A Rogue Badass Puffer Fish...
The other death that really devastated me in this
past couple of years was a 10 year old puffer fish that we had
that came from the Nile. A fahaka puffer. The cutest damned
face on any fish I've ever seen. We raised him from being a tiny sickly
baby about an inch long that I had to force feed brine shrimp, to a
14 inch long badass fish with huge teeth and a pissed- off countenance.
Actually, he was very sweet, but certain things would piss him off. I
bought an Indian print skirt, shades of red and blue. I wore it once.
I walked into the living room, he saw me, and spazzed. Went ballistic. Bashed
his mouth into the glass and cut his lip, it was bleeding! He was trying
to get at me, or something. I quickly went away and changed. I think we
experimented mildly with the skirt one more time, he started to get upset
again, and that was it. I gave the skirt away, even though it was a brand new skirt.
He had that scar on his lip for the rest of his life. Gave him a rogue badass
appearance, that was deserved. He used to joyfully kill everything put in his path.
We made sure to put things in his path. It was good for him to hunt and keep active.
When he was about 2 inches long and no longer sick, we decided to put him
in with other fish. We had a couple of different tanks going.
Now, we didn't really know what we had with our Ginky, we had books about
fish that we'd read, but we didn't have much info at the time about
Fahaka puffers.
So we put him in with our other fish. I think we had a couple of rainbow gouramis
and a red-tailed shark and a few neon fish. Those tiny fish that swim in schools and
have neon stripes.
When we came out the next day and saw the tank, we noticed that the red-tailed shark was gone, so was one of the gouramis. Both fish had been larger than Ginky, which was why we had thought they'd be ok. The theory that he wouldn't pick on things larger than himself.
We were wrong.
The shark and the gourami were missing, and there was a bloated, obviously happy puffer
looking at us. Upon closer inspection we saw that the surviving fish were traumatized
and shaken, and there was the red tail of the red-tail shark. Just the tail.
It's funny, I've heard people talk about how badass the Oscar fish are. Our fahaka
had 4 huge teeth made for tearing and dismembering things. And a bad attitude towards other fish. Deceptively fast and powerful.
An Oscar wouldn't even have a chance.
He wound up eating live fish every day, or jumbo tiger shrimp. THAT was expensive.
He ate 2-4 raw tiger shrimp every day.
Aw, I miss Ginky. He had a real personality. I fed him every day, so I was probably his
favorite person, if he had one. I was the only one really brave enough to put my hand
in the tank and leave it there ( sometimes things needing to be adjusted in the tank, etc). Actually, I had discovered that Ginky liked it when I stroked
his back. If he didn't want me to touch him, he'd merely move away. But like a dog, he would
lean his body in the direction of my fingers, he liked it! I didn't touch him too much, it wouldn't
have been good for him. But he seemed to like his back to be rubbed once in awhile.
He never tried to bite me.
His teeth had to be sharpened constantly, because they were continuously growing.
So we figured out smart solutions. We discovered that he really liked snails. A lot.
So we fed him snails.
The snail shells kept his teeth ground down to a normal length. But his teeth were still
scary looking.
He finally died of old age, we think. We managed to keep him alive for a long time,
10 years by intuitively figuring out what he liked. This stuff wasn't in any books.
For example,
There was this thing he would do, where he would start at one end of the tank, swim really fast,
and dive into the gravel. We couldn't believe it the first time we saw it.
He dove into the gravel and sat there buried with just his eyes showing. Gravel was on his
head and back. He was camouflaged. It was so cute.
I had changed the gravel from black gravel to natural colored
earth toned gravel. That was when he buried himself in the gravel. He obviously didn't
like the black gravel at all, for he had never done this before. This gravel must have been
reminiscent of the Nile gravel. That was an accident, discovering that he liked to camouflage
himself.
One morning last year he was discovered dead, he had died in the night. It seemed to be peaceful,
nothing appeared to be wrong with him. He was 10 years old, surely he was ancient for
a puffer fish. But my ex and I were devastated, even so.
RIP Ginky.
past couple of years was a 10 year old puffer fish that we had
that came from the Nile. A fahaka puffer. The cutest damned
face on any fish I've ever seen. We raised him from being a tiny sickly
baby about an inch long that I had to force feed brine shrimp, to a
14 inch long badass fish with huge teeth and a pissed- off countenance.
Actually, he was very sweet, but certain things would piss him off. I
bought an Indian print skirt, shades of red and blue. I wore it once.
I walked into the living room, he saw me, and spazzed. Went ballistic. Bashed
his mouth into the glass and cut his lip, it was bleeding! He was trying
to get at me, or something. I quickly went away and changed. I think we
experimented mildly with the skirt one more time, he started to get upset
again, and that was it. I gave the skirt away, even though it was a brand new skirt.
He had that scar on his lip for the rest of his life. Gave him a rogue badass
appearance, that was deserved. He used to joyfully kill everything put in his path.
We made sure to put things in his path. It was good for him to hunt and keep active.
When he was about 2 inches long and no longer sick, we decided to put him
in with other fish. We had a couple of different tanks going.
Now, we didn't really know what we had with our Ginky, we had books about
fish that we'd read, but we didn't have much info at the time about
Fahaka puffers.
So we put him in with our other fish. I think we had a couple of rainbow gouramis
and a red-tailed shark and a few neon fish. Those tiny fish that swim in schools and
have neon stripes.
When we came out the next day and saw the tank, we noticed that the red-tailed shark was gone, so was one of the gouramis. Both fish had been larger than Ginky, which was why we had thought they'd be ok. The theory that he wouldn't pick on things larger than himself.
We were wrong.
The shark and the gourami were missing, and there was a bloated, obviously happy puffer
looking at us. Upon closer inspection we saw that the surviving fish were traumatized
and shaken, and there was the red tail of the red-tail shark. Just the tail.
It's funny, I've heard people talk about how badass the Oscar fish are. Our fahaka
had 4 huge teeth made for tearing and dismembering things. And a bad attitude towards other fish. Deceptively fast and powerful.
An Oscar wouldn't even have a chance.
He wound up eating live fish every day, or jumbo tiger shrimp. THAT was expensive.
He ate 2-4 raw tiger shrimp every day.
Aw, I miss Ginky. He had a real personality. I fed him every day, so I was probably his
favorite person, if he had one. I was the only one really brave enough to put my hand
in the tank and leave it there ( sometimes things needing to be adjusted in the tank, etc). Actually, I had discovered that Ginky liked it when I stroked
his back. If he didn't want me to touch him, he'd merely move away. But like a dog, he would
lean his body in the direction of my fingers, he liked it! I didn't touch him too much, it wouldn't
have been good for him. But he seemed to like his back to be rubbed once in awhile.
He never tried to bite me.
His teeth had to be sharpened constantly, because they were continuously growing.
So we figured out smart solutions. We discovered that he really liked snails. A lot.
So we fed him snails.
The snail shells kept his teeth ground down to a normal length. But his teeth were still
scary looking.
He finally died of old age, we think. We managed to keep him alive for a long time,
10 years by intuitively figuring out what he liked. This stuff wasn't in any books.
For example,
There was this thing he would do, where he would start at one end of the tank, swim really fast,
and dive into the gravel. We couldn't believe it the first time we saw it.
He dove into the gravel and sat there buried with just his eyes showing. Gravel was on his
head and back. He was camouflaged. It was so cute.
I had changed the gravel from black gravel to natural colored
earth toned gravel. That was when he buried himself in the gravel. He obviously didn't
like the black gravel at all, for he had never done this before. This gravel must have been
reminiscent of the Nile gravel. That was an accident, discovering that he liked to camouflage
himself.
One morning last year he was discovered dead, he had died in the night. It seemed to be peaceful,
nothing appeared to be wrong with him. He was 10 years old, surely he was ancient for
a puffer fish. But my ex and I were devastated, even so.
RIP Ginky.
posted by Nabonidus at 8:31 AM
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