Pumpkin Wings

One of the Kuhlis died tonight. Onee of them was smaller and more colourful than the other so it was easy for us to tell that it was the same one that died now that I got worried about already in the bag on the way from the pet shop. It didn’t move much, but I poked it gently from outside the bag and it started swimming around more so we figured it was probably just stress. Now our main guess is that it was weak to begin with and being put into a new tank etc became too stressful for it. It’s so damn frustrating… From what Emil is telling me, the other kuhli is doing well but they are really pack fish and get very shy if there’s less than 4-5 of them. A couple is OK if you don’t mind them being a bit shy, but I really don’t want it to be alone. (Well there’ll be the crabs and yellow shrimps, but none of its kind). As the shop in Handen only had two we’re going to meet up in Norrtälje tomorrow to see if there’s any possibility the pet shop there could order a few for us. We could of course ask in Handen or even the guy we’ve bought all our other stuff from - actually we know he can order specific stuff if we ask him as we asked him a bit about blue tiger shrimps on our last visit, but Norrtälje is easier for us.

It’s so damn aggrivating, our fish keep dying and we haven’t done anything wrong at all… Still, we’re not giving up. The crabs are still doing well, nothing’s happened to the new shrimps (yet…), Bernard’s eggs might hatch, and at least one of the kuhlis is doing perfectly fine (which also indicates that it wasn’t anything we did that killed the toher one). Now we just need a few new kuhlis (if we’re ordering them anyway we’ll probably get 3-4 so they dare move around more) and set stuff up like planned. The Tales of the Fish Tank are to be continued.

They are alive. I am relieved. I absolutely love the crabs.

I went to Skebo after writing the last post here, and when me and Emil got back from the bus stop (he came to meet me like always) we discovered a dead fish in the tank, and also noticed that Bernard was barely moving. We immediately removed Bernard and put him in a jar, then removed the remaining three CRSs and four rasboras as well as the crabs and put them in another jar. We made a third jar for the assassin snails. The next day we went and bought a Petbox to make a temporary aquarium in case there was something bad in the water. We put everyone except Bernard and the snails in there and at first it seemed fine, but slowly they kept dying, one after another. As of writing this I don’t know if aything’s still alive. We went to Stockholm yesterday to talk to the dude we bought everything from (not because we suspect him of anything, but because he’s a real aquarium expert). Two of the crabs and all the snails were still alive, and we wanted to save them (especially since both crabs have eggs) as well as simply know what went wrong. (Emil’s on the bus back to Skebo atm, I assume he’ll tell me within two hours how the crabs are doing). Unfortunately, the seller couldn’t tell what was wrong either. We brought a water sample and he did the same test we had already done for nitrit, nitrat, pH and water hardness. He also got the same result: all values were fine. He ruled out copper and ammoniak, we haven’t put anything from outside in the tank, we haven’t overfed, the fish had no symptoms, visible or otherwise. Nothing. The temperature was appropriate. It’s all a complete mystery. He suspected poisoning, but then the thing is that the snails are usually the most sensitive and die first, but they’re the only species where all have survived. We are all completely stumped and clueless.

Not intending to let this stop our aquarium dreams me and Emil went home with new java moss, a new piece of wood for aquascaping, and two male and two female Yellow shrimps. We are going to clean the aquarium thoroughly, boil the sand, throw away the old plants and replace them with the new ones, let it grow and get pretty, and then introduce the new shrimps. We might have two crabs to put in there as well, and we removed Bernard’s eggs which might hatch as well and get us some new little CRSs. Today after going to my old school to hand back my books we went to Haninge Centrum to have lunch and browse some clothing stores, and of course we also visited the pet shop there. We came out from the shop with two Kuhli loaches which I fell for immediately and almost bought on impulse. (However we did make sure that they would fit in with the shrimps of course). For those who don’t know, they look like tiny little eels (they are, obviously, not eels but loaches though). Patterned in black and orange, almost striped. I’ll try to get pictures of them and the shrimps when I go to Skebo on Wednesday. That’s also when we’ll arrange the new version of the tank. I’m really sad about everything dying, and we figured we wouldn’t give any more names because Bernard’s death was seriously painful and that was probably partly because of the connection a name creates. However, I’m looking forward to taking care of the new Yellows and Kuhlis (and hopefully the old crabs) and I hope the same thing won’t happen again. As we don’t know what happened we can’t do anything to prevent it, but it must have been something really obscure.

That was a very long fish-related rant. I hope someone found it at least slightly interesting, it’s really becoming more and more of a hobby for me and Emil even if we’ve just started out a few months ago.

One of our crystal red shrimps died tonight. Emil noticed it wasn’t doing so well yesterday. We don’t know why, but since it was the smallest one it’s possible that it had problems with replacing its shell. I actually feel really sad about it. Never thought one could get so attached to those little things, and we’ve only had our tank for 2-3 months. This leaves us with three crabs, three assassin snails, five dwarf rasboras and four crystal reds. Yes, it’s a tiny tank. However, Bernard - the biggest crystal red and the only tank inhabitant with a name - is going to have babies soon. I’m looking forward to having a mob of mini-shrimps!

The tank:

Bernard and her eggs:

Emil has been working towards his license for a while. About a month ago his permit to take lessons expired, so he applied for a new one. It’s supposed to only take a week or so. Three weeks (and several canceled lessons) later his mum called the people who issue those permits to ask what was going on. Turns out because he’s diagnosed with Asperger’s he has to get his doctor to sign a paper for them to certify that he’s not dangerous and is capable of driving a car like any “normal” person. However, they apparently didn’t find it necessary to inform him about that. Also worth mentioning is that he’d been taking lessons, with a permit, before he got diagnosed without any problems.

Disregarding the fact that those people believe Asperger’s makes a person unable to drive a car, the most aggrivating thing about this is that they didn’t even bother informing him that he needed to get that damn paper. The saddest thing, though, is probably that I didn’t even raise an eyebrow when he told me about this yesterday, because I’m already used to society screwing over anyone with a mental “problem” - more so after getting my diagnosis. The more I think about this all the more pissed off I get, so I just had to vent now.

On Thursday I’m going to see a psychiatrist in Norrtälje because the ones in Stockholm suck and haven’t done crap for me the last years except feeding me pills. On July 1st I’m also going to the “Asperger Center” in Norrtälje as the one in Stockholm fails unmeasurably and haven’t done anything for me. All they do is go “what do you want us to do for you?”. I have no fucking clue about what they can do - they’re supposed to inform me! Emil has good experiences from the mental health care system in Norrtälje, so I’m hopeful.

On another medication related note, I got prescribed pills against my motion sickness a couple of days ago. Finally! I’ve had extreme motion sickness my whole life, living my childhood with promises about it disappearing as I got older. Well it didn’t, and nowadays the regular pills won’t work half the time. Interestingly Emil’s grandfather invented the pills I’ve got now. Gonna try them out when I go to Norrtälje.

Working a bit on the blog itself. Editing pages, putting together an “about me” etc. It’s not all up yet. I’m not too motivated to try to advertise the blog before it’s looking good and more complete. Hopefully it’ll all be better within a few weeks. Spending a lot of time at Emil’s place means less time for computer stuff, but I guess I might start updating the blog from his house as well. Possibly.

I’m gonna start working on an “about me” page soon as I’ve intended to do so for at least a year, and now I’m actually feeling pretty motivated. However I really don’t know what to write, I’m rather bad with presentations. What do you guys want to see on it? Also I know there’s barely anyone to reply to that question as barely anyone reads my blog at all. That’s probably at least partially because I never advertise it, but now I’d actually like to have some more readers, so I’ll ask this as well: What should I do to attract some more readers? Putting the link on my profile page at the communities I’m a member of is a given first step, but after that?

I’m home, I have a camera, Morgan turned out great and I’m generally satisfied. Now I only need to grind like hell for two weeks in MapleStory on my Aran - there’s an event ending soon, if I get her to lvl 70 before 16th I’ll get a really neat (in-game) ring. I also need to finish a lot of drawings I’ve inked but am too afraid of ruining if I colour them. Bah. Oh, the joy of random updates. Then again, aren’t they all?