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Re: KillieTalk Digest V3 #1370
In a message dated 7/10/2001 12:24:32 AM Central Daylight Time,
Owner-KillieTalk at AKA_Org writes:
Subject: Cured belly slider
I thought Id mention to the group about a remarkable little fish.
3 months ago I had a hatch from one of my Rivulus species. In that hatch I
had a belly slider. I did not discard it as it seemed to be able to get food
and grow, slower than the rest of the group, but slowly progressing.
A month ago I decided it was time to cull out the runts and malformed fish
from all of my fry tanks. In the fish area I had a bucket that had some pond
water in it. A few inches deep that had some damselfly nymphs and a few
caddis fly larvae, daphnia, rotifers and whatever pond life. I was planning
on throwing out the contents of the bucket later. I had placed the belly
slider in the bucket meaning to euthenise it after my fish room chores were
complete. Needless to say I got distracted and forgot about the belly
slider. I placed the bucket aside and left it on a shelf. Several weeks
later I decided it was time to empty the contents of the bucket as I had
been using it as a receptacle for chemical waste such as pH testing
solutions, it was getting foul. As I was pouring the bucket out I saw a
little fish swimming around in there...dumbfounded I had no clue as to where
that fish came from. I netted it out to find it was that belly slider. I
decided that since it had survived the neglect for a couple of weeks (more
like a month) and the accumulation of testing solutions I had been dumping
in there I might as well let it live out its natural life in one of my
tanks.
Another month had passed and it started to grow faster, catching up in size
to its siblings, it would make every effort it could muster to be normal
like the rest of the boys and girls. You would see it struggle to sswijm
about.
Today it swims around the tank easily, eating from the surface, swimming up
and down and all over town, being a normal teenaged Rivulus, chasing smaller
tank mates and eating too many worms. You can see a fully developed swim
bladder in a fish that once had none.
You could sense that this fish is joyful in its new ability to swim, just by
watching it you know there is a spirit of life there...
I'm keeping this one.
John
Thanks for a very pleasant story. It was an especially nice treat after the
garbage that has been floating around these letters lately. Enough of those
and more of these!