to be supremely big eaters- like me. Haha!