I like journalling. I especially like it when it helps me to remember important things, or follows the progress of something I'm working on.
Plus, I'm a poet. We never can shut up, anyway.
I bought my deep red VT betta (Sid Fishus) from the typical can't-be-arsed pet shop, with no real clue of how to keep him. The ensuing panic, once I discovered everything I thought I knew was a load of old cobblers, has amounted to a crash course in betta-keeping.
Sid went from a gallon barrel-vase to a 2-and-a-bit gallon IQ3 cube, to a 3-and-half-ish gallon IQ3 cube (which is where he'll stay put for a while!) in a week and a half, poor little guy. I'm happy with his present tank, which has several species of low to mid-light plants and a nice mangrove root sculpture that doubles as hidey-place for Mr. Fishus.
During this week I discovered Sid has a parasite problem, which I'm working on fixing (though his poo seems to have normalised somewhat; still, I am keeping a eye on that and will buy the cure anyhow just in case). And then his fin tips grew fuzzy white balls, so he resembled some sort of miniature aquatic Santa's helper for a day or so - I still don't know exactly what that was, but it seems to be clearing up of its own accord. Again, keeping a close eye on it.
He has curling and sticking at the tips of his dorsal fin and tail, too -- it looks like somebody's tried to wring his fin out and quit halfway through. I'm assuming these are old problems as the rest of his fins seem healthy. I read that this is caused by bad water conditions, and sometimes by not having any room to swim properly. Maybe those problem bits will grow out, eventually.
He's also really small. I noticed this only by actually seeing some other bettas in person at the pet store (Sid was the only one in the store I bought him from). The others were much larger than him in length and body mass. So he's a squirt. That's okay.
Sid is really a happy guy now. He's a tuffypants, and has weathered all these massive lifestyle and environmental changes really well. We just did a 50% water change and now he's patrolling about, perhaps just to see whether I snuck any rival fish in while he wasn't looking.
Anyway, here's some pics of Sid looking a bit thin and pathetic, taken quite recently. I'm hoping over time that his general condition will pick up and he'll come to look as magnificent as some of the Veiltails in the picture thread here. And - if not? I'll just have to love him to bits anyway.
I haven't found a poem about bettas yet, but I'd like to share this fish poem by Elizabeth Bishop, which I've always loved:
The Fish
by Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
Plus, I'm a poet. We never can shut up, anyway.
I bought my deep red VT betta (Sid Fishus) from the typical can't-be-arsed pet shop, with no real clue of how to keep him. The ensuing panic, once I discovered everything I thought I knew was a load of old cobblers, has amounted to a crash course in betta-keeping.
Sid went from a gallon barrel-vase to a 2-and-a-bit gallon IQ3 cube, to a 3-and-half-ish gallon IQ3 cube (which is where he'll stay put for a while!) in a week and a half, poor little guy. I'm happy with his present tank, which has several species of low to mid-light plants and a nice mangrove root sculpture that doubles as hidey-place for Mr. Fishus.
During this week I discovered Sid has a parasite problem, which I'm working on fixing (though his poo seems to have normalised somewhat; still, I am keeping a eye on that and will buy the cure anyhow just in case). And then his fin tips grew fuzzy white balls, so he resembled some sort of miniature aquatic Santa's helper for a day or so - I still don't know exactly what that was, but it seems to be clearing up of its own accord. Again, keeping a close eye on it.
He has curling and sticking at the tips of his dorsal fin and tail, too -- it looks like somebody's tried to wring his fin out and quit halfway through. I'm assuming these are old problems as the rest of his fins seem healthy. I read that this is caused by bad water conditions, and sometimes by not having any room to swim properly. Maybe those problem bits will grow out, eventually.
He's also really small. I noticed this only by actually seeing some other bettas in person at the pet store (Sid was the only one in the store I bought him from). The others were much larger than him in length and body mass. So he's a squirt. That's okay.
Sid is really a happy guy now. He's a tuffypants, and has weathered all these massive lifestyle and environmental changes really well. We just did a 50% water change and now he's patrolling about, perhaps just to see whether I snuck any rival fish in while he wasn't looking.
Anyway, here's some pics of Sid looking a bit thin and pathetic, taken quite recently. I'm hoping over time that his general condition will pick up and he'll come to look as magnificent as some of the Veiltails in the picture thread here. And - if not? I'll just have to love him to bits anyway.
I haven't found a poem about bettas yet, but I'd like to share this fish poem by Elizabeth Bishop, which I've always loved:
The Fish
by Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.