Thursday, January 26, 2006

Fried fish

See the fish pic in my sidebar? That's an African Cichlid. Our 45 gallon tank has ten of them, all different sizes and color variations. Bizarro Dad is very proud of this tank, with it's nice pile of giant rocks (nicely provided to us by the Atlantic Ocean) and all the fishy colors and the bubble curtains and the beautiful wooden stand.

So it was cause for great alarm when something in the tank started making a loud popping sound.

I noticed it earlier in the day, when he was off at school. He thought it was odd when I told him but didn't seem worried. Then he heard it himself.

"What was that? Was that what you heard?!" Pause. Glance at the tank. "Oh. Okay. They're fine."

I finally go and inspect the tank. "Honey, the tank temperature is dropping."

"What?!"

Further inspection. "Honey, is there supposed to be water inside the tank heater tube?"

"What? No!"

That does it. He's up off his computer chair now.

"Move aside, Sleepless Mama. Let me stand there so I can deal with this."

I move aside and try not to snicker.

It turns out the heater had some kind of short that broke the glass, let some water in, and then...did some other stuff. I don't know. I'm not the electrician in the family. Basically, Bizarro Dad is just glad that all his fish weren't electrocuted, nor was our BABY when she stuck her hand in the tank water while feeding said fish.

Yep. That's my hubby. I do love him so.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh yes. I particularly enjoyed the line "He's up off his computer chair now."

I've got a fish story that you might enjoy:

My neighbors across the street had a freshwater tank with about 30 fish in it. One day, the wife takes all of the plastic plants out of the aquarium and washes them off with bleach to disinfect them. Then puts them back into the tank.

Apparently, she hadn't rinsed the plants adequately, and so by the time I dropped by a few hours later, only 6 of the fish were still alive, some were spinning around in circles, while others were swimming along into the rocks and things. They all bit the bullet. Good thing they were the really cheap fish that you can get from Wal-Mart!

Sleepless Mama said...

I just told Bizarro Dad about your neighbor's tank. You should have SEEN the look of pure horror when I said the word "bleach." His eyes were the size of silver dollars, and his jaw dropped. It was freakin' priceless. You wouldn't know it from the post I wrote, but he really is devoted to his fish tank. He immediately started spouting off stuff about necessary algae and why the hell didn't the lady just use water and she must not have been cleaning her tank properly to begin with if her plastic plants were that dirty. I agree with him, of course, but I find it funny that his reaction bordered on taking it personally. Well, it does suck when an animal dies just because it's human did something stupid.