Fuddland

Just over two months ago I mentioned that one of the fish we maintain for our landlady had lost the ability to swim the right way up. He did get better for a while, but these days is pretty much exclusively upside down at the top of the tank. He does right himself when I drop food in, but it seems like a terrible effort for him, and I’m worried his days are coming to an end. I came in the room earlier on today and noticed the three other fish were just hanging there, staring at their upside-down chum. Whether they were staring mockingly or sympathetically, I couldn’t tell—their expressions are quite hard to read.

On the other side of the tank, minding his own business, was George. I’ve not mentioned George before; aside from being the only creature in that tank to have a name, he’s also not a goldfish.

George is a common pleco, also known as a plec—they’re a type of catfish. [I was not involved in the naming process—had I been, I would have obviously pushed for the name Gregory Plec.] He’s primarily nocturnal, so we don’t see much of him, although I did once manage to take an unflattering picture of his underside. George’s function within the tank is to eat all the algae. Sadly he doesn’t seem to understand this, or perhaps needs some appetite stimulants because we regularly need to clean the algae from the sides of the tank; having some aglae is good, having a lot is bad.

Plecs can apparently live for ten to twenty years and grow up to eighteen inches in length, but George is about three years old and he’s barely two inches long. I don’t know if, as in the case of goldfish, plecs grow to suit the size of the tank they live in. In the course of trying to find more on this, I discovered the reason goldfish should always be kept in small enclosures:

In large ponds a Goldfish may grow up to two feet.

Urgh, who wants to see freakish goldfish with two feet?

#1

Daisy | 2004 / 02 / 22 – 19:13

Time to get the fish whisperer in I think…

#2

Damian | 2004 / 02 / 23 – 13:49

In my experience I would say the upside down fish is close to death and the other three are waiting to eat it.

What do fish feet look like anyway, are they webbed are the scaled, more resaerch needed I think

#3

Cintra | 2004 / 04 / 05 – 21:54

Delightful!

#4

john | 2004 / 04 / 06 – 07:34

people who don`t stop their goldfish from growing feet in their garden ponds will soon have, in a few million years or so, dinosaurs in their gardens which will wreak havoc with the landscaping, to say the least.

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